Hi guys,
I bought myself a new rig after 5 years of sticking with my old pc. At the end of the day I want STABILITY and no hassle. Yes, i want the thing to be fast, but fast at standard, stable settings.
Upon reading reviews, it seemed like the Asus range of x38 and x48 boards were the most stable, whether OCing or not. THerefore I went and bought the following:
Maximus Formula
4gb Crucial Ballistix 4-4-4-12 PC6400
BFG 8800 GTS 512 OC
WolfDale 8400
Corsair 620W PSU
Hitatchi 1TB HDD (forget the name, but its the 32mb cache one).
I am running windows XP SP 32bit with the PAE enabled (so have 3.5gb avail physical mem), bios revision 907, and latest drivers all round. All settings are default or auto, which means no o/cing at all. I dont use a 64bit OS as at 4gb of mem, the extra address space required by 64bit addressing basically wipes out the fact I can use the full 4gb.
The problem im having it is the system just feels a bit flaky when i first built it. It's hard to explain, but compared to my aging abit IC7-G + p4 3ghz, it just felt more unstable. For example, certain actions would be consistently, guaranteed slow on my old pc. On this pc, sometimes they would be like lightning, sometimes quick, then slow, then quick. Simple things like opening a large file, or FPS in games. A good example is World of Warcraft. Generally silky smooth, sometimes slightly jittery, even in the same area. Not a huge issue, granted, but i just splashed out on near top of the range kit, and i dont expect this randomness!
I thought I was just being pedantic and ignored it, but after a few days of using the pc on and off (not leaving it running 24/7 either), I got a few lockups and reboots. I decided to investigate further and found the NB soars to a whopping 53 deg C after playing games for a few hrs. Now this strikes me as ridiculous. I know for most of you guys its fun to just prise off the heatsink and fit water cooling or an active fan, but really, this is beyond a joke for me. I am a software engineer by profession and qualification, and I spend all week messing around with server clusters, threads, pointers etc. At the weekend I just want to relax with a stable system! Asus should not be selling a product that is defective out of the box and requires user modifications to make it work!
I generally leave all BIOS settings as default, not because I dont understand what they do, but because I want stability. However, i did try dropping the NB Voltage to 1.25v as the default appears to be 1.35v (rather high). This did make the temperate rise more slowly, but it seemed that once the GPU hit around 58 deg C, I would get serious artifacts in game and guaranteed lockups everytime. Therefore I changed it back to default and that issue has gone. It does strike me as odd though that the default NB voltage is so high (is this high?).
However, something tells me that it might not be the NB, but the gfx card itself, or a combination of the two. I notice "inconsistencies" in some games such as a texture being seen through a wall at a distance occasionaly. Again, i wouldnt call this an artifact, it's just an engine glitch (probably), but it makes me dubious as to whether it really is JUST the hot NB that is the problem.
I have tried tweaking things like the spread spectrum, and even lowering the GPU mem and core clocks beyond normal. This has made no noticeable difference - although the system hasnt crashed again yet, it still feels randomly flaky...sometimes smooth, sometimes skipping a few frames. THis means I am constantly on edge, just waiting for the thing to lockup again.
3DMark and SUperPI go through on multiple runs no problem, and it generally appears rock solid from a synthetic point of view.
Another problem is the sound. I am using the FX-II. It sometimes repeats for a split second when frames do drop. Also, when I plugged in my headphones to the green socket, it asked me what I plugged in, whereupon I selected "front headphones". It then told me this was the incorrect socket and showed me a diagram, telling me to plug it into the green socket...which is where they are plugged in! I got around this issue by telling the damn thing im using "rear headphones". This again isnt a big issue, but its just another problem I can't be bother with fixing.
The worst thing is, even other vendor's offerings use damn heatpipes too, so if I get an Abit mobo (my fav manufacturer generally), ill have the same temperate problems!
Too me it feels like too much is crammed onto this mobo for it to ever be stable: HD audio, 2x pci e slots, 6 sata slots, 2x lan slots, the crappy JMicron controller which i am also dubious about.....I wouldnt mind sticking a NB fan on if the mobo came with an optional one, but the fan it does come with is for a passive CPU cooler....There doesnt appear to be any decent way to mount a fan except to buy the Revoltec 50mm and some bolts, but im struggling to see where I can get these in the UK!
I guess what im asking is:
- Is this too hot a NB temp? (I cant find a whitepaper on the default voltages and temps, just mobo reviews which arent detailed enough)
- Are their known "bad batches" of the BFG GTS 8800 O/C or Maximus Formula
- Could it be a ram issue? Incompatibility or worse
- Any way I can establish whether it is the NB or the GPU? I have tried using a hairdryer (for a VERY short period of time) to increase the GPU temp to 70deg and then after I let that cool for an hour with the system off, I did the same to the NB. I was trying to establish if heat on either was the cause of the problem, but I (unfortunately?) noticed no discernable difference.
Sorry to vent in such a stream of consciouness way, but I just expected more from the system than high benchmark scores.
Any advice/help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
I bought myself a new rig after 5 years of sticking with my old pc. At the end of the day I want STABILITY and no hassle. Yes, i want the thing to be fast, but fast at standard, stable settings.
Upon reading reviews, it seemed like the Asus range of x38 and x48 boards were the most stable, whether OCing or not. THerefore I went and bought the following:
Maximus Formula
4gb Crucial Ballistix 4-4-4-12 PC6400
BFG 8800 GTS 512 OC
WolfDale 8400
Corsair 620W PSU
Hitatchi 1TB HDD (forget the name, but its the 32mb cache one).
I am running windows XP SP 32bit with the PAE enabled (so have 3.5gb avail physical mem), bios revision 907, and latest drivers all round. All settings are default or auto, which means no o/cing at all. I dont use a 64bit OS as at 4gb of mem, the extra address space required by 64bit addressing basically wipes out the fact I can use the full 4gb.
The problem im having it is the system just feels a bit flaky when i first built it. It's hard to explain, but compared to my aging abit IC7-G + p4 3ghz, it just felt more unstable. For example, certain actions would be consistently, guaranteed slow on my old pc. On this pc, sometimes they would be like lightning, sometimes quick, then slow, then quick. Simple things like opening a large file, or FPS in games. A good example is World of Warcraft. Generally silky smooth, sometimes slightly jittery, even in the same area. Not a huge issue, granted, but i just splashed out on near top of the range kit, and i dont expect this randomness!
I thought I was just being pedantic and ignored it, but after a few days of using the pc on and off (not leaving it running 24/7 either), I got a few lockups and reboots. I decided to investigate further and found the NB soars to a whopping 53 deg C after playing games for a few hrs. Now this strikes me as ridiculous. I know for most of you guys its fun to just prise off the heatsink and fit water cooling or an active fan, but really, this is beyond a joke for me. I am a software engineer by profession and qualification, and I spend all week messing around with server clusters, threads, pointers etc. At the weekend I just want to relax with a stable system! Asus should not be selling a product that is defective out of the box and requires user modifications to make it work!
I generally leave all BIOS settings as default, not because I dont understand what they do, but because I want stability. However, i did try dropping the NB Voltage to 1.25v as the default appears to be 1.35v (rather high). This did make the temperate rise more slowly, but it seemed that once the GPU hit around 58 deg C, I would get serious artifacts in game and guaranteed lockups everytime. Therefore I changed it back to default and that issue has gone. It does strike me as odd though that the default NB voltage is so high (is this high?).
However, something tells me that it might not be the NB, but the gfx card itself, or a combination of the two. I notice "inconsistencies" in some games such as a texture being seen through a wall at a distance occasionaly. Again, i wouldnt call this an artifact, it's just an engine glitch (probably), but it makes me dubious as to whether it really is JUST the hot NB that is the problem.
I have tried tweaking things like the spread spectrum, and even lowering the GPU mem and core clocks beyond normal. This has made no noticeable difference - although the system hasnt crashed again yet, it still feels randomly flaky...sometimes smooth, sometimes skipping a few frames. THis means I am constantly on edge, just waiting for the thing to lockup again.
3DMark and SUperPI go through on multiple runs no problem, and it generally appears rock solid from a synthetic point of view.
Another problem is the sound. I am using the FX-II. It sometimes repeats for a split second when frames do drop. Also, when I plugged in my headphones to the green socket, it asked me what I plugged in, whereupon I selected "front headphones". It then told me this was the incorrect socket and showed me a diagram, telling me to plug it into the green socket...which is where they are plugged in! I got around this issue by telling the damn thing im using "rear headphones". This again isnt a big issue, but its just another problem I can't be bother with fixing.
The worst thing is, even other vendor's offerings use damn heatpipes too, so if I get an Abit mobo (my fav manufacturer generally), ill have the same temperate problems!
Too me it feels like too much is crammed onto this mobo for it to ever be stable: HD audio, 2x pci e slots, 6 sata slots, 2x lan slots, the crappy JMicron controller which i am also dubious about.....I wouldnt mind sticking a NB fan on if the mobo came with an optional one, but the fan it does come with is for a passive CPU cooler....There doesnt appear to be any decent way to mount a fan except to buy the Revoltec 50mm and some bolts, but im struggling to see where I can get these in the UK!
I guess what im asking is:
- Is this too hot a NB temp? (I cant find a whitepaper on the default voltages and temps, just mobo reviews which arent detailed enough)
- Are their known "bad batches" of the BFG GTS 8800 O/C or Maximus Formula
- Could it be a ram issue? Incompatibility or worse
- Any way I can establish whether it is the NB or the GPU? I have tried using a hairdryer (for a VERY short period of time) to increase the GPU temp to 70deg and then after I let that cool for an hour with the system off, I did the same to the NB. I was trying to establish if heat on either was the cause of the problem, but I (unfortunately?) noticed no discernable difference.
Sorry to vent in such a stream of consciouness way, but I just expected more from the system than high benchmark scores.
Any advice/help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
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