Overclocking made simple

We have the technology... hey wait... no we don't! Lies!

snog if ya borrow that zboard make sure the regular oldskool keyset is slotted in that's the only one that's recognized by the bios and dos (yes dos can be handy for certain things ) just note that the smaller spacebar doesn't work without a driver nor any of the other fancy things they did with the zboard (same counts for the G15, can't say correctly since i don't own one)

And snog think ya need a way bigger case to fit a 2000MM fan haha

The G15 functions without drivers, but you cannot program the macro keys without the software. As a matter of fact, the G15 doesn't have a driver, or I have never installed it.

Nope, standard HID keyboard device.

That standard Z-board keyset is sitting right next to my desk

well rahja the basic functions should be covered by the windows driver the zboar d is no exception to this except when you slot in another keyset that's why you need the standard one slotted in for the bios to recognize the delete key

and couldn't say to much about the G15 since i don't own one

Bah.

First: Why don't they standardise front-panel connections into a block, instead of those annoying little 2-socket connectors? I had to mutilate the PWR LED (I think it was) which had 3 sockets instead of the 2 on the board - the drastic scissor action was as recommended by eVGA in the manual! Of course, they're all in the wrong way round - the power light is on when the PC is off and vice versa.

Second: You know that tinny plate on the back connectors - I think it's there to minimise RF interference or something? The one on the Tt Armor+ doesn't match with a single socket on my mobo. Gonna have to mutilate that too.

Third: SATA leads break when you rest a very large case on them.

Finally (and I bet you could see this coming) - it doesn't post. No beep, no video, nothing.

It lights up blue nicely - might end up using it as mood lighting

It's now 4.09am, I'm tired and this did not make for an enjoyable birthday.

Snograt is 45 and depressed

So your computer is fried or something? Happy b-day by the way. I've been sick and throwing up lately so things aren't good for me either.

You probably have some of the connectors on backwards, so it won't boot until you fix that. A cast change shouldn't randomly destroy your components unless you exposed them to static or magnetics (static being more likely than magnetic fields...)

Happy bday, and don't you hate it when you get something new and expect it to work right away and it never does? It rarely ever does work right out of the box!

Thanks for the moral support, guys. I admit that I was hoping that the reversed connections was the problem. Why are those connections so ambiguous? Reminds me of my early system-building days when the floppy cable was ALWAYS put in the wrong way round.

That RF shield thing bugs me - it is SO wrong. Am I confused and RF shields are unique to motherboards? Like, the one on my old Stacker actually came with the mobo and should be re-used on the new case? It was a pre-build, so I wasn't involved in that stage of the build and I haven't self-built since my last Athlon rig - 1800XP iirc.

Oh, and another thing - tool-free PCI card installation? You can keep it. There's no way a double-height card is going to be held in place by a pair of fiddly plastic clips. Screws do the job just fine. The tool-free drive installation on the other hand is great.

I'm off down Maplins to get a new SATA cable - I'll keep you guys posted, as usual

RF shields are unique to the mobo, so... use the one that comes with the mobo, not the one that comes with the case.

Rip out the tool-free PCI card module, you're better off without it.

No joy - reversed all the connectors, replaced knackered SATA cable, no boot. Onboard LED reads P1 (maybe 1d ^^)

Time to sit down and scour the mobo manual - maybe one of those dozens of power connectors isn't plugged in. I did notice there's a connector marked AUX PEX (page 62 of the humungous manual here - http://www.evga.com/support/manuals/122-CK-NF68.pdf) It's apparently to provide direct power supply to the graphics cards - but as they both have connections direct from the PSU I assumed it was irrelevant.

Oops - "The PWR3 connector is an auxiliary power connection for graphics cards. This connection is only required for SLI configrations when running (2) cards at the same time." Better hook that up, then. Wouldn't think that would prevent POSTing, though.

Sigh - fiddle fiddle fiddle

Addendum: I think I have to face facts - I killed it. I've tried to boot with minimal bits attached; no VGA, no sound, no HDD, only 1 stick of RAM. Same result - lights, fans, nothing else.

Kaput processor? This sodding rig's cost me over 3.5 grand to set up ($7G to you lot) - I hate to think how much money it's going to cost to get running again. More than I've got, that's for sure

Hmm I don't think it's the CPU.. I'm still leaning towards the mobo, I have fried one in transition, but then again.. putting in the mother board is about the only thing I am un-easy doing, not really good with it.

Getting somewhere - I think one of the DIMM sockets is buggered. DIMM 0 of course, that's my sort of luck.

If there's any memory inserted into DIMM 0, the symptoms are as above. If I place memory in slots 1 and 3 only, it gets to POST. Need to install the rest of the gubbins and find out where I stand.

What's the betting it won't like 1 and 3 being populated before 0 and 2? Looks like I need to spend another wad on a new mobo.

This - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...132-CK-NF78-A1)
- if I really have to :/ (Any other opinions, incidentally? I am of the opinion that eVGA are great, despite my woes)

No? RMA it. Defective craftsmanship isn't your fault. Never, ever buy new parts if the stuff you JUST BOUGHT fails. If it is past the coverage of overclockers' limited RMA warranty, then go through the manufacturers. Don't spend hard earned money on something fully covered by warranties.

Especially with eVGA! They are the nicest people on the planet, they will definitely work with you on this issue. Just give them a phone call!

Can't RMA it. The company I bought my computer from went bust (remember Evesham, all you Brits?). The system was a pre-built.

The mobo wasn't new, it's around 17 months old. I think the blame lies squarely on my shoulders.

What would cause a DIMM socket to fail, anyway? Cooking a DIMM itself I can understand, but the socket?

I'm lucky that my investigative maintenance went that one step further than I planned. I was booting with nothing installed except the processor and memory - one stick in the one slot that was failing. It was only desperation that caused me to try booting with NO memory onboard!

I wasn't expecting the BIOS to be happy with 1 and 3 populated, but it seems to be quite happily running it in EPP High Performance.

Another thing - my rig has two DVD drives (seemed like a good idea at the time). After the rebuild, one of them continuously ticked over - the drive light remained on and it was like it was continuously seeking.

What would cause that? Something simple like master/slave jumpers wrongly placed?

Are they EIDE or SATA? Typically, the control module on the drive is dead if it continuously seeks like that. Good thing is, you can get new SATA DVDRW drives really cheap these days. And yes, the 780i motherboard is great, eVGA is a wonderful company, you can't go wrong. If you have the money, go for it. Pick up a cheap SATA interface DVDRW/RAM drive, and you should be set. If it is EIDE, check the jumpers, but I would replace EIDE drives with the newer SATA counterparts anyways. Not like 20 or 25 euros will break the bank (31-35 dollars here in USA on newegg)

Yeah I guess the only thing I didn't like about the 780i is that it blows hot air from the NB right onto your top video card, that's lovely.

I'd say go with SATA as well, most mother boards only have one IDE plug now, which means you can't really have many hard drives/disk drives that are IDE.

Sounds good to me. They're EIDE - so that means I can get rid of the one remaining ribbon cable! Gawd, I've always hated those things.

If I do go for a new 780i, I better make damn sure I don't ruin it during installation. Let's face it; my 680i and all components were fine before my rebuild. I must have done something - shorted the mobo, fried something with static - things didn't just break by themselves :/

Also, I'm going to make sure I register the mobo with eVGA this time - when I got this rig, I'd never heard of their step-up program.

Sigh - got two sticks of 2GB Ballistix Tracer sitting on my desk. Such a shame.

Oh and "Euros?" I'm British. We told Europe exactly where they could stick their Euros. ^^

Yeah I know how you feel, when I moved my computer from my office back into my room, simple transfer.. one stick of ram died in transition, don't ask me how.. I really don't know.

Speaking of registering parts... I haven't done that, should go do that soon.

We love EVGA. We love Nvidia.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qU528rSCDJY

Oh on another topic, I fried some RAM the other day. When someone tells you putting your DDR2 at 2.35v isn't a good idea, you better believe them when they say it isn't a good idea, even though the box clearly says 2.35v.

Wow.. lol, that was pretty funny. I'm assuming that was a fried mother board in the first place, no sense in wasting 250$, unless they were rich.

Hmm yeah in his comments he said it was RMA #5, I'd have smashed it with a hammer too.

Admael, that depends on what the RAM is rated for. My EPP Crucial Ballistix is rated at 2.2v, and it is totally stable at that level (780i eVGA board).

eVGA has amazing customer support, and they are always willing to work with you. Don't hate nVidia just because of some users experiences. There is a reason why the 790i board holds the 3DMark record. It may run very hot (which in the coming year, you very well may see become a non issue), but they are a high performance part.

Here's another thing that's been bugging me:

Have a look at http://www.evga.com/products/prodlist.asp?switch=5 and look at the 4 different 680i mobos. What is the difference? The very cheapest is lacking one PCI slot, but I see nothing else. The prices range from $190 for the LT T1 version, all the way up to a whopping $500 for the "Black Pearl" version. What's THAT all about? The specs are identical

Chipset production lines, BIOS features, etc etc. I wasn't involved with the 6 series chipsets AT ALL, so really, I am taking a stab in the dark without looking it up.

Oh they're rated for 2.2-2.35. But when I got them I found it strange that DDR2 would even offer 2.35v, so I called them. And they even said warranty covers 2.35v, but when I goto their support forums (yeah a bit too late for that) they said 2.35v fries the modules. -- I've sent the RAM back, and they'll take it.

EVGA does have amazing customer support. I only use EVGA.

You should have seen the amazing pressure they have been taking because of Nvidia's faulty chipset. (check out "780i video corruption" it occurs in 680i, 750i, 780i, and 790i as well, but 780i are greatly affected.)

It took months before Nvidia acknowledged the problem, and even now just released a solution.

I won't even list the problem with Nvidia and their boards in its entirety, but X-Fi sound cards? If you have one, don't get a Nvidia board cuz it'll squeal if you're SLi'ing.

SLi Memory is a problem, not even SLi memory! Like in my previous video link suggests, there is a huge problem with using 4GB on those boards.

MCP/SPP overheating? Yeah you'll have to replace the thermal compound on their heatsinks because they really just glob it on (maybe it's EVGA that globs it on)

Nvidia can hold benchmarks, but benchmarks != real world applications/uses.

A1 is the retail set, comes with all those nice things, SATA cables, SLI bridge, this and that. T1 is for system builders, doesn't come with much stuff, basically the bare board and cables here and there. T1 is the version you'll get if you RMA your board.

Black Pearl runs on water. Is the reference obvious?

Meh, the MCP and SPP can run extremely hot. I wouldn't worry too much about those, they are beasts when it comes to how much they can handle (thanks to great engineering from 3 of my fellow employees who came up with an amazing railed pipeline to transfer gate system)

SLi memory is just EPP RAM? What is the big deal? If you are referring to the BIOS issues, those have been resolved in the newest BIOS releases. X-Fi cards are junk anyways, and that isn't nVidia's fault, it is the rotten company named Creative. I hope they go bust soon, they are totally useless and a bunch of lazy, pompous jerks. When I was at Cebit this year, the creative engineers were the biggest bunch of jackasses I think I met, that and one complete tard from Samsung. yucK! Personally, we were all hoping the Creative guys would get kidnapped and held ransom by enraged Vista users when they left the building.

The p04 bios fixed the nvldlkm error it has been out for awhile now.
I was 1 of the lucky people who fought the nvldlkm error for months, it was more irritating than being covered in fleas.

While I do agree that creative is a shady company, I use a x-fi fatality extreme gamer and run sli and have never squealed not 1 time.

The prob wasn't with the "globs" of TIM it was with the pads around the chips, some were in between the chip and the heat sink and that $%&&# heat sink assembly is NOT flat or straight. Couple that with a cruddy little fan and the heat problems are nasty.

4 gigs is a problem? odd I run 8

system specs until water parts are installed as follows:

case: antec p182

power supply:
(yes it isn't very good but works till i get a tagan) rosewill 750 watt extreme

mobo: evga 780i w/ pad mod, straightened heatsink and a replaced nb fan upgraded to 60mm, P04 bios

ram: 8 gigs ocz sli branded ddr2 5-4-4-10 1t underclocked to 700mhz(this made timings faster than stock 5-4-4-12 2t)

cpu: q6600 oc to 3.15Ghz rock solid stable 24/7 cooled by a modded ac freezer(needed to trim a few fins for the 60 mm nb fan)

sc: x-fi fatality extreme gamer

vid: 2 8800gt in sli no oc

vista ultimate 64

no vdroop mod (that voids warranties)

a few sata WD hard drives (1 raptor and 1 caviar) 1.5 gb sec and an ide lite-on dvd burner with light scribe

only temps that ever see +50c is the gpu and mcp/spp (vid card and the nb/sb).
this is all on air, it is loud, mostly the vid card stock fans but the whole unit is a leaf blower.

I will be moving out of my antec case and adding in a custom water cooling solution(2 seperate systems 1 for sb, vid cards and hard drives? the other for cpu, nb and voltage regulators) this is for temps, to further oc and sweet silence . If need be I can post voltages as well.

I just ran 3dmark06 and scored 15,871
http://service.futuremark.com/home.a...9555906 1D79B , this was with configurations above with areo running and a bunch of other crud. BTW the max 3dmark score is held with radeon cards(i assume 4 in crossfire) on an asus mobo, I hope the new nvidia cards will smoke them. I do not claim to have all the answers but I do learn from my mistakes and others.

Yeah they fixed the error with the P05 BIOS, the P04 didn't fix anything, only some CPU option that no one knows about or even cares.

I totally agree with you with the X-Fi cards, creative is absolute garbage, I want to trade up my X-Fi for an Asus Xonar, and get rid of all these "problems" that creative claims they have with vista and nvidia and, just general drivers.

Splitting the power led shouldn't be a big deal. Sure would be easier if everyone just sticked with 1 standard but splitting it shouldn't be a huge issue. Make sure you connect all wires correctly.

You have to use the shield that came with your mobo.

No duh...

Again make sure all wires are connected correctly.

Thanks, Kal - but you're about a page too late

780i on order...

grats on the mobo snog.

step 1:
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=391088

step 2:
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=222688

step 3:
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=200420

just in case you have not read these already.before you begin any of the above I will suggest:
have a sheet of glass handy or a known flat surface, a tube of ceramique TIM, a 60mm blue LED fan, 12 small nylon zip ties(sometimes called wire ties), a couple of needle nose pliers and an exacto knife or a razor blade a lot of cotton balls and paper towels, rubbing alcohol, and a garbage can. q-tips are optional but help full.

take off the heatsink, clean it and remove the foam squares. DO NOT THROW AWAY OR WRECK THE FOAM SQUARES. take the heat sink and place it on you flat surface, can you wiggle it? of coarse you can. straighten by gently bending it untill all the wiggle is gone, by hand.(this may take awhile) set heat sink aside.

now clean of the nb/sb and voltage regulators, eew what a mess. Next take your new blue glowy led fan and using the nylon zip ties attach it to the heatsink (the zip ties attach to each other through the fins.) this is were the pliers come in handy. btw the stinking ties like to break so slow and steady wins.

now to the foam squares, cut the corners of them out, into squares, if the corners got buggered use a middle chunk. place the new little squares on the motherboard just off the corners of the chips the heat sink will be covering.

now apply the ceramique to the tops of the chips, an old playing card is helpful here. get someone to help you at this point, trust me on this unless you have a mobo rack. they will hold up the mobo and you will attach the heatsink assembly with the springy screws. BE CAREFUL, DO NOT LET THE SCREWDRIVER SLIP AND SCRATCH YOUR NEW MOBO! start at the heat sink with the fan then the sb and lastly the voltage regulators. lay mobo down, plug in fan, and have a beer maybe even 2 (in an earlier post snog admitted to being of age).

now everything is all set up. install the mobo, minimal components and post the bugger. If you have the opportunity to download the p05 bios I would, as you will want that installed before the os and the rest of the hardware. now finish the hardware off and install your os.

of course feel free to NOT do any of the above and then have to rip the comp apart multiple times until you eventually do the above, took me about 4 tries and many, many beers to get it right, but I had little to no help or advice.

NOTHING ABOVE, THAT I HAVE SUGGESTED, WILL VOID THE WARRANTY.

good luck and happy late b-day.

You lost me after "take off the heatsink"

Céramique - fun stuff. It's like trying to spread hot chewing gum. Ended up using the old "blob in the middle and squidge" method.

I tell you, using an HSF like the Tuniq tower 120 doesn't leave you a lot of room to manoeuvre. On my 680i it's one hell of a job inserting the 8 pin CPU power lead. Similarly, with the two 8800GTXs with an X-Fi sandwiched in between - the firewire header is in there!

Damn the constraints of the ATX standard. I want GOOD mobos that fill my case and leave room to fiddle around.

On the back of the new 780i mobo there will be some screws holding the heat sink on, unscrew them this will remove the heat sink. lol

I just spent the last 2 hours upgrading to the P05 bios it should have been called the P.O.S. bios. I have included the link for the P04 here: http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=301252

After my upgrade the 4 dimms, my 8gigs of ram were "not supported"
and the cpu ran about 5c hotter all around. I would try the p04 bios before the P.O.S bios. P03 was responsible for nvldlkm errors and game crashes. I have since recovered from the P.O.S. bios. There really should be a warning on those bios updates.

about the atx standard well, its all in the case, you chose the 1 you did, can't blame the standard for that, also Thank goodness we have a standard it would be a bigger mess without it.

Meh, my Armor+ is a monolith - I could fit 1 and a half ATX boards in there. That's worrying info about the BIOSes :O

Crappy pics:

So you're using 780i now?

That doesn't look like a Tuniq T-120. And update your BIOS to P05 asap.

Also, your setup might look incredibly similar to mine now, since I have 2 SLi cards with an X-Fi sandwiched in between as well.

I RMA'ed my RAM today, they gladly took it back. I went to Best Buy to "borrow" some valueRAM. I feel so tainted putting such garbage in my power... feeling like she'll hate me for it.

When I get my RAM back, I'll return the valueRAM.

PS: I have the same power switchboard as you! It's beige as well, looks ugly and clashes with my black monitor & case, so I threw it out. (not lit.)

EDIT: Oh I see the Tuniq T-120 now, I was looking at the glowing blob of color expecting that to be where the CPU is... rofl go me.

No, that's my somewhat buggered 680i still.

That switchboard (Belkin Surgemaster) was a godsend with a 19" CRT on top of it. Somewhat pointless with a svelte 22" TFT - must get a hidden anti-surge thingie one day.

Angus and Brian on case to prove that it's big enough to host AC/DC concert.

Hmm case looks neat.

So the ram slots on your board are basically messed up in short? I kind of got lost in all the chat back there. Haven't really been posting much lately, getting kind of bored.

Yes, slot 0 is FUBAR. Not only will memory in that slot not work, the PC will not boot at all if anything is present in that slot.

Sounds like a good old-fashioned short circuit to me.

yep sounds the same to me had it happen to 2 old P4 MSI boards both the same problem (altho the last one in the end failed to recognize the cpu -_- (cpu is still working till today in an old asus board i found))