Why have I been so slow in posting lately..?

[XeroHouR]

Its all here, its all up, and its ALL ALIVE! Well almost. I've been secretly plotting and re-create my box for its final incarnation(5th). I present to you, Lazarous i5:

Abit NF7-s 2.0(lapped bridges, thanks Chris )
Corsair 3500c2 bh-5
seagate 8mbseek 120Gb HDD
GeForce 6800GT
IQYHA Mobile barton

"Squeeze" all this into a Cooler master Stacker case. But wait theres more:
Water cooled with:
Cathars Storm waterblock (CPU)
Polarflo NB watercooler
Swiftech MCW50+T(plus TEC )


Also packin an OCZ DDR Booster.

Its all up and going and should be good to go. I'm formatting my seagate now, because my 80gig maxtor(3 years old) looks like its gone short bus on me :-/. Hopefully I can get my data off of it(I can't download music here at school!)

My problem now before I can continue with all of the posts I'm going to put here(All reviews of the various things I got with pics when I get a cell for my g/f's digi cam), I am running a dual powersupply setup(one of the nice things about the stacker) with a 250W 18?A powersupply for the pelt. With the ddr booster in it, the computer won't turn on. To rig this up with 2 PSU's there is a powerconnector with 3 connectors, one is just the paperclip trick to turn the one on. I had them all in there, and turned it on, nothing but a quick flash of the LEDs. So I tried all combinations of postitions for the connectors, tried each PSU alone, and they wont turn on and stay on with the DDR booster in line. The DDR booster ALSO has a power connect which goes into the board, then 2 Molex's come off into the DDR booster, then pass into the mobo.

Anyone know what caused this? Maybe the rehostat on the booster was too high? I just through of this as I pulled it out. I read nf7s's won't boot if its too high, 3.6+ to my recolection, so if I had it up too high maybe it just wouldn't turn on?

reviews coming when I get winblows installed on this thing

[XeroHouR]

ok workin on it more, the hdd, the new seagate, was comin up funny some times. I plugged it into the other PSU and it worked. So after some rethinking and working I had to plug the pelt into my 430Antec, the mobo and the fans and video card too. The cathodes and 1 drive are on the 250W(unknown brand). I think maybe the DDR booster isn't working because it can't get enough power. Who woulda thought 680W isn't enough! I'm now RE-repartitioning and formatting my Seagate... hopefully I can sort this out so I can use the ddr booster, I was hoping to get to ~480 with my BH5's :-/ ideas on the order to set this up would be appreciated

[XeroHouR]

Ahh its slowly gettin resolved. I think that the hard drive is gettin underpowered or something because the formatting, installing and loading of windows takes forever....really. For a clean install on a new hdd this is way too slow. Anyone else agree?

[cadaveca]

either that, or it's a cpu issue...

[Daniel ~]

Best of luck either way.

[XeroHouR]

Alright its up and I'm gettin drivers. First thing I did was check my GPU temps. A bit warmer than I expected at 15oC idle, this could be because of my homecooked method of mounting it might not be the best. However there was signifigent gain here.

Stock cooling auto detecting overclock
415/1.1

Pelt cooled
436/1.3

I was able to make it accept 447 exactly and it wont take any higher. I'll start benching these when the updates are done and see what I get. I will later be trying the 1.4V flash for this card to maybe help that out too.

The ddr booster is out for now since the system wont turn on with it in there. I reworked the powerscheme in a few different ways and I think its goin fine now, maybe I'll just invest in one HUGE powersupply and hope everything works out . More and screenshots as this thing develops.

[XeroHouR]

Ok heres some benchies, unfortunatly i think i need to RMA my ddr booster, so I only have 2.9V to give my BH-5's which puts them at only 220.5(2-2-2-11). The proc is up at 2.646 at 38oC just after benching(1.93V).

I got the video card at 434/1.12gighz. Heres some new personal bests(huge didn't convert them :-/). Still got some room to work I'm sure too.

pics of the case comin prolly tomarrow after classes.

[XeroHouR]

ok this is gunna entertain some, so I thought I'd share this.

I finally got my OCZ DDR booster working.
Basically it just wouldn't turn on with the booster in it. After trying differnt combinations of powersupplies I pulled out the booster, just about to throw it into the "forsale" pile, I started unplugging the two molexs and I looked above them, on the PCB they printed what each wire was for. I read the lines, and then looked at the wires. Basically one said ground 5v+ 5v- ground and the other had 3 different colors then ground. The connectors are color coded yellow and blue(which is bad for color blind people as they are shades that come up on color blindness tests :P). On each slot on the booster there is a sticker(guess what two colors they are!).

So me being the do the obvious kind of guy I am when I initially did this I plugged the yellow plug into the slot with the yellow sticker on it, and the blue into the one with the blue sticker. Sounds good right? I DID pass kindergarten. Now looking at it heres where the plot twist comes in. The ground 5 5 ground cord was the opposite color from the sticker! This is when I looked on the bottom of the cords and saw L and R printed on the cords! So I turned the booster with the componets down and plugged the L into the left slot and the R into the right one, and guess what happend! IT WORKED!

Basically someone somewhere along the lines put these stickers on the wrong slots and almost had an RMA'ed DDR booster because of it! Human error is a result of too many human hands being involved.


Now as for results...I'm not seeing any gains as of right now unfortunatly, still working on it.

[Daniel ~]

If you have the time, a review of your experiences with this product would most likely help out a few of our members who are giving this their consideration.

[XeroHouR]

I gotta say I'm pretty disappointed with these results I'm getting. Even with the ddr booster and up from 2.9 to 3.4V I saw 0 mhz more from the ram/fsb. I think its the board too, since I have bh-5's(which could also be not to hot bh-5s). I tried 5 differnt 3rd party bioses(tictac and merlin) and they were all exactly the same clocks, and 3 or 4 were unstable and one even caused my mouse to disappear! I actually got 1mhz more getting the latest ABIT bios. My overclock on the CPU is actually worse on this board than my DFI rev. a! I'm not able to make it stable at anything over 2.68ish. My dfi did 2.74ish with 1.9V(maxed out). I can throw 2.2V at my same proc on this board and not budge it. And heres another contradictory thing, I AM getting more fsb out of this board than the dfi. Lanparty didn't like more than 205(.1V less though) and on this board at 2.9V(all the way to 3.4V) I can get 220 (222 is a bit touchy, but it works I think).

Overall I got a slightly improved score in aquamark and 3dmarks, but I also upped my GPU speeds. Anyone think they can solve some of this? Honestly I think its just the limit of what I have, but if you guys can think of anything I'm open. These "bad"(they aren't really though I know) results I'm considering gettin a Prescott =-O I think that might satisfy my needs, I'd still like to see what I can do here with this proc and board though.

[XeroHouR]

not as active as i'da thunked. I think I mighta gotten it to be a bit faster now. screen of my sandra marks and at speed. A little work reveals a bit of score. Look on the CPU one how close the Dhrystone ALU is to the P4e 1MB L2 4 gighz If only that were as true as it would seem.

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by XeroHouR

I can get 220 (222 is a bit touchy, but it works I think).

220 or so seems to be pretty typical for the NF7-S. You might be able to get some more by loosening your memory timings a bit; I don't know. I've never had any luck with loosening my memory timings, but I'm running low latency PC3200 to start with. You could also try bumping your chipset voltage. I've never had any luck with this, either, but it might make a difference with your BH-5s.

[Gizmo]

Oh yeah. I forgot to ask, but what turned out to be your initial problem with the NF7-S?

[Gizmo]

BTW, put a fan on the FETs next to the CPU, and you will probably get a few more MHz out of the CPU. When those FETs start to get too hot, the voltage regulation goes to pot and your overclock is lower.

[XeroHouR]

I dunno what the initial problem was with it lol. I just took it out and eventually refitted it and it turned on *eye roll* things are stupid like that . I tried putting everything way down and turning interface off and still can't get system to go past the ramcheck if I'm at or above 227. But at 225 it can and will go into windows, iffy stability. Even 2-2-2-11 for 220, but 3-3-3-13 doesn't even get me anything. I guess I'm pretty happy I hit 2780 bootable and useable, at 220. I just dont get why the Booster and more volts isn't rocking these bh5s...

I got the chipset voltage cranked. Thats one thing I do miss from the DFI board, is that extra .1V, I think it helps go a long way. Well, I'll keep playin with it and we'll see

[cadaveca]

Did you use wires for 200mhz fsb default? L-12mod?