Gaming Rig issues

[Busy_Boi]

Originally Posted by Steve Dallas

I've built quite a few machines over the years, and most have been pretty stable.

Still, the best rigs I've had as far as stability were the ones I purchased through Falcon Northwest (www.falcon-nw.com)

My current home rig is a beast, and I ran into my first issue since I bought it about a year and a half ago. It was hanging on boot at the EVGA screen. Turned out I had left a Compact Flash 8GB memory card in the card reader, and it was trying to boot off of it. No real problem

The only downside to buying a machine is it will be more expensive.

My system:
Blue Side Panel & Lighting
2010 Chevy Imperial Blue Metallic Paint
Intel Core I7 975 Extreme 3.33GHz Processor
Water Cooled
12GB 1333MHz RAM
X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro Sound Card
Blue Ray Reader/Writer
Dual EVGA Superclocked Geforce 295 (yes, two of them...that's QUAD-SLI)
Corsair 256GB Solid State Drive
Western Digital 2TB Hard Drive
30" Monitor

Very nice rig.

[Hemlawk]

I know some of you guys are going to say this is sacrilegious, but I need to mod my PC before I mod my Camaro.
Being without my rig is like torture! My SS is perfect in it's stock state.

[Mindz]

My pc is modded as well. Built it four + years ago. I love the coolermaster cases. I'm running an 80 GB hdd with a GeForce 8600 GT 512 card. I have had ZERO problems with all my components. I may be building a new gaming rig for xmas though. Depends on if any games I really want only come out on the pc.

[Hemlawk]

I just ordered the Sapphire 6970 so I can run a triple monitor setup.

Eyefinity looks wicked and I need it.

[Scott@Bjorn3D]

Originally Posted by Hemlawk

I just ordered the Sapphire 6970 so I can run a triple monitor setup.

Eyefinity looks wicked and I need it.

I like NVIDIA stuff.

[1o.f00t.570rk]

Originally Posted by Scott@Bjorn3D

I like NVIDIA stuff.

With ATI stuff I always seemed to have driver issues, even though the hardware was really awesome. With NVIDIA, the drivers were always excellent and I would just run into hardware shortages where I couldn't push it as hard. Since the merger with AMD/ATI, I haven't heard that the drivers have gotten significantly better, so while they may have the superior hardware, I'm happy with my reliable NVIDIA stuff.

[Busy_Boi]

Originally Posted by Scott@Bjorn3D

I like NVIDIA stuff.

Thats what I alway get nvidia. So do you think they will bring the Nforce mother boards back?

[Hemlawk]

I usually skip back and forth between ATI and Nvidia. But this time I'm sticking to ATI back to back.

The main reason is Eyefinity. I'll be running 3 monitors soon.


But I'm wondering if I short changed myself with the motherboard. (Asus m4a79t deluxe)

[Hemlawk]

Ok, I officially found the issue that was plaguing my system since I built it. Replacing the GPU and HDD didnt fix it but now my rig is hell-of-a lot faster.

Apparently my mobo CANT handle 1600 ddr3 Ram even though it says it can! WTF!!!! I underclocked the ram and now Im getting ZERO errors or freezing.

So I guess my next upgrade will be a better mobo...

[Scott@Bjorn3D]

The timing on the ram may need to be relaxed. The motherboard probably can handle it but the the timings on the ram are set to fast. You might want to get the specs for the ram and raise the timings just a tad. Soemtime the SPD on the ram gets set to agressive.

[Hemlawk]

I'm such an overclock newbie, I'm not sure how to change the timing.
I did knock it down to 1333 and I see no difference in performance.

Scott, where can I learn about the timing?

[Infern0]

tomshardware.com is where I started to learn about messing with clocking. Got me comfortable enough to get my E6400 to 2.75GHz (from 2.13). Actually 2.9, but not stable so I backed it down.