Hello all

[Angry_Games]

i found out the hard way one day when i went to install a creative card.

 

i had about 6 of them at the time, from Live! to Live! 5.1 to Audigy1

 

the 4 Live! cards had their own driver disk, as their part numbers were slightly different (grrr)

 

without the right cd, i found myself in a nightmare of patching and stitching drivers together and missing all the programs (or programs wouldnt work, or drivers bsod'd etc).

 

then getting the right drivers off the cd finally (after about the 3rd reinstall of XP), came web updating. THe old 'download driver and apply' type that we are all used to. Nab the latest driver and find out that you cant install it cuz you didnt install a previous version first. So download another file and go to install that but find out you maybe forgot something off the cd install, or didn't update a non-critical piece like soundfont banks or play center etc. Sheesh.

 

 

then about 3 months ago I went back to Creative's site and found this great thing called Autoupdater. Its not new to us, but its new to a major driver provider like creative...and maybe not even new and revolutionary as actually working 100% correctly in a fashion like Windowsupdate. That i think is the revolutionary part and makes me realize that Creative has really really matured as a company finally to do this, and do it right.

 

we tried with RadarSynch but the program is just bad news...so please never install it. But also it is much more risky as the motherboard houses and intercommunicates all the parts in a computer...where a sound card or video card only really has a basic direct function. But we might try again one day you never know.

 

 

the only thing Creative needs is IE6 because as of the moment, it only runs an ActiveX control to check the version of your particular creative card like windowsupdate does to your OS.

 

And it does take multiple updates on most Audigy and newer cards...while 5.1 cards generally only get the drivers that come with SP2 (WinXP)...but you've used Windowsupdate so it wont be anything new.

 

anyway...thats my good rant about Creative.

 

 

hope you get her crankin Rick. Let me know how it goes. I nailed 21k 3dmarks the last time i benched it, the highest one I hit with what you had in it. And my 2-2-2-5 Centon TCCD. You should be able to do better and if you got the good RAM we talked about (fix your sig to reflect what RAM you got) then you won't have a problem going 250FSB 1:1 without breaking a sweat (that SP-94 while used and sorta beat up lookin, is still probably the best aircooler for P4).

 

get a freakin router if you on broadband...Dlink DI-604 is about $30, less with rebate

 

then plug your guitar into the Audigy and rock on brother haha.

[Wetchaser]

Why would i want a router. Another headache from what ive heard, lol.

[Angry_Games]

you are on broadband?

 

if so, you heard wrong.

 

NAT routers offer the best protection from intrusion and internal privacy. NAT firewalls are by far the best as they are hardcoded and require no cpu overhead (they are external devices), plus the have built-in DHCP addressing for multiple computers (whether you have two or more pc's or not, you might or might have an xbox or TIVO or something else etc).

 

they are better than software firewalls.

 

 

as for headache...you need to stop listening to whoever you heard that from as they don't have a clue (no offense intended).

 

leaving no firewall is like leaving your house with the front door cracked open...anyone can see that its open and come in and check out your stuff...and if you got valuable stuff then they can just take it etc.

 

having a software firewall is ok (i still hate XP's built-in firewall...its cheap and a pain in the butt). Zonealarm is the best software firewall, but still is a pain and requires cpu overhead + memory to run, while a NAT external router doesnt...it has it's own circuitry and brain.

[Wetchaser]

ok, i will definatly look into it. Makes sense. I notice my ram has timing marks that dont even come close to what u used. Hope thats not to much of an issue later on down the road.

[Angry_Games]

best thing is to use cpu-z to read the SPD....then google around and see if anyone can use those 2-2-2-5 or 2-2-2-6 timings @ 200FSB.

 

then if you feeling brave (or lucky?) you can just crank up your FSB to 250 1:1 (DDR400), and crank your vdimm voltage to 2.9v (it will NOT hurt it at all!), and your AGP voltage to 1.7v.

 

shouldnt have to even touch the cpu voltage, but a 3.0C might require a little bump to get stable (you'll have to fool around with it). Then again that might be too much for a 3.0C to overclock but it shouldnt. And you should be able to do 2.5-3-3-8 timings as most TCCD is similar.

 

put in the Omega ATI drivers and crank up your gpu/memory on the 9800P until 3dmark shows either white spots (like white snow during a 3d scene which means your gpu is too high) and/or tearing (looks just like it sounds...seems as if the scene is tearing apart in a bad 60's acid flashback which means the memory clock is too high.

 

your memory bandwidth scores should already be much better for the simple fact that you are using an 800FSB cpu. @ 200FSB you should be getting 4k in Everest or more. Tighter timings will give better scores but should get easy 4k+ (READS, writes should be 1400MB or more I think)

 

your latency should be about 60-80, give or take (its about 40-45 on my A64 cpu's with integrated memory controller).

 

then like I said, look into a cheap Dlink DI-604 4-port NAT router. Its a cinch to setup and its mucha better (www.grc.com = shields up test for your security/firewall)

 

 

raise your FSB 10Mhz and reboot and run 3dmark until you hit 250FSB, then run prime95 when you go to bed to make sure it is truly stable. crank your ATI gpu/memory clocks up 10Mhz at a time until you come across the artifacts that I described. check the old benchmarks I posted a page or three back to see what your gpu/mem clock was set to when I scored 21k (if i remembered to post it in the pic!)

 

this should be a relatively simple good overclock (nothing guaranteed and if it isnt so simple its no reflection on your skill or ability it just means you got to work towards your sweet spot).

 

and this is a very decent overclock. Your multi should be 15x, and default FSB of 200 would give you your 3Ghz clock.

 

250FSB x 15 = 3750Mhz. Nothing super spectacular...but it shouldn't be a problem at all. I think about it like this...I bought a 3Ghz cpu, and can run it all day long at 3750Mhz. It doesn't make me more of a man, or a top overclocker...but it is a lot nicer and it is kinda awesome to know that I got a lot more cpu than I paid for (and memory, and performance etc).

 

i am not even close to the best overclocker...maybe a mediocre one at best (a little better with Intel than AMD tho). 50FSB is almost a given on 800FSB Northwood cpu's with PC4400.

 

I guess what I am doing is giving you the pep talk that is to make you confident. I honestly and truly believe you can get this decent overclock done very easily, as I dont think I have ever seen a DFI LP875B revB + PC4400 + Northwood p4 that couldnt do it without breaking a sweat. Specially if you got that SP-94 mounted on there (you shouldnt even need to turn fan up higher than 3000rpm) real good.

 

anyway....you dont have to go into this thinking its gonna be one of those long involved super nerdy quests that will detract from the fun of actually using your comp to play games or whatever you use it for. if it gets to that then you shouldn't do it anymore (I took about 8 months off from overclocking just because it lost its luster for a while).

 

ok me shut up now

[Wetchaser]

OMG do i appriciate this post. I will be doing all this as soon as im confident with burn in being complete. Not taking any chances on frying stuff.

 

CMOS Reloaded: how do i deleate profiles so i can save what i have now? Booklet just doesnt explain that part.

 

I used to play Americas Army at 1024x768 as a rule, and never got beyond 50 fps no matter what the settings. 50 fps being the highs with little detail being drawn, depending on which way i was facing. With alot of detail (smoke, other players, explosions, it could drop to 20 fps momentarily. Right now, i am playing at 1280x1024 with everything maxed out. When i say maxed out in the UT engine, that means there arnt to many games out there that put more stress on a computer. My fps is now 40-93 fps, and it looks frigging awsome. My cpu has never gotten hotter then 104 F. Heatsink is a bad mofo I have to attribute alot to the new mobo first, for taking me to the faster bus/agp speeds, and then the ram as well. There is just no substitute for quality parts.

 

I really have to thankyou Angry for helping me get the parts list together. Over clocking is next step, i think ill just plan on starting with that next Friday evening.

 

As you can see from post time, im in gamers heaven right now:angel:

[Angry_Games]

Reloaded: just go in and save everything at stock like you are running right now into the slots you have already used. That way there's no chance of loading a previous value (ie: 533FSB cpu + DDR333 settings that I put on there).

 

always leave slot1 as your 'load optimized defaults' (basically what you are running now, your fail-safe settings that you know work) and use slots2-4 as your 'foolin around' slots.

 

I normally save once at about 230-ish FSB when i know for a fact its all running smooth and stable...that way when i hit 240+ and something goes wrong, I can start right out again at my last good overclock and go from there, instead of starting all the way back at defaults and working back up =)

 

 

as for Unreal engine...yeah...there's not many games that can stress a system as well as cranked up Unreal engine games can. Unreal engine is very sensitive to not-so-stable overclocks too, so if you can play for long periods with everything cranked then you got a good stable 3d overclock (not just video card, but your entire overclock including cpu, ram, and 3d subsystem).

 

I used to build mods for Unreal Tournament, and my lil brother Ben (member here) still works for Epic/other devs doing freelance, so I always get to stay on top of the Unreal world and all the good info on what makes the engine tick heh.

 

 

 

anyway...one more VERY important thing Rick...always tell me (us) temps in °C, not °F...we live in USA and live and breath °F but when it comes to computer temps...always always use Centigrade...we know what good Centrigrade (and bad!) ranges are and its too much for my small mind to try and convert from °F to °C.

 

btw, if you want to use the ° symbol, just hold alt while pressing 0176 (alt+0176) and blammo you get the ° symbol...sorta useless but i like the lil symbol heh.

 

 

now...with Unreal...you are going to be able to crank up the fps a bit more when you get into that overclock I described...but Unreal is a bit funny in the way that you wont go from 40-93FPS up to something crazy like 90-140fps with just some overclocking on what you got (your gpu will limit you on that a bit more than your cpu)

 

but

 

you SHOULD (and it has been a while since i installed an Unreal2003/2004 engine game) viably boost it up to about 50-120FPS.

 

doesnt sound like much...but 50fps when mofos are shooting and dying and tossing smoke grenades around you in a big forest mountain...is 10 better than 40. I wouldn't be surprised to see you do right at 60FPS with your settings once you get up to that 250FSB and some great video card overclocking. No guarantees of course...but if you get it stable up there then i can guarantee you that the framerate will reflect it. Just don't go expecting to get 200fps or anything lol.

 

 

so see...told you i wasnt mad and that i didn't hold grudges.

 

a happy customer is one that might buy another board and tell others to buy boards...something I don't really care either way about other than i get to keep my job and hopefully make someone else happy (or very angry which has been known to happen lol)

[Wetchaser]

41.5°C is cpu this morning after about 5 hrs at 100% load. System is 32°C were ever winbond is getting that temp from?

[Angry_Games]

there's a sensor chip on the board that reports ambient (case/system) temps.

 

lookin good so far.

[Wetchaser]

"Intel Application Accelerator" Do i already have it from xp pro install, and/or do i want it? If so anything i should know before installing it?

[Angry_Games]

only to be used with ICH5R RAID (you are using the HP372N RAID so not needed)

[Wetchaser]

roger