Adventures of the 939 build

[Toothless]

So a roomie of mine has given up a socket 939 build since he's getting his X58 rig going. (Being built by me, I'll post pics if you guys want later)

It's a Asus A8N32-SLI, no clue on the CPU yet, 4x1GB Corsair CMX1024-3200C2PT sticks 400mhz CL2 sticks. Stock cooler, wee bit of dust on it, nothing too bad. The question is there anything I should be concerned with on building this thing up? Just go for it or tweaks I should know about? I'll add pics later on when I'm not going to run on 5 hours of sleep.

 

[GoldenX]

Try to avoid going over 1000MHz on the HT. That's as far as I know for 939.

 

[agent_x007]

Invest in 4x 2GB Reg. ECC for 8GB max. RAM

 

[natr0n]

Invest in 4x 2GB Reg. ECC for 8GB max. RAM

Great idea.

 

[Ruru]

Of course you need to test older cards (GeForce 6 and 7 series) on SLI!

 

[eidairaman1]

Latest bios updates, certain gpus will give an error 43 i believe too

 

[Durvelle27]

I have the exact board with a Athlon 64 X2
One thing I’ve ran into is that I can’t get Windows 10 to install on it. Windows 7 runs fine though but I’m also only using 4x1GB DDR

 

[agent_x007]

You can't get it to install on Windows 10, because you tried 64-bit version (which requires instruction "CompareExchange128", that Athlon 64s doesn't support, untill "F" revision and AM2 socket).
Use 32-bit, it should go through installation.

 

[Melvis]

I still have my original 939 system, FX-57, 2GB DDR500 RAM, and a 9600GT, one of my fav systems of all time, loved it! K8NF9-Ultra Motherboard, shit I remembered lol

 

[Durvelle27]

You can't get it to install on Windows 10, because you tried 64-bit version (which requires instruction "CompareExchange128", that Athlon 64s doesn't support, untill "F" revision and AM2 socket).
Use 32-bit, it should go through installation.

32Bit is limited to 4GB though

 

[agent_x007]

You said you are using 4x1GB...

 

[Durvelle27]

You said you are using 4x1GB...

Yes but with plans to up it

But you do also know even with 4GB 32Bit Windows would not allow access to the full 4GB only 3-3.5GB

 

[hat]

Not good enough! Memory from the graphics card also takes up that 4GB space, among other things. Even if you had a system with no video card at all to take away from that, you still wouldn't quite have 4GB available... if you really have to use 32 bit, you're better off with 3GB system ram and a 1GB graphics card at most, and even then something is gonna lose out somewhere. But then, wouldn't PAE be an option?

I wonder what would happen if I tried to install a 32 bit OS on my system, with 8GB system ram, and two GTX1070s weighing in at 8GB a piece...

 

[Durvelle27]

Not good enough! Memory from the graphics card also takes up that 4GB space, among other things. Even if you had a system with no video card at all to take away from that, you still wouldn't quite have 4GB available... if you really have to use 32 bit, you're better off with 3GB system ram and a 1GB graphics card at most, and even then something is gonna lose out somewhere. But then, wouldn't PAE be an option?

I wonder what would happen if I tried to install a 32 bit OS on my system, with 8GB system ram, and two GTX1070s weighing in at 8GB a piece...

I have a

Athlon 64 X2 4200+
ASUS A8N32-SLI
Corsair 4GB(4x1GB) DDR
EVGA GTX 260
Antec 450W

With Windows 7 64bit and it allows full 4GB usage, no allocations

 

[hat]

Well... yeah, cause you're running 64 bit. We'll probably blow ourselves up before we run out of memory address space with 64 bit...

 

[Durvelle27]

Well... yeah, cause you're running 64 bit. We'll probably blow ourselves up before we run out of memory address space with 64 bit...

Which is why I refuse to use 32Bit

But system runs pretty good. Using a Zalmon Low Profile Cooler it never gets very hot. Pretty snappy for such a old plateform

 

[Toothless]

So try Win10, both types. If that doesn't work slap win7 on?

 

[delshay]

Try to avoid going over 1000MHz on the HT. That's as far as I know for 939.

I'm still building my 939 system & the HT even when overclocked has zero effect on stability overclocked or not.
it's more to do with the quality of the core(s).

If you need screenshot of proof, I can do this with 4000+, FX55. FX57 & FX60, just ask & you shall receive, take your pick of processor, all HT clocked beyond 1000MHz.

 

[agent_x007]

Not good enough! Memory from the graphics card also takes up that 4GB space, among other things. Even if you had a system with no video card at all to take away from that, you still wouldn't quite have 4GB available... if you really have to use 32 bit, you're better off with 3GB system ram and a 1GB graphics card at most, and even then something is gonna lose out somewhere. But then, wouldn't PAE be an option?

I wonder what would happen if I tried to install a 32 bit OS on my system, with 8GB system ram, and two GTX1070s weighing in at 8GB a piece...

Basic idea :

Advanced version
GTX 1080 + Celeron 2,0A :

Modern PCIe GPUs always take 256MB of physical memory.
With SLI, you would get 2.99GB usable (or a bit less depending on BIOS/MB).

 

[theonek]

single core cpu with a gtx1080 - yes!!!

 

[agent_x007]

single core cpu with a gtx1080 - yes!!!

Single core is easy (Disable cores + HT on modern stuff and you are good to go ).
32-bit only (ie. older than Prescott) though... That is a challange

 

[Durvelle27]

So try Win10, both types. If that doesn't work slap win7 on?

I just run Windows 7 Home 64bit. No issues here and has drivers under vista that works

 

[ZenZimZaliben]

Opteron 185, pretty sure I got my Opt 165 running at 3ghz way back in the day on water cooling.

 

[hat]

GTX1080 with a 2GHz celeron... I had a 2GHz celeron before... it was pretty bad. I also remember wanting the socket 478 P4EE cause I was young and couldn't afford anything myself, and I thought that would be the best I could do for a while...

 

[Melvis]

What CPU is in your 939 system?

I think I have a few spare here, 3700 Sandi Core and some 3200's.

I did run for many yrs a 4800+ on a GA-K8NF9 Sli Motherboard with 8600GT's but since sold them all off.