My New PC... about to hit CHECKOUT.

turboduck · 24 Mar 2009 at 11:04

dlknight said:
I take it your running Windows XP? Vista is better optimized for SSD drives there is quite a lot of information in the OCZ forum that would apply to most SSD drives - http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=186

I would check the stickies at the top of the forum, there will be quite a few tweaks you will need to do e.g. disabling paging file or running it on a normal drive.

Thanks a lot mate, im currently running vista 64 bit, having a read through these posts now, they seem to agree that 64 is the ideal stripe size for raid 0 also which is what i currently have it set at, im starting to wonder if it may be something else causing my system to run super slow... its driving me nuts

turboduck · 24 Mar 2009 at 12:08

thevet said:
the 3rd gpu...how did you fit that without it conflicting with the usb and hardrive front panel light ports on the motherboard?I could not fit a third card because of this as i couldnt plugin the wire on the usb socket.....nice pc by the way

oh yeah yeah card in the middle will not get that hot...i have the same setup in sli without the third card

it was a bit of a squeeze, the usb ports fit in ok but were just a bit squashed under the card, the lights/power/reset buttons etc just had to be installed without using the big white adaptor thing they supply with the motherboard, im not sure what the point in that is anyway... but yeah without it you can fit in a 3rd card no problem

turboduck · 24 Mar 2009 at 15:06

ok... i have re set up raid 0 with 128 stripe size, all seems to be ok now, will post results with overclocking etc as soon as i can

turboduck · 24 Mar 2009 at 16:00

fro5tie said:
looks nice mate, very jealous here! ignore all the people criticizing, like you said your getting years of fun out of it. the enjoyment/knowledge learnt from building it, overclocking it etc etc, if i had the cash spare id do the same!

have u got GTA IV? bench from that?

thanks so much for your support dude, yeah will be getting GTA4, GRID, Crysis , L4D, Farcry 2 and a few others as soon as i sort my hard drives out, will be posting back with the benchmark results as soon as i can, have set up a RMA for my SSD's so looking to take them back tomorrow along with the case that was too small so should have something by tomorrow night for ya.

turboduck · 24 Mar 2009 at 22:15

10 cm from the bottom of the mobo to the bottom of the case and 2.5 cm overhang on the third card... hope this helps dude

turboduck · 25 Mar 2009 at 13:46

Ok just at OCUK now returning my case and crucial SSD's bought 2 x OCZ 30 GB vertex to replace while the crucials go in for testing in hope of a refund.

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 10:28

OMG the vertex series are sooooooo much better than the crucials, flashed both of the 30gb drives and they run like a dream in raid 0. No issues so far, will post benchmark of the speed as soon as all my drivers are installed

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 13:26

ok here we go... first one is of my 10,000 RPM WD Raptor. Second is my OCZ Vertex 30gigs in raid 0

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 14:10

BubbySoup said:
Very nice results

How have you got them partitioned and did you just install and go or did you follow any of the OCZ setup threads over on their forums?

I followed all the guide over at the OCZ forums... and have it partitioned as 1 drive of 60gb for my OS and most used apps

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 14:15

Im now having issues enabling TRI SLI though... all graphics cards are installed with the latest drivers and are there in device manager but... GPU-Z show this...

Looks like its only running 2 GPU's...

Any ideas ?

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 14:32

Mr Kingston said:
wow thats an impressive build duck, hope your having fun gaming

i would be if i could get the 3rd card to run lol

its driving me mad i had it in TRI SLI like yesterday but since the format and install of new HDD's it only wants to run normal SLI eventhough there are quite clearly 3 cards installed.

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 14:52

haha thanks guys, although some advice may be just as good

Im going to try uninstalling the drivers and re installing them again i suppose, cant think what else it could be

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 15:20

ok that didnt work either... this is getting ridiculous, i think i might just send the 285's back and get 2x 295's

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 15:30

original.wood said:
awesome thread, loving the build.

i just keep looking at the size of the MBoard which is huge and then in comparison to that Lian Li case, it wouldnt even fit on my desk!

can i ask you, if you was to do this build again what would you do differently and do you have any regrets in your choice of components?

thanks mate, if i was to do it again, all i can say is do not go near the crucial SSD's and make sure you get a big enough case lol, i wouldn't change from the 285s as TRI SLI currently out performs Quad SLI (2 x 295's) in most benchmarks, however i would probably of got watercooling

although i can still do that even now, will be hard to squeeze watercooling in for all 3 GPU's though

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 15:30

N00bie said:
u have used the TRI SLI Bridge right :O

yeah lol i think its just the drivers, trying another version now...

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 15:39

matthewhotdude said:
Ouch sending one back after all the trouble with the case

exactly, i have sent back/changed enough crap already lol, its really weird though as i had it running all 3 cards in TRI SLI yesterday, all i have done since then is install the new OCZ SSD's and install vista 64 bit

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 15:46

N00bie said:
Nothings come out of place or that?

nope nothing, it knows that there is 3 GPU's installed...

and i can enable SLI.. but not "TRI SLI"

but then all i get is 2 GPU's ... see GPU-Z below -

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:38

N00bie said:
Problem Solved!

Thanks for the input and suggestions. As I mentioned in my first post, Vista 64 would not recognize that a third GPU was in the system. No matter how many times I unistalled cards and drivers, Vista would not recognize the third card which would prevent the installation of drivers for the third card. I had confirmed that each card individually functioned and that I had the latest drivers for GPUs and MB. I found an almost obscure post on on the NVidia forums with an installation method that worked for me. Here is what I did:

1) Turn off computer
2) Remove GPUs except for PCIe 16X1
3) Reboot
4) Remove GPU drivers
5) Reboot
6) Install GPU drivers (I used 180.48-latest WHQL)
7) Shut Down
8) Install GPU in PCIe 8x1
9) Reboot and windows will install driver (confirm 2 GPUs in Control Panel)
10) Shutdown
11) Install 2 -Way SLI bridge
12) Reboot and confirm that SLI option is available in NVidia panel
13) Shutdown
14) Remove 2-Way SLI bridge
15) Install 3rd GPU in the PCIe X16_2 slot without SLI bridge
16) Reboot and windows will install driver.
17) Confirm 3 GPUs are avaialble in Control Panel. In my case, the GPU from PCI Express Root Port 9 was now missing (PCIe 8x1 slot)
18) Shut down
19) Install 3 Way SLI bridge and reboot
20) Windows bubble may inform you that SLI is available
21) Confirm you have 3 GPUs in Control Panel (I did)
22) Confirm that 3 Way SLI is available in the NVidia Panel

I know this sure sounds like a convulated method for installing 3 way SLI on the UD5 Mobo but it worked! The strange part was losing the second GPU in PCIe 8x1 and then having it re-appear when installing the 3-way SLI bridge. I

ill give this a go now mate thanks! would you mind linking the original thread ?

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:55

N00bie said:
http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/ga-ex58-ud5-windows-will-not-recognize-3rd-gpu-tri-sli-29498/

thanks mate but this guy seems to have a different issue, he cannot see all 3 GPU's when they are all plugged in... i can its just that Nvidia control panel can't... anyways will still give it a shot, thanks for your help ! Will post back with results

turboduck · 26 Mar 2009 at 17:05

1) Turn off computer
2) Remove GPUs except for PCIe 16X1
3) Reboot
4) Remove GPU drivers
5) Reboot
6) Install GPU drivers (I used 180.48-latest WHQL)
7) Shut Down
8) Install GPU in PCIe 8x1
9) Reboot and windows will install driver (confirm 2 GPUs in Control Panel)

im up to here... the second GPU in control panel is STANDARD VGA GRAPHICS ADAPTOR... im not sure if this is right... does anyone know ? Im assuming it needs the Nvidia driver installed again or something each time a card is added ... ?