Help with New Build

Knight2000

Knight2000

Knight2000

Associate
Joined
30 Aug 2008
Posts
43
Hi
I went for the Striker 11 motherboard instead of the (Asus Rampage) and the 280bfg, i also got 8gig of the dominator ram, its been a while since i have built a new one, everything seems Huge now days lol.

This is my spec
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320AS)
Pioneer DVR-215DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM 9
Corsair TX 750W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant PSU £0.00 1 £69.99
BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Tuniq Tower 120-LFB CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) 99
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x2GB) Supplied with Airflow Fan (TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.83GHz 12MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail
Asus Striker II Formula nForce 780i (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Antec Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £0.00 1 £89.99
Samsung SM-T200 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Rose Red
Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition SP2c - OEM (ZAT-00149)
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit
and Aego M 2.1 speakers

I could not believe the size of the Tuniq Tower, sorry back to the Question
when i first boot up i will have to go into the Bios and change from 800 default to 1066, do i have to change any other settings as i am running 4 sticks, as i have read in other posts about changeing nb voltages etc, also the fan unit above the memory although it clips on to the memory hinges its not exactly tight would it be worth securing with a cable tie ?
Sorry for the long post, and thanks for all your help
All the best
John
 
Really you would be best to notch up the northbridge to componsate for the 4 stick of ram.
The RAM cooler apparently abit of a bugger to fit but heard that that is doesnt wobble or move that much once fitted correctly, so i would take it off and see if you can get it to fit better on.
And dont know how raid works but i think that you supposed to load the raid drivers at the beginning of the installation of windows, but i wouldnt take that for sure. There is plenty of guides on google for setting up RAID.

~Slash
 
Thanks Slash
I have got xp pro 64 running on one drive going to let this run for a week or so getting all the updates etc before loading vista ultimate 64, had to take out the other 4 gig as would not run, so i will give it a bit more time before i up the voltages etc, thanks for your help
John
 
Thanks Con,its looking nice, how much should i take the nb voltage up by as i see in some threads they quote 0.1 that does not seem a lot?
Kind Regards
John
 
update

update
my nb was at 1.40 so i upped it to 1.50, that would not work with 4 sticks, so i put in 3 sticks and that seems ok although every now and then acording to pc probe it jumps up a bit ??,
do you think i should take the nb up more if so how much would be safe?
thanks guys
John
 
As regards RAID, I'm assuming that you have two Seagate drives and the motherboard supports RAID rather than using a separate hardware RAID card?

If booting from a RAID device, it has to be hardware. Software is fine for an array that Windows uses once loaded but not before.

As regards Voltage, the best advice you'll get is to keep nudging it up till it's stable. Clearly if you've taken it up a fair way and it's still not stable or booting then it may be either a problem with the hardware (try varying the sticks used) ir simply insurmountable. If you do get it stable at a higher voltage, do you have a temp sensor for your RAM? If so, keep an eye on it - do not be afraid of killing the system without shutting down properly if it's a rapid rise. Better a reinstall than buying new sticks
 
update2

Hi Nef
I went on the corsar site, and they said that it stead of running the ram at 1066 They are 8500 which it is, i dropped it down to 800, and cpuid now says they are 6400, at 400Mhz ?, But by doing this and keeping the nb at 1.50 i am now running with 4 x 2 gig sticks, :) i am not sure if it will be any better running 8 gig at 6400, or to run 4 gig at 8500 ? what do you think ?
i will let it run and keep and eye on it .
Thanks for your help
John
 
update 2 +

Hi Nef
forgot to mention i will leave the raid out i think , at the moment i have 2 seagate drives, but its a bit strange aswhen i enter the bios i have 1 drive on Sata 1 and the other on Sata2 the hard drive on Sata 1 does not always show up in the bios , i checked the lead seemed ok , any idea?
I will running a dual boot with xp pro 64 and vista ultimate 64
Thanks again for your time
regards
John
 
Depends on what you're using your rig for as to the best way to configure the memory. Sometimes more memory is a BAD idea; the more memory a system has the longer the memory address terms that are generated meaning more CPU work. For some CPU intensive applications that I run (sometimes the calcs last for over a week) that don't really involve RAM I remove as much RAM as possible - people thought I was nuts but we checked the times and in some cases it was significantly faster. For you, I'm guessing you mostly game?

The advantage of more RAM in games is usually the reduction in the use of page file, so more RAM, even 'slow' RAM especially if you turn off the page file can be huge but, if the game required reasonable amounts of fast RAM it will slow it down. Basically it's a case of bottlenecks and, annoyingly, that will vary from game to game and program to program.

Since you've gone for a pricey rig why not open her out and see what she will do? How hot is the Nbridge running? If she's still reasonably cool, I think you should be able to take it higher than 1.5 - I've not done it with that motherboard, but I've seen people running constantly with 1.9. Just make sure you do things in small increments and change just one thing at a time and make sure you run it for a little while checking temperature and stability. Not all pieces of hardware leaving the same factory are the same, two identical mobos can behave very differently so there is a certain amount of trial and error. If you go slowly and sensibly, you're highly unlikely to damage anything and at worst it is under warranty.
 
Hi Nef
Thanks for your help i think i will keep it at 8 gig and monitor it, then push up the cpu then readjust the fsb so i can take the memory bandwith up , Will have to remember to walk before i Run :)
Again Thanks
Regards
John
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom