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Computer Upgrade, Finally.


LostInSpace
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Sounds like you've got a new dart board SC !! (just joking all the best with it Lost)

Bummed now about the 3800 compared to the dual core 3800. But then again considering I got my 3800 at Ôé¼200 less then it retails for I aint complaining to much.

Just waiting on my darn video card to arrive now and then I can put my new rig together.

Sceptical is not the word considering parts were bought from Ebay. That being said I've bought bits from ebay before and not had problems. Just hope my luck holds out.

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Well, my computer parts came yesterday and installed it overnight. Everything is smooth as silk. Computer has been on for hours and the temps are great. No instability issues yet. Haven't gotten around to the games yet. All I can say is holy cow this thing boots and runs fast at stock speed not overclocking. Will do the games later on today when I get back from work.

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quote:

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

Run the saved game in the latest UCAWA first and give us the dirty details!!!

Oh, and update your sig. Its also still showing BCMG. Don't you have UC or UCAWA yet?

I'll let ya know all the details.

I do have UC. Haven't gotten UCAWA yet but now I will. I'll update my sig ASAP.

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SC,

I gave UC (patched 2.00.30) a quick go setting it at 1280x1024 with all the bells and whisltes except for preload 3dmodels it's runs very smooth not a single pause. So far no graphic glitches. Seems this motherboard is everything the reviews said it was and this 3700+ chip is great even though it's not dual core. Haven't reloaded the UC saved games yet. I have to find the backup cd disk. I had taken UC off a little while ago to make room for other games and I backed up the saved games. Dang if I can remember the cd I put it on. I got tons of cd's around here.

The motherboard does a have a few cons though. Like the where they put the AGP slot. The ATI card's heat sink and fan make it impossible to put a third pci card ya have to use just the two lower ones. Lucky for me the only pci cards I have are the sound and network card. The mb does have a Network built in 10/100 but my card is 10/100/1000 and a sound chip but I've turned them off in the bios and will reserve them in case my pci cards fail. The other issu, as I have mentioned, is the floppy connector. You do need a floppy to make a raid driver disk when fresh installing windows but I'm using the Sata drive as non-raid and you don't need to do that. Other than that, all is fine.

All I know is that I'm going to have to some serious fun.

As for the sig, looks like I'm gunna have to wait 'till I get UCAWA. Seems I did register UC, it's slowly coming back to me, but it didn't reset the game to UC but kept it as BCM. I recieved an already registered. Actually, wasn't there a way to change the system profile without going through the registration?

Anyway, once I get everything back to where it was I'll play a bunch of games and give you a run down on the real world frame rates in them.

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quote:

Originally posted by LostInSpace:

The mb does have a Network built in 10/100 but my card is 10/100/1000 and a sound chip but I've turned them off in the bios


Some how I doubt you either have a 1gb router or modem(depending on internet connection) and besides your net connection aint going to be 1GB either so the 1000 on that 10/100/1000 is not doing you any favours and is just taking up a PCI slot.

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quote:

Originally posted by Gonesolo:

quote:

Originally posted by LostInSpace:

The mb does have a Network built in 10/100 but my card is 10/100/1000 and a sound chip but I've turned them off in the bios


Some how I doubt you either have a 1gb router or modem(depending on internet connection) and besides your net connection aint going to be 1GB either so the 1000 on that 10/100/1000 is not doing you any favours and is just taking up a PCI slot.


You are correct about the internet issue. I use the 1000 for my LAN. I have a computer outside in my living room when the relatives come for a visit they play on that one against me in multiplayer. It's not much but does a good job with ut2k and the jedi knight series and some others. I have a 10/100/1000 card in that and a 10/100/1000 hub.
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Here are some screen shots of my rig (full size server case).

motherboard 1

These three images show the AGP position to the third PCI slot:

motherboard 2

motherboard 3

motherboard 4

-----------------------------------------

Full size image of case and it's guts.

As this picture shows, I had to put the hard drive into an upper drive bay because it was butting right up to the 1st memory chip bank. Actually it's in a good place now because the power supply has an outtake fan and grill right there so it draws up all the heat and pumps it right out.

Now for the show. I used the unregistered versions of 3dmark03 and aquamark3 for benchmarkings.

3dmark score

Aquamark Score

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quote:


Originally posted by LostInSpace:

As this picture shows, I had to put the hard drive into an upper drive bay because it was butting right up to the 1st memory chip bank.


So you can only have one HDD in there then? Thats not good.

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quote:

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

quote:

Originally posted by LostInSpace:

As this picture shows, I had to put the hard drive into an upper drive bay because it was butting right up to the 1st memory chip bank.

So you can only have one HDD in there then? Thats not good.


I actually came across an old package (in my junk room) that contains a kit that allows one to put a hard drive in a regular drive bay. I just happened to come across it while looking for something else. I might have another one laying around somehwere just don't remember. I haven't used the kit yet been busy getting this thing back up to snuff and playing games. But yeah kind of sucks if one doesn't have a kit like that. More than not that floopy connection is the thing that really has me scratching my head.

As for the initial boot up, the only thing I had to adjust was that the bios wasn't recognizing the memory speed properly which I already knew was an issue from the reviews on newegg. I had to set it manually at 400 but it was recognizing and setting the Cas Latency 2-3-2-5 properly. Haven't had any cold boot issues that a few others have mentioned also. But my board came with the latest bios version and the others who've had some issues had the previous versions. It's so far has been doing a bang up job. That's pretty much it from the hardware aspect. Oh yea one more thing, good thing I did this upgrade because I think the fan on the ATI card is crapping out. I usually keep the computer under my desk so I don't hear too much coming from it but I've had it out and next to me and every now and again when I boot into the computer I has hearing a strange noise and feeling a slight vibration on the case. I tracked it down to the video card. Put my hand on the edge of the card and yup it was coming from there. I hope the fan is easily replaceable since I've never done that one before.

Anyway on a final note, I did download and try the UCAWA demo just to get a sneak peek at the game. Oy, looks like I'm out of practice with the UC game. I kept getting my butt shot off. But it runs fine.

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quote:

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

Thanks for the update. I think I'll pick up one of these boards, just so I have it lying around.

You're welcome. Can't wait until the other manufacturers pick up on the ULI chipset. I know a lot of people want other brands to do their magic with it. I've had this thing going many many hours. In fact, last thursday I was pushing 24 hours straight. But no matter how long it's on, I can go into one game after another with no problem and not have to do a reboot and the temperatures are staying pretty good. I'm definitely going to pick up another gig of this PQI memory to take advantage of the hyper-transporting.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just a quick update. So far, everything has been running beautifuly. Quite a few days or more worth of operating hours. Even with the ATI 9600xt, all the games run smooth as butter. Put all graphics options in UT2k4 to max with 32 bots (max also), insane and smooth action. Now that its been given the real world sweat test, time to pick up another one of them PQI gig memory sticks. Also picked up Arctic Silver 5 (mad dog) for overclocking this cpu.

Oh yea, the fan on my video card was dying. I took it off and rigged a chipset fan on it 5000rpm and it's working pretty good sitting on the heatsink. Just don't know which of the few replacement fans to get. Maybe I should just contact ATI to get an exact replacement. Hasn't gone above 50c while running games.

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Sounds like your upgrade is going better than mine.

I put a

DFI NF4-DAGF motherboard

AMD 64 3800

Nvidia 6800

into my machine about the same time you did your upgrade. Problem is now that my system performance is unstable. I can run 3Dmark on it and get a FPS in one of the graphics tests of somewhere in the mid 200's and then I can run the same test again at another time and I get about 5-7 FPS.

I've tried drivers, chipsset drivers, direct x and about 3 different OS's and all the same. Friend on another forum has suggested that my 6800 is not getting enough power and to ensure the power connector is correctly connected and my PSU is ok.

Problem is my Graphics card doesn't have a connection for its own power (is that strange for a PCIe x 16 card) and my PSU is a brand new 450W monster so I'm stumped.

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Powersupply is a Jantech silent. Not sure which core the cpu has but its probably the older of the two considering the price I got it for.

Meh I have a work around that seems to work for the moment. I think it's graphics card related and luckily that was bought from a company so I'm in discussions with them re replacing/swapping it for another.

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  • 4 weeks later...

-- bump --

So did anyone who got the mobos with the 64-bit processor support (and presumably 64-bit processor) also go with 64-bit Windows XP or equivalent MS operating system? Or are you still using 32-bit Windows XP?

I've done some searching around and driver support is still kind of thinner than 32-bit -- I wouldn't have any manufacturer-supported printer drivers, for instance. Not to mention Antivirus support still seems sparse, except for a few guys like Avast or if you want to pay for corporate editions. Thus far, 64-bit XP seems attractive only to businesses.

So -- would Joe Gamer (i.e. me) looking to upgrade his PC (and wanting to purchase UCAWA at some point if I ever get done with the game I'm playing now, 118+ hrs and counting) want to buy a 64-bit PC if I wasn't also going to get 64-bit XP?

Is there any point, other than an abstract "being ready for the future", to having a 64-bit PC with plain old 32-bit XP on it?

On a related note, I'm looking forward to Windows Vista, and that comes in 32- and 64-bit flavors but I'm worried about hardware support again...

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That was definitely the impression I was getting. But my initial survey of "current" mobos seem to be all for 64-bit CPUs, which is why I'm in the quandary I'm in now. I guess I'd better head back to all those hardware sites and start my research over again.

I remember back in the day when researching hardware upgrades was so much simpler.

Heh, this kind of pits my two hats (Joe Gamer vs. Joe Developer) against each other. I think the upgrade solution requiring the least work (Joe Gamer) will win this out...

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