vark

I learnt with my 8800GTS 320mb to use Rivatuner to O/C then once stable for a good while flash it in the BIOS using Nibitor and Nvflash. This time with my 8800GTS 512mb I decided to go hell for leather. So I did a quick test and then flashed the BIOS with the settings GPU 700mhz, Memory 2000mhz (ie 1000mhz) and Shader 1725mhz. Its a bog standard Point Of View edition (650mhz, 975mhz, 1625mhz) and those setting above are 100% stable. If I push the memory over 1000mhz it crashes. I was a bit scared of flashing the BIOS but it turned out quite good. I have had problems with RivaTuner 2.06 and drivers 169.25 and later as really 2.06 does not support them. Its getting a bit out of date too wonder whats going on there.

So far it has been great. With the 965P-DS3 I had before my 8800GTS 512mb that I bought seemed to struggle with some games which I thought was strange and now with the DQ6 it flies again. Possibly down to PCI 2.0. Only had it a week though. Not had the time to play about with the BIOS fully yet. I got it for £99(about $195) from Aria in the UK.

Custom PC magazine (www.custompc.co.uk) rated this a poor overclocker in a recent review. I was thinking of getting it but managed to get the DQ6 much cheaper.

Just thought I would throw my two penneth into the ring and say I like Gigabyte Boards, had a 965P-DS3 and now a X38-DQ6 and its the first motherboard I had that let me push my B3 Q6600 further than any others (inc DFI). Only had it about a week and it runs at 3.4ghz stable. Flashed it to the new F7 BIOS and that was fine. First board I have had that also let me push the B3 a bit without having to do the CMOS jumper shuffle.

Well I solved my pump noise problem. Bought an Apogee GT CPU block and some more tubing. Fixed this in, then bought some bluetack and got some sticky felt pads from my brother. Put the felt pad in the bottom of the case, then stuck a wad of bluetack on each foot and put it in. Still vibrated !!! It was quieter than before though but not "silent". So then I looked at the empty cardboard packet the bluetack came in. Suddenly had a bright idea. Covered the cardboard packet with the felt both sides, stuck it under the pump, still with bluetack on it, and guess what, no pump noise !! Now the loudest sound is my case fans.

Finally solved the error. It seems that Rivatuner 2.06 was the cause. Not conclusive really as I uninstalled it and tried a couple of other things at the same time but I think it could be that 2.06 is not compatible with 169.25 drivers and somehow installing these in the first place screwed things up.

It is doing 35c at the moment after being on for about 2 hours.

Thanks everyone, good tips there especially the one about the air. It is currently running in my PC at 35c on idle and thats in a warm room with central heating on so thats pretty good. (overclock to 3ghz) The big Typhoon it replaced ran at 43c idle. I've got a pretty good ventilated case with two 240mm fans (its a Xclio case bit of a monster). I replaced the fan supplied with a Noctua NF-S12 1200RPM 120mm Silent Case Fan as I had read the supplied one is a bit noisy. Seems to be doing okay. Its set to pull air through the radiator to the outside. Its situated at the only fan outlet so with the two big fans pushing air in (with one directly at the CPU area from the side) there is plenty of cool air for it to such through the rad. Before my case was pretty quiet, and it is still rather quiet although I am a bit surprised at how the noisy the pump is, I expected them to be silent. Now it sounds like a low hum of a hoover. I had problems filling the radiator as I misjudged it and it overflowed a bit. Also cutting the inlet tube was a bit of a problem but I got there in the end. As for the GPU I checked the Swiftech site again and noticed the pictures showing a GPU block attached too, and they were using the dual radiator attached to the outside so as you all say I guess I would need a double rad if I ever went down that route. Thanks once again for all the advice.

I did a bit more digging. I have a QUAD core and I`m using Vista 64 bit, which fully utilises all 4 cpu's methinks. So I started C&C3, went into task manager and set the affinity for cnc3game.dat to 1 CPU and also same for cnc3.exe. I also notice they have a *32 next to the process. Played game again and this time it crashed to the desktop without the Direct3d error. Wonder if it is simply C&C3 does not work properly with a 64bit OS ? Need to do more checking but I`m off out now so will have to wait....

Hello just bought my first water cooling kit, H20-120, yep for beginners present for myself for Christmas and I`m going to fit it tomorrow once I can find the darn elusive distilled water. I can see on the Swiftech site you can add the stealth GPU block for 8800 Cards but there does not seem to be any instructions or guide on how to do this. I've done a bit of googling and forum reading without much luck, can anyone point me in the right direction ? :confused:

Tried all that, took drivers back to 163.75, swapped memory out for different set. Removed last few windows updates. Done thorough search on google and other forums and no answer. Logged it with EA, no response, typical, searched Microsoft knowledgebase, nothing. Just keep slogging away I guess.

C&C3, Patch 1.9.

Hello In Command and Conquer 3 after about 5-10 minutes of play it crashes to the desktop with this error :- Direct3D error 0x0x8007000e (E_OUTOFMEMORY) 31 addresses unknown)(0): cnc3game.dat+36052 (unknown) etc etc I've googled it and there are a few pages about it, not just in C&C3 but in other games. Some say its EA's fault, some say its Nvidia's fault. Thing is I've not changed my setup or installed anything apart from a few games. If I play Crysis or Team Fortress 2 I can play these games for ages with no problems. Soldier of Fortune Payback plays too okay. I've no overheating problems, my Intel Q6600 is currently running at 30c idle and my graphics card 8800GTS 320mb has a Thermalright cooler and runs fine. I ran it through 3dMark06 and it produced the above error. I was on 169.09 drivers so I put the 169.25 drivers on and 3dMark06 is fine but C&C3 still crashes with the error. My Geil memory (800mhz) is not overclocked at the moment so it can't be that. I use Driver Cleaner and uninstall drivers before installing them too. Just wondering if my DirectX install is a bit screwed. Trouble is its not easy to sort this out, installing from MS site shows it won't update anything as its up to date. I`m a bit stumped. Any suggestions ? :confused:

Yes thats correct they have completely redesigned the board with better components. When you put the cards side by side there is definitely more on the Auzentech. I got this reply today too Dear Julian, Thank you for contacting Auzentech, Inc. We are reporting many issues to Creative continuously. Not only patch 1.1 but also new patchs will be available incessantly. We keep our website as up-to-date as possible, so please meke sure to stay informed of all the information posted. We appreciate your support. Sincerely,

I had a X-Fi Fatality. When my XP 32 bit install went west I had to reinstall Windows from scratch and as I had a legit XP Pro X64 I decided to try that plus due to having 4gb X64 would use all the memory (whereas XP 32 bit doesnt). Even though there were drivers for X64 with the Fatality the speaker levels were terrible and on the whole the driver was pants. Then I saw the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude and had heard that this was a reworked card with greatly improved drivers. Excellent ! So I got one from morecomputers.com for £115, bargain. Installed it today and installed the drivers from the CD. Using the Audio console tested the levels and the sounds were superb. Great I thought just what I wanted superb. Then I thought I had better put the patch on. Oh dear. I`m using Creative 5.1 speakers.I lost sound to the rear speakers altogether. Front left and right are really loud and the centre is quiet. Rear channels are then directed to front left and right and are really quiet. It looks like they really screwed up the patched drivers. Also with having 4gb games crash still with the patch installed although thats XP X64 can't vouch for Vista. Therefore I have logged a ticket with Auzentech support to see if I get a response. The only recourse I can think of is remove 2gb and use the drivers from the CD which I have done and so far all is okay. (I also noted over on Creatives forum that someone modified the Auzentech latest patch and installed it on a Creative X-Fi. The thread contains various degrees of success but on there too some people lost rear sound.) It looks like it could be a very very very good card, but it still has driver problems ! :sad: