~$100 upgrade

[anticlutch]

Whenever I try to repair windows, it'll stay on the "installing devices" part for around 30-40 minutes before moving on. I have no idea if it'll do the same for yours, but it's just to give you a heads-up

 

[x800professor]

Whenever I try to repair windows, it'll stay on the "installing devices" part for around 30-40 minutes before moving on. I have no idea if it'll do the same for yours, but it's just to give you a heads-up

Yeah, it took a long, long time when I last repaired windows now that I think about it. I guess it's waiting time.

*edit* Ok...it's 8:16...it first got to that screen at 7:40. Now this is a long time.

*edit* Christ on wheat bread, it's 8:27! Still nothing!

*edit* 8:38...still nothing.

*edit* 8:47....I think I'm going to remove that keyboard and restart this...because this is nuts.

 

[x800professor]

here we go again

Well, I switched DVD drives and unplugged the malfunctioning keyboard...and it is currently at 34 minutes remaining and installing devices, just like it was last time. I hope I don't have to do a new installation.

 

[x800professor]

It's not going to get beyond that point. It looks like I'm going to have to do a clean install, yay.

 

[Wile E]

Well, aside from the Windows issues, I'm glad to hear the BIOS chip is working.

 

[x800professor]

Well, aside from the Windows issues, I'm glad to hear the BIOS chip is working.

I'm typing this from the new build. Of course, I am typing it on an old PS/2 keyboard because it refuses to work with USB keyboards. It also completely disables all USB support if I plug in anything more than the mouse. Well, it does that now at least. At first, it didn't like the keyboard. Then it didn't like anything. Now, it likes the mouse, but only the mouse. Everything works until I get into windows. In other words, it's a windows/hardware conflict. I'm hoping service pack 2 fixes some of this. Outside of that, I'm running the CPU at over 2.6GHz on the stock fan, 1.36v. Oh yeah, the onboard audio doesn't work, but I don't care. I'm not using it anyway.

A64 overclocking is easy...I just had to see it for five seconds to understand it properly. However, I'm obviously going to need a better heatsink setup to overclock further. For this board and a mid tower, any suggestions? The tower is a coolermaster centurion.

 

[Wile E]

Water.


But no, seriously, what's the budget?

 

[x800professor]

Water.


But no, seriously, what's the budget?

Water = too much work.

Hmm...I'd like it to be less than $50. I like my big typhoon. In a cool room, it can keep a 3.5Ghz E6600, 1.45v at under 45c under full load. However, that would stick out the side of this case and push the ram over on the motherboard. So...I need something smaller. This case barely fit the X1950PRO. If it had been 1/5 of an inch longer, I'd have had problems. By the way, the southbridge fan sucks. 60c???

 

[FOXCONN1115]

you can't really do much for $100... maybe a Biostar AM2 board with onboard graphics, and a 3600+ x2 brisbane, 1gb or 2 if you need it, of corsair value select, 250Gb sata3GB/s hdd, new case and PSU if needed, and you're already talking around $400 using some of your current stuff

 

[x800professor]

you can't really do much for $100... maybe a Biostar AM2 board with onboard graphics, and a 3600+ x2 brisbane, 1gb or 2 if you need it, of corsair value select, 250Gb sata3GB/s hdd, new case and PSU if needed, and you're already talking around $400 using some of your current stuff

The build is already done...it ended up a bit more than $100. More like...$300. I couldn't help myself.

 

[Wile E]

Water = too much work.

Hmm...I'd like it to be less than $50. I like my big typhoon. In a cool room, it can keep a 3.5Ghz E6600, 1.45v at under 45c under full load. However, that would stick out the side of this case and push the ram over on the motherboard. So...I need something smaller. This case barely fit the X1950PRO. If it had been 1/5 of an inch longer, I'd have had problems. By the way, the southbridge fan sucks. 60c???

Yeah, that's the one thing I hate about this board, chipset temps. But it holds up, so I don't complain. If it gets above 90F in my room, it turns into a different story, however.

How about this for cpu? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185125

And maybe a better chipset cooler. I had my chipset on water, but I had to return to stock cooling when I got my new gfx card, as the water block won't fit past the hsf on the 2900XT. At very least, pop the stock fan off and replace the thermal gummy stuff with some AS5 or Ceramic. Using Ceramic dropped my temps by 3-4c. Or perhaps something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835116018

Oh, and a side note, you can mod these boards to SLI if you desire.

 

[x800professor]

Yeah, that's the one thing I hate about this board, chipset temps. But it holds up, so I don't complain. If it gets above 90F in my room, it turns into a different story, however.

How about this for cpu? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185125

And maybe a better chipset cooler. I had my chipset on water, but I had to return to stock cooling when I got my new gfx card, as the water block won't fit past the hsf on the 2900XT. At very least, pop the stock fan off and replace the thermal gummy stuff with some AS5 or Ceramic. Using Ceramic dropped my temps by 3-4c. Or perhaps something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835116018

Oh, and a side note, you can mod these boards to SLI if you desire.

Hey! The freezer64! Those were about the best coolers for 939 if I remember correctly. I remember looking at them, thinking they would be horrible, and then seeing the amazing temps. I will put some ceramique on here when I get it from my apartment, and probably buy the freezer64. I prefer ceramique over AS5, simply because they work about the same and ceramique is non-conductive. Had I been using AS5 with the big typhoon, I would have had a problem. It pushed just about every drop of the ceramique off of the CPU. I didn't use much, but it still managed to push some off of the CPU. I painted an extremely thin layer on there...and it was still too much. Anyway, I have an ATI card, so SLI is rather useless to me.

 

[Wile E]

Yeah, I'm ATI as well, but if ATI actually goes thru with opening up Crossfire for all platforms(as the rumor goes), the SLI mod could prove handy.

 

[x800professor]

Yeah, I'm ATI as well, but if ATI actually goes thru with opening up Crossfire for all platforms(as the rumor goes), the SLI mod could prove handy.

I've heard that. I can tell you one thing, the fan on this X1950PRO from MSI is freaking great. At 100%, it is about as quiet as a 1500RPM 120mm fan It keeps the card cool at around 620mhz thus far. I think I have to bios edit thing thing to overclock the ram, unfortunately. It's about time to post some of those benchmarks that I promised last week.

 

[x800professor]

Benchmark #1 3dmark03

X1950PRO - 17135
X800GTO - 9719

Benchmark #2 Superpi 1m

Athlon64 X2 3600 - 32.562
AthlonXP-M 2800 - 57.567

Benchmark #3 3dmark05

X1950PRO - 10789
X800GTO - 5082

 

[x800professor]

Umm...now for some reason I occasionally boot with no keyboard support. This motherboard doesn't seem to like this keyboard. I wish I had brought my G11 to see if it gets along with it.

 

[Wile E]

Hmmm, maybe the keyboard is dying? I have no probs with either usb or ps/2 keyboards on mine.

 

[x800professor]

Hmmm, maybe the keyboard is dying? I have no probs with either usb or ps/2 keyboards on mine.

It worked perfectly up to the moment I switched motherboards. Then it started having problems. Of course, with my luck, who knows.

 

[x800professor]

It's also strange that it seems to be able to monitor the individual core temps, but not the overall CPU temp. The overall CPU temp is stuck at 30, but the core temps seem correct.

 

[x800professor]

I give up on that keyboard. The motherboard hates it. Either that, or that particular installation of windows hates it. It works until the windows loading screen where it shuts off. When I try to install the drivers for the keyboard, I get a BSOD. Outside of that, the computer is perfectly stable.

By the way, for anyone who says you can't tell the difference between a C2D and an X2 in every day computing....I beg to differ. The C2D is significantly faster at everything imaginable. Of course...that's when it is working.

 

[x800professor]

5378 in 3dmark06 for the moment. Not bad.

 

[anticlutch]

So what are the specs of the final build? (too lazy to go back and check )

 

[x800professor]

So what are the specs of the final build? (too lazy to go back and check )

X2 3600+ @ 2.69GHz (until I get better cooling)
2 Gigs Dominator 1066C5
MSI X1950PRO 512
DFI Infinity Ultra II M2

Plus the old 250 and 320GB hard drives and the old DVD burner and DVD drive. And of course, my P1220 monitor of greatness.

 

[Wile E]

Can't wait till you get some better cooling. I wanna see what you can get out of that combo.

 

[x800professor]

Can't wait till you get some better cooling. I wanna see what you can get out of that combo.

Yeah, it should certainly go up higher with better cooling. I also want an update for rabit that will let me edit the bios of my X1950PRO. At 621/783 I can get 5424 on 3dmark06. The CPU score at the moment is 2060. That's about 1100 points lower than the C2D at 3.5GHz.