serious problem with my DFI board

[Minsc]

Ok here's the problem... everything is perfect and I'm running out of things to tweak!

 

After months of tweaking my memory is stable, my drivers and OS are clean, updated, and perfect. Performance is stellar.

 

My new TT Armor case looks awesome, loaded with UV and cables perfectly organized. I even cut the metal fan grills out from the back to increase airflow and reduce turbulence, it seems to help a little. Definitely quieter. The cats just better not stick their noses in there. Good thing there's no toddlers around.

 

I feel I've hit a level of perfection that I can't beat other than overclocking, which I don't want to do as it will shorten the life of the components, and the damn thing is fast enough (I know - heresy!). I was lucky to earn my CPU and viddy in a rare game tournament opportunity, and they're worth a fortune so I want them to last as long as possible.

 

The only other thing I can think of to improve things noticably is to buy two more Hitachi 80GBs and turn it into a 4-way RAID-0 that will absolutely fly. Using just two right now. Though I have no idea how to add disks to a RAID-0 without redoing the partitions from scratch, I'll figure something out and it would be worth it.

 

God I love my system.

 

A huge thanks to everyone here who have made the difference from an unreliable, flaky, frustrating motherboard into a top notch stable performer.

[Campari_Kurita]

no OC?

then this board is wrong for you..

 

And i dont think there is a Way to make a Raid 0 without doing all Partitions From Scratch, so u need a Backup Media with is large enough for your Data!

[tw33ter]

After reading this review: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=11, I've always wondered why people have raid-0's. Do they really offer that much of a performance difference then what that review says there is?

[cpuz]

feel I've hit a level of perfection that I can't beat other than overclocking, which I don't want to do as it will shorten the life of the components

Well, true, but chances are that you will replace the items LONG before you ever even experience that. Glad to hear you are happy with your setup.

[soundx98]

well that is a real heart warming story.

Really great to hear that you overcame all the issues, persevered and have you running like you want it to.

Nice to come back and say thanks as well

 

Now where's the friggin' pictures and have you setup MBM5 yet?

[Minsc]

Now where's the friggin' pictures and have you setup MBM5 yet?

 

Working on the pictures. They'll blow you away I promise. And yeah, I've got MBM5 running. But ya know, for some reason the 120mm fan doesn't appear on the dashboard (ITE8712F-2)

 

I liked it so much in fact, that I removed my Aerocool GateWatch and Hardcano 13 to improve airflow since they weren't really offering me anything more than looks, and ever since I rotated my system 90 degrees to show off the *side* instead of the front, yeah they're kinda useless.

 

But they were fun for the whole week I had them installed, heh...

[Minsc]

no OC? then this board is wrong for you..

 

True, but eventually I'll be ready to replace all of my hardware. That's when I overclock. In case I blow something out, it was due to be replaced anyway.

 

There's no way I can replace an Athlon 4000+ and a GF Ultra 6800, I won them in a contest, I don't have that kind of money lying around.

 

But in a year or two I'll probably want an X2, then I'll OC the hell out of this rig and see what she can do.

[Minsc]

Well, true, but chances are that you will replace the items LONG before you ever even experience that. Glad to hear you are happy with your setup.

 

Assuming the OC'ing goes well, you're right. But when I say "shorten the life" I mean.... shortened to the point of when I start OC'ing, screw up, and kill them on the spot.

 

I've never seriously OC'd before. As an IT guy responsible for servers and workstations, I tend to be very conservative when it comes to my machines. I use my hardware "by the book" as much as possible to ensure it's covered by warranties and I'm working with known quantities, not venturing into the bleeding edge where the only help I can get is on a forum like this (even though the help is great, it's risky to be dependent on it for a work server!)

[Minsc]

After reading this review: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=11, I've always wondered why people have raid-0's. Do they really offer that much of a performance difference then what that review says there is?

 

Well I replaced a 200 GB Seagate with these Hitachis, and the performance increase was substantial. I didn't try it with just one Hitachi first, then add the second to compare on the RAID, but I can say unequivocally that this setup is retardedly fast.

[soundx98]

hehehe. another IT guy.

 

Hope this isn't a 6 month wait to "implement" the pictures.

 

Don't let em make you crazy about overclocking. You probably wouldn't notice too much difference between the rig at 2400 and running it at 2700 anyway.

 

(HeHeHe - I give him two weeks before he starts fuggin with it)

[Guest ElAguila]

After reading this review: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=11, I've always wondered why people have raid-0's. Do they really offer that much of a performance difference then what that review says there is?

 

 

I don't know about their benchmarks but when I went to a raid 0 in decreased my video processing time by almost 20% which is significant enough for me to stay with raid 0.

[Guest Dangermouse]

A buddy of mine built his system up very similarly to mine, except he had C: on one drive, and D: on the other. After a few weeks with his new system he decided to reinstall and create a striped array out of the. He was blown away by how much faster everything loaded, including games, windows, etc. So that means more to me than benchmark numbers.

 

Also, there's performance vs. size to think about. At the time of my purchase, the sataII hitachi drives only came in 80GB sizes, but I wanted more space. I challenge anyone to find a 230GB drive with the performance of a single hitachi SATAII, and for about $200. (well, you can now, but not back then!)