New setup Tweeking

[Ham]

Few quick questions to help me sort out my new setup of a DFI Infinity SLI and a Venice 3200+.

Firstly, can someone recomend a good Northbridge HS? The one on there now sounds like a hiar dryer. Im thinking this:http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/product.php?productid=1067&cat=103&page=1

Any good?

Next up. Im running my single 7800GT in this board, yet its only running at PCI-E x8. Is it worth worrying over? wich one of the 30000000 bios options decides SLI setup (general name/area)?

Problem 3 is my SATA2 drive (now running closer to SATA2 speeds) seams to be recongnised as a removable drive. Is this somthing i need to worry about?

And lastly. What can i tweek to make a 99.9% windows stable Overclock a 99.9% CSS overclock?

Sorry for being kinda blunt but im knakered and am now off to bed.

Cheers in advance guys.

 

[FarFarAway]

I heard that Zalman is good as long as you have good airflow and nothing is obstructed. I have the CM Blue Ice and it's pretty good

Where are you getting that the 7800 is running 8x? It defaults to 16x but will most likely read 8x in the nVidia drivers. With a 7800 the difference between 8x and 16x will not be noticible

SATA drive's will show up as removable drives if its under the NV SATA controller: strange but true

As to the overclock....well make sure all of your RAM settings are tweaked to perfection and run memtest86+

Also adding a couple of "steps" to the LDT and Chipset voltage may help. And of course adding .25v onto your CPU

 

[Rastalovich]

Kempez - does it show as a removable drive coz it`s hot-swapable ?

 

[Mullet]

Firstly, can someone recomend a good Northbridge HS? The one on there now sounds like a hiar dryer. Im thinking this:http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/customer/product.php?productid=1067&cat=103&page=1

Any good?

I am running one of those in my system...as kempez says...if you have good airflow it will cool as well as the stock fan does...with JS noise! What cooler do you have fitted to the 7800?? If this throws out air it may also act as a cooler for the passive chipset cooler.

 

[FarFarAway]

Kempez - does it show as a removable drive coz it`s hot-swapable ?

In theory yes: but SATA 300 hasn't really had all the hot-swap facilities worked out. It's not like having a SCSI drive on a win 2K3 server swapped over - I have actually tried hot-swapping SATA drives and it works...but not every time

I certainly don't think it would work hot-swapping it if it was the OS drive

 

[Ham]

Well i been pretty busy since i posted this (odd for me...) and havnt had a chance to try anything yet but i will get atleast 2.5 out this chip. Cheers for the pointers kemp.

@ Mullet: Ive got an arctic cooler on my card, so it be sucks up air thats been pushed over the NB hs buy my front fan and out the back of the case. The temps on the card are well within limits though so it shouldnt case a problem.

New queiry, would it be worth me sticking some graphics card ram sinks on my mosfets? theres loads of room there.

 

[Mullet]

are u planning to clock the 7800?? If you are it may be worth adding them

 

[Ham]

Not the graphics card mosfets the one on the motherboard.

Im not clocking my graphics card (yet), but overclokcing my CPU as far as possible.

 

[noveltylamp]

You will have to ensure that the Zalman heatsink does not prevent your from installing cards in certain slots due to it's height. The usual recommendation for DFI motherboards is a Vantec cooler which is suitable for chipsets and graphics cards, have a look over at DFI-Street.

Secondly, try the 7800 in the other slot and see if it works in 16x there, although running at 8x will not make a huge if any difference.

Yes the SATA drives show up as removable due to their hot-swappable feature however if the icon annoys you just enable hide unused icons on your taskbar.

Lastly, there's no such thing as a 99.9% stable overclock, it's either stable or it isn't. Please post all your settings so we can determine what you can try.

Firstly, make sure your HTT multiplier is set so that it does not exceed 1000MHz, and then decrease your CPU multiplier so you're about at stock speeds on the cpu but leave everything else at your current setttings. Now test, if it's still unstable with a high bus speed but stock CPU speed then it's something else limiting you e.g. chipset, memory. If it's stable like this then increase CPU core voltage but do not exceed 1.65v and only go that high with water or very high end air cooling.

Use "Core Temp" to get an accurate read out of your CPU temperature and post it here.

For checking your memory use MemTest86 or similar to determine if your memory is holding you back, when you use a divider DFI motherboards "AUTO" setting for the timing seems to tighten the settings so you may run your ram at only 200MHz on a divider but the board decreases the latency and it ends up unstable anyway so you need to set all your timings manually which can take a long time.

Post your results and all your settings for better help.

 

[Ham]

Thanks for the help but this is pretty much sorted now. Im at 2.7ghz now and will push for more when i can be bothered.

 

[noveltylamp]

Okay 2.7GHz sounds like a good result!

 

[FarFarAway]

Good work Ham. 2.7GHz is a decent OC - esp for a Venice

 

[Ham]

Well, im confused. Ive droped it to 2.65 to make it as stable as possible, cpuz screenie:

As you can see its at 1.5* volts, but my temps are stupidly low .

Under load the thing hits a grand total of about 36 and idles around 23.

I know most people would be very happy with this but i don't feel somethings quite right, Jiffz' opty is running at simmilar speeds and volgate and is hitting 50 load

Im reading the temps in Smart Guardian, Everest UE, Speed fan, nTunes monitor and the bios. My Evo is cold to the toutch, as is the air coming off it.

So have i got a dam fine HS & alphacool make godlike thermal paste or is somthing screwed and my cpu is about to burst into flames?