Scottike

I agree with Waco, Phenoms only give you a temp for whole processor and not individual cores. It's nice to hear they changed that for the Thubans!

The amount of memory you can use on your system(or any system) is usually determined by the motherboard, operating system, & cpu. I would guess the limiting factor in your case would be that your motherboard was manufactured to use up to only 8 gigs of memory even though your processor and os are able to utilize more. you would have to check your motherboard specifications to be sure. Motherboard manufacturers will often limit the amount of ram you can install to reduce their manufacturing costs, especially on their less expensive boards. As far as harddrives go, knock yourself out! You can run multiple 1.5 tb harddrives, or larger if you wish. I'll leave your upgrade question to someone more experenced with Intel, as I prefer AMD myself.

With the minimal OC your running your ram at, I wouldn't be worried about the lack of active cooling on your dominator. If you were running it at a substantial overclock, it might be a different story, but at 6mhz over stock it should'nt be a problem. I always considered those fans as an added bonus for purchasing that ram, not as a requirement to operate it. Of course, it also depends on the cooling and airflow you have in the rest of your system, if your case has poor airflow, your ram may well need the fans to help keep their temps below dangerous levels. I'm assuming that your using this ram: Corsair Dominator GT

One possibilty is that it's time to clean any dust out of your system, depending on your enviroment. It sounds like your system is sitting on or close to the floor, so it may tend to collect more dust than if it was on a table or desk. Dust build up can cause your system to run hotter. It's also possible that you have a fan starting to die, but try cleaning first, it could just be dust gumming up the works. edit: The ceiling fan thing sounds very weird.

I agree completly, I just can't see Dell buying AMD, I think it would be a stupid move on their part. But, then again, stranger things have happened. Maybe it's a ploy to get better pricing from Intel? edit: Or maybe it's just total fiction.

Dell buying AMD dosen't make any sense to me. Why would they want to go head to head with Intel, who already has the lions share of the cpu market, and is one of their primary component suppliers? A better move for them would be to takover a mobo manufacturer. That could improve their bottom line in the desktop and laptop market, and also let them move into the enthusiast market, where they could possibly pickup market share they don't have right now. The learning curve for Dell to move into processor and chipset manufacturing would be very steep indeed, whereas the curve for mobo manufacturing would be much less so, since they are already spec'ing the mobos for their own systems to their current mobo suppliers. A move like that could help Dell improve their profitability, and allow them to keep their options open when it comes to choosing processors. Of course it's all just rumor and speculation 'til it happens.

Is your ram a matched Dual Channel kit?, or just 4 sticks of the same brand/series? if all 4 sticks aren't a matched set of dual channel it won't run any faster the weakest stick. Boinker is right, the number of sticks you have don't determine your memory speed Although, some boards have problems (or used to) running memory at higher speeds with more than 2 sticks installed. Your memory speed is calculated by multiplying your base clock (FSB) by your memory multiplier. Depending on your manufacturer your bios may show your actual memory multiplier , or a selection of different memory speeds. (ie: 1066, 1333, 1600, etc) but your mem speed is still calculated the same way. memory running at 1600 uses a multiplier of 4 so: FSB of 200(stock) X 4 = 800 mhz memory speed. Because your using dual channel memory, the memory can act on both a rising and falling clock signal. This means even though your memory clock is 800, your memory is able to respond to each clock signal twice, so your memory is able to function as if it were operating at a 1600 clock rate. Back to the problem at hand, Set your memory at their recommended timings and voltage, and set your command rate to 2T . Test all four sticks at their default speed (1066?) and make sure they are stable at that speed, If they test good, try running them at 1366 and retest. If all still looks good, try running just two sticks at 1600 and retest. If those two sticks look good, remove them and test the other two sticks at 1600. If one pair won't run for you at 1600, then test each stick of that pair one at a time to determine which one won't handle 1600. This will tell you if you have a bad stick, or if there is something else going on.

That's nice to know, Waco - I was having visions of the old magnet on the TV screen trick. Much wringing of hands and knashing of teeth for nought.

How big of a magnet would be considerd dangerous, Waco? I'm getting curious now.

Awesome job! I won't call it Ghetto because you didn't make them while you were sitting on the couch in your front yard. The Vise Grip clamps border on Redneck, but the lack of duct tape and beer cans eliminates that vote. I might have called it Other if it hadn't worked. I have to vote Bonkineered! Adapt and Overcome!

I agree with you that the magnetic strip tape probably won't hurt your harddrive, and while it requires a strong degauser to wipe a harddrive clean , a much weaker magnetic field could scramble data enough to cause problems. The point is, the data on your harddrive is written and changed by a magnetic field, and that a strong enough magnetic field introduced close to your harddrive will do the same thing. Would a few pieces of magnetic tape be strong enough? I doubt it. But, there's always somebody that thinks bigger, or stronger is always better. How about a nice little rare earth button magnet that sticks itself to your harddrive instead of to your filter/case when you go to install the filter? Oops! How much is to much? I dont' know, and I'd rather not find out the hard way.

Could be a duff monitor also, is it new?, or from a working system? Not very likely, But possible. edit: I re-read your 1st post and saw that you tried that. You might try clearing the CMOS. It's done the trick for me in the past.

Just a thought here. Magnets and harddrives do not play well together! But, It looks good!

Try this guide: Dolk's Guide Or this one at AMD: AMD Performance Guide

It looks to me like your power supply is the problem. even though the manufacturer calls it a 630 watt supply, it's a split rail supply, and it's only rated for 22 amps per 12 volt rail. your 5770 should have at least 34 amps available to it. and if you have other things connected to the same rail, your video card may not be getting enough power. you might try setting your video card up on one rail and powering everything else on the other rail to see if that helps, but I fear that your split rail supply may not be up to the task. you may want to look over the power supply stickies at the top of this section. Edit: Have you tried to boot the system from power off with the hdd in the dock? If it won't, hook up the hdd normally ( not using the dock) and see if your system will boot. If that won't go either, then try a different hdd.