Fast Hot Rod

When measuring the voltage on your rig, I find it easier to just stick my ground lead (black) from my meter into a spare Molex connector. (Black wire) It makes 'poking around' with one lead much easier. :cool: Also, it really doesn't matter which side you measure the inductor on when looking at the CPU voltage. The voltage is DC, so the inductor will have (within reason) the same voltage on either side of it. I would measure on the right side (away from the caps) as it is much easier to put a meter lead there. To get really technical about it, the inductors are there to help reduce changes in current. It reduces fluctuations in the current flow by using the magnetic field created by the current in the wire and the magnetic field in the metal ring, or core of the inductor. Anytime the current changes, the magnetic field offers an equal but opposite reaction to that change, smoothing out the current flow. This helps prevent spikes on the line... which is very common for 'switching' devices like PC's. Hope this helps... (and I didn't burn too many brain cells in doing it!) Regards, Mark

I would bet this is your problem. There isn't a need to increase the AGP bus that high... it doesn't give you more performance that I am aware of. Drop it back to 67-69 and recheck it. Good luck. Mark

I upgraded from NF2 (cough... cough... ASUS... cough...) and the increase was... well, interesting. My new rig has a 3800+ X2, whereas I had a 2700+ T-Bird in the NF2 rig. The CPU difference is quite noticable when running multiple apps, and has a huge impact during gameplay. I haven't had a need to overclock my rig, but I can hit 240 fsb/2400 MHZ no problem. When I upgraded, I went from 1 gig to 2 gigs of XMS ram. That made a huge gain in BF2 during map loading, as I was able to load all the resources into RAM. (I run about 70-75% ram use during gameplay.) I wonder what difference it would have made in my NF2 rig... I might have to reassemble it and try it out. I already had a 400 gig RAID-0 array, so there wasn't much difference (if any at all) there. The old setup was bulletproof and easy to setup. The DFI MB solution made me work hard to get it operational... and I have to use a seperate drive with my boot info for some reason. (I think it has to do with the drivers being loaded to recognize the RAID array... but I haven't investigated that in depth as I had another drive I could use for that purpose.) I was pulling my hair out on that one... but the good folks here helped me get it up and running. I stuck with my BFG 6800GT OC for the same reasons as you. I had paid about four bills for it and wasn't about to upgrade just yet. I will say that the DFI MB is quite a bit more 'finicky' about hardware and setup than my NF2 board. Choose RAM and PSU wisely using the guides here, and you shouldn't have too much of a problem. Ultimately, I would say it was a good upgrade until I am ready to go PCI-E. Gook luck with your decision! Mark

The black wires are both ground, or common. It shouldn't matter which ones are which, as they should all reference back to the same point. If you want more information regarding the pins, Google 'IEEE ATX Specification" for more information. You can find the PSU pinout info on page 20 here: http://www.formfactors.org/developer%5Cspecs%5Catx2_2.pdf Hope this helps. Mark

If you are looking for some TT LED fans, check out the TT A2018's. I have three of them in my case now. (Intake, HSF, Exhaust.) I got them at the Egg for $13 each. You can set them to run full speed all the time, or set them at whatever speed you want using the enclosed speed control knob. It also has a thermal sensor for automatic control, but I haven't played with it much so I can't tell you how well it works. Overall I have to say that they are decent fans and keep my rig cool. No complaints. As the using dual stand-offs... it's electrically safe to do it, but as another poster pointed out: you will have some problems with the alignment on the back panel. If you need more space behind the MB, why not cut some slots where the lighting will go? If you don't remove too much material, you should be fine. You might consider using a strip of LED's under the MB instead. I'm sure Radio Shack has a ton of those lying around. :cool: Mark

Wish no more, brother: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16811999122 I took some measurements tonight using my dB meter. With no computers running at all, my room measured out at 57 dB, C weighted, 1 meter from my main PC. (The ceiling fan was on low, and I heard the attic fan running... for what it's worth.) When I fired up the PC and benched 3D-Mark 2003 with two monitors running, I recorded 62 dB, C weighted, 1 meter from my main PC. Obviously that includes my PSU fan, chipset fan, GPU fan, et-al. Get a few of these fans while you can. I run them at max settings and my cooling is good to go. Using the included fan controller, it can be real quiet until max cooling is needed. Hope this helps. Mark

I am currently using three Thermaltake A2018 fans: http://www.thermaltake.com/product/DCfan/L...eye/blueeye.asp They claim to run between 1300~2800 RPM, pull 38~93 CFM, and generate 17~46.5 dBA each. At low speed they are very quiet. At full speed they aren't too noisy... but then again my hearing isn't the best. I can use my dB meter to get a read on the actual dB if ya want. I have one on the front for an intake, one on the HSF, and one on the rear for exhaust. My PSU also has a 120mm exhaust, but I don't know how much it contributes to my cooling overall. (It's thermal activated.) At no-load I run at about 33 C CPU/System, 35 C on the PWMIC, and 53 C on my GPU. While benching with 3DMark2003, I run about 37 C CPU/PWMIC, 36 C System, and 63 C on the GPU. (My computer room is about 23 C ambient.) Hope this helps. Mark

Where in the world do you measure VCore on the LanParty NF3 Ultra-D? I'd love to do some meter-lead poking to see what my actual voltages on my CPU are at this moment! Thanks in advance! Mark

Good point. Something else to consider: His TT TR2-500 Watt PSU has two 12 VDC rails, good for 14 and 15 amps respectively. The loads will need to be 'balanced' across the 12 volt rails. He could effectively be feeding all 'high power' items from one rail, and have next to nothing on the other rail... and experience system instability due to overloading of the first rail. What sucks about that is: TT does not identify which 12 VDC wires are fed from which rail. I wondered if TT had one rail feeding the MB, and the other rail feeding the remaining cables for the HD's, DVD/CD-ROM's, fans, video card, et-al... but I don't have an internal schematic for the PSU so I am at a loss. Maybe I need to tear mine apart to see how that sucker works?!?! :cool: Does a load imbalance make the TT a bad PSU? I don't know. Maybe it's a design flaw. Maybe they use bad components when designing/building their PSU's vs. other companies like OCZ, Antec, etc... So far the TT TR2-500 Watt PSU has been working fine for me. Then again, maybe I am just a lucky bastage? :confused: Mark

I would disable CPU Thermal Throttling. If you have enough cooling, you should not need this. Also, as I said in my earlier post: Go into Advanced Chipset Features AGP Aperature Size (MB): 256M Go into Genie BIOS Setting CPU Overclock in MHZ: 200 Hammer Fid control: x10 (or whatever your max multiplier is... do not leave in auto.) AGP Overclock in Mhz: 67 LDT/FSB Frequency Ratio: 4x (3x isn't bad either...) AMD K8 Cool and Quiet: Disable You can set LDT/FSB to 4x or 3x without a performance hit. You will absolutely NEED to set it there when you start OC'ing your rig. I was mistaken regarding the Hammer Fid default... it's startup not auto. Either way, set it to the max multi for now... and lower it later during your OC adventures. Good luck. Mark

I will. Thanks for the links! Mark

I feel your pain, bro. The DFI Lanparty NF3 Ultra D has been the hardest board I have ever worked with. Hopefully we can get this working... Let's start from scratch. Shutdown your rig, unplug it from the wall, jumper the CMOS to clear it, then pull the battery. Disconnect your SATA drives... either unplug the power connector to them, or the SATA connector... whichever is easier for you. Go grab a beer if you are old enough... if not, just kick back for a while until the CMOS is dead. 15-20 minutes should do. Now, re-install the CMOS battery and put the jumper back to normal. LEAVE THE SATA DRIVES DISCONNECTED! They have a tendency to screw up your BIOS settings while making changes... it's best to just leave them disconnected for now. Plug your rig in and boot it up. Go into BIOS. DO NOT TRY TO SET YOUR DATE AND TIME. Leave it alone... we can fix it in Windows when we get it running. Load Fail-Safe defaults. Save. Load Fail-Safe defaults again. Save and exit. (Reboot) Boot and go into Bios again. Load Optimized Defaults. Save. Load Optimized Defaults again. Save and exit. (Reboot) Boot and go into BIOS. Go into Advanced BIOS Features. First boot device: Removable Second boot device: CD-ROM Third Boot Device: Hard Disk Boot other device: disabled OS Select for DRAM > 64MB: Non-OS2 Delay for HDD (Secs): 3 Go into Advanced Chipset Features AGP Aperature Size (MB): 256M Go into Integrated Peripherals IDE Function Setup: (Enable all of the devices in this area) Init Display First: AGP OnChip USB: V1.1 & V2.0 USB Memory Type: Base Memory (640K) USB KB/Storage Support: Disabled (Known to cause problems...) USB Mouse Support: Disabled (Better safe than sorry...) Go into Genie BIOS Setting DRAM Configuration: (Press Enter) Max Memclock: 200Mhz 1T/2T Memory Timing: 2T CAS# latency (Tcl): 2 RAS# to CAS# Delay (Trcd): 2T Min RAS# active time (Tras): 8T Row precharge Time (Trp): 2T (Leave the rest at AUTO for now) Go into Genie BIOS Setting CPU Overclock in MHZ: 200 Hammer Fid control: x10 (or whatever your max multiplier is... do not leave in auto.) AGP Overclock in Mhz: 67 LDT/FSB Frequency Ratio: 4x (3x isn't bad either...) AMD K8 Cool and Quiet: Disable CPU VID Control: (This board undervolts pretty bad. Search the forum on this subject. Set it about 0.05 volts more than stock... maybe even 0.1 or 0.15 depending on your cooling and chip requirements.) Chipset Voltage Control: 1.65V Memory Voltage Control: 2.6V (The board will 0.1 over-volt here... so 2.6 setting is really a 2.7 volt setting.) AGP Voltage Control: 1.5V Save and exit setup. If she boots, then let it continue to try to load until you get a message that says that it can't find a boot disk. Shut down your system and reconnect your SATA drives. Boot and go into your BIOS again. Go into Advanced BIOS Features Hard Disk Boot Priority: (Press Enter) Set your boot drive here... Save and exit. Boot into Windows. If it doesn't boot, we have to go back to square one. (No boot = bad ram timings.) Set it up as before, but set your RAM to these settings: Max Memclock: 200Mhz 1T/2T Memory Timing: 2T CAS# latency (Tcl): 3 RAS# to CAS# Delay (Trcd): 3T Min RAS# active time (Tras): 8T Row precharge Time (Trp): 3T (Leave the rest at AUTO for now) You might try setting yout RAM voltage a bit higher or lower... some like more voltage, while others can't handle more than 2.6 and be stable. (I run mine at a setting of 2.7 volts, which reports back at 2.79 volts.) That should do it. If you can't get it to boot, or can't get it to pass MemTest after this, your RAM is suspect. Let me know if this helps. Best regards. Mark p.s. Yes, you can replace the chipset HSF with an Evercool VC-RE. Here is mine: Be careful of the components... I have to file the HSF to clear a component on the board. I broke my HSF clip trying to put mine on. It's tight by the caps. (I tried to bend the clip. Spring steel snaps when bent too hard. ) I made a custom metal band to hold it, and re-used the spring loaded clips as shown in the picture.

Let me see if I understand your question... Are you asking if you can use your tower's front panel audio connectors with your Audigy 4? If so, you might want to look at July 2006 edition of Maximum PC. On page 39 there is a tech-tip on how to make up a cable that allows you to connect your front panel audio connectors to an X-FI I don't know if it would be the same for an Audigy 4, but I'm thinking that it's possible. This guy did it for the Audigy 2 no problem: http://audigy2zshowto.blogspot.com/ Hope this helps. Mark

I have the same questions. I can understand that voltage regulation is very important. You don't want a PSU that lets your output voltage jump around on ya. Pretty simple concept. I also understand that you need a PSU that has the ability to drive your loads... in other words, has a high output current capability. Power Factor Correction is cute if you are concerned about your computer/PSU causing poor phase angles between your input voltage/current. (The closer to unity power factor, the better it is on the supply side of things.) I don't see how this would effect the PSU output however. Where it gets a little fuzzy is when we start talking about how the constant switching of circuits can create ripple on the DC bus, causing problems for reguation capabilities in lesser quality PSU's. Wouldn't filter capacitors help to eliminate that? Sorry to hijack your thread... but I am really curious about this sort of stuff. Mark

I have that Thermaltake PSU and it hasn't been a problem for me so far. Maybe I have been lucky...? Just my two cents. Mark