Cold_Gambler Posted June 29, 2011 Share Posted June 29, 2011 I thought you guys might be curious as to how my new build went, so here goes. Components: Asus P8P67 Pro i5 2500k AMD 6970 2 X 4 GB G-Skill RipJaws DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24 Win7 First off, I was surprised at how well this build went together. All the components went together very easily (partly because the CM 690 case I have is roomy and has all those easy latches so minimal use of a screwdriver is necessary- only for the mobo) Win7 loaded up very quickly and recognized all the peripherals without problem (I still have to DL and install TrackIR), in most instances identifying precisely what peripheral was added. There was a little hitch I haven't entirely resolved. On my prior build I had a 74 GB Raptor as my boot drive; it is SATA 1.5. I plugged it into one of the 3GB SATA ports. For whatever reason it isn't being recognized in the BIOS. This isn't a major problem as the new 450GB velociraptor has been partiitioned into two drives (boot + games and "everything else") so the system runs fine with plenty of spare capacity. At the moment it would appear that I may have put it into the wrong SATA port and that I need to either move it or get into the Marvell utility and tweak some settings. Not a high priority but best to resolve the issue; at the very least it will eliminate one step in troubleshooting any potential future problems... A more annoying problem occurred after I got my second monitor (an 18" ViewSonic VG800) attached and working as extended desktop with CCC. I had forgotten that my main monitor (the 25.5" VX2640W) went into sleep mode. Apparently there's a bug in many pre-2008 ViewSonic monitors where if a DVI and a D-SUB monitor are both attached and go into sleep mode, the monitor's software for the DVI post doesn't come out of sleep mode. I had this problem on my previous rig and eventually the ViewSonic Tech support was able to walk me through a solution. I tried the solution which I remembered fairly well but it didn't work this time due to an unfortunate second problem which arose, unbeknowst to me. After I had the rig up and running (prior to going multimonitor), I switched the TPU switch of the motherboard to on. TPU is supposed to be used with Asus' auto-overclocking function. Perhaps because I didn't have the ASUS software suite installed at the time this resulted in some "flaky" behaviour. On starting the rig up, it would fire up then power down and then power up again normally. I ignored this and proceeded on. After I had the VX2640W lock up on me, I had to shut the rig off by powering off. When I turned the machine back on, I couldn't get the VX or the VG going and I put this down to the ViewSonic bug. I spent about 2 hours trying to get them to work with the ViewSonic solution but got nowhere. I tried removing one DDR stick, I swapped vid cards, I tried every permutation of monitor and resetting, I reverted the TPU switch back to off. No go for anything. ViewSonic support gave me their standard list of troubleshooting (check cables, yada yada) but none of those worked. They finally gave me an RMA #. I decided to try something new. I borrowed my neighbour's ancient CRT to see what would happen. That didn't show anything either... not even the bios post. Clearly something was wrong at a very basic level. So I decided to try clearing the CMOS. Well, that did it! Once I swapped the jumper back and forth I got a nice Bios Post and everything was peachy. Just to confirm that the bios posting problem was due to the TPU switch I turned off the machine, moved the TPU switch and powered up. The 1st time it did it "fake first start" flakiness but started. The second time I powered up it didn't post the Bios at all and I had to clear the CMOS again to get it to post again. A-HA. So the problem was initially ViewSonic, but after that the TPU switch was to blame. Very frustrating, but all good in the end. The TPU switch isn't necessary for overclocking as that can still be done manually (haven't tried it yet) so I'm not too concerned. I haven't got much loaded yet, but it looks like it's going to be a solid build now. Cheers all, Angus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T_O_A_D Posted June 29, 2011 Share Posted June 29, 2011 Good news, Got any pics of it yet? I enjoy looking at others handy work of tying and routing all the stuff in neat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum FoolTrottel Posted June 29, 2011 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted June 29, 2011 Flaky? Hm. I can relate to that. Somehow. I've recently built a new system quite like yours: Asus P8P67 LE, 8 GB, GTX 580. I haven't touched that TPU switch. But, my system would boot very very slowly, the Bios part of it. Started happening after I had connected my USB devices. And, once in Bios, the cursor/pointer/menu selector went scrolling continuously, as if the down error was pressed constantly, or the mouse was moved downwards. Turned out it was one of my game controller devices, one that used to be a game pad, but of that I now only use its electronics for some 12 buttons. No switches/pots are connected to the X/Y/Z axis of the controller. And that is something this Bios cannot handle. It recognizes it as some kind of USB controller and accepts its constant inputs... Old bios never did that, but that one was much older, and did not have mouse control. I've solved it by only connecting that specific controller whenever I do need it. And have it disconnected at boot. Am already working on a Bodnar-board to replace that weird gamepad thing... They still manage to make stuff more 'intelligent' and thus more complex. More of a challenge for us to troubleshoot issues... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold_Gambler Posted June 29, 2011 Author Share Posted June 29, 2011 Good news, Got any pics of it yet? I enjoy looking at others handy work of tying and routing all the stuff in neat. LOL! It's a rat's nest in there! Because the PSU in the CM690 is at the bottom of the case the power cable to the CPU is just 2 inches too shot, so I had to route it over the 6970. Because the GPU is so huge, the additional 2 PCI USB 3.0 cable can't go around it, so it's routed over the 6970 as well... The 6970 has a 6-prong power connector AND an 8-prong power connector (I think my electricity meter must turn twice as fast as soon as I start gaming). My PSU didn't have an extra 8-pronger so I had to use the solution that came with the 6970 (use two rails and plug them both into a connector for an 8-pronger. That's a whopping mess hanging off the GPU as well! Doesn't really matter in the end I don't think. The case is big and I have 3 large case fans. CPU temp sits around 37 C on the stock intel fan which is fine; I'll see how things go once I start OCing and if I need an aftermarket CPU heatsink. Once I'm sure it's all in for the long haul (the 74GB raptor connector might have to be moved) I'll tie off the GPU power cables as they're really pretty ugly. I haven't got IL2 loaded up yet. RoF is but I haven't tried it yet (no time / too lazy to reconfigure everything) but Empire Total War is maxed out, smooth as butter and the battles load up in less than half the time so I'm very impressed on that score. I'll get around to finding out how much the shipping will be on the different donation parts soon... but I'm leaving town on vacation on Thursday so I'm afraid Arthur and you may have to wait a little longer for your parts... Angus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T_O_A_D Posted June 29, 2011 Share Posted June 29, 2011 No worries, would love to see the mess I got lucky I had purchased a new PSU last year, so it was cabled long enough to manage the bottom placement. An older machine I rescued from works trash and added older parts to make a Online TV. http://dangerdogz.co...h__1#entry91155 The one I plan on making a game Server again, is in pieces, but once running, I've been looking into apps to remote desktop it, via my phone. That way I can fix it from anywhere my last attempt required me to be at a PC to mess with it, And sometimes due to being away it was down a few days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Sid Posted June 29, 2011 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted June 29, 2011 Well done Angus...I like to see the reports of you brave self-build guys. But, my system would boot very very slowly, the Bios part of it. Started happening after I had connected my USB devices. And, once in Bios, the cursor/pointer/menu selector went scrolling continuously, as if the down error was pressed constantly, or the mouse was moved downwards. Turned out it was one of my game controller devices, one that used to be a game pad, but of that I now only use its electronics for some 12 buttons. No switches/pots are connected to the X/Y/Z axis of the controller. And that is something this Bios cannot handle. It recognizes it as some kind of USB controller and accepts its constant inputs... Old bios never did that, but that one was much older, and did not have mouse control. I've solved it by only connecting that specific controller whenever I do need it. And have it disconnected at boot. Am already working on a Bodnar-board to replace that weird gamepad thing... FT, my Belkin N52te game controller did that to my system. I had it set up beautifully for World of Tanks but In the end I got fed up with the effects and the constant plugging in and unplugging when the issues occurred. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold_Gambler Posted July 5, 2011 Author Share Posted July 5, 2011 Well, I've got RoF up and running and it looks stunning! Just gorgeous with all the bells and whistles running and smmmmmmmmmmooooooooth as butter.... It was great before but it's a real feast for the eyeballs. I got an easy OC to 4.3 on stock Intel cooler with temps showing 47 C shortly after closing out of an extended RoF session (though I suspect they peaked higher ingame as I noticed that the temperature was dropping off surprisingly fast once I'd gone back to the desktop. I haven't bothered OC'ing the graphics card as there just doesn't seem to be a need to do so Also, figured out the last of the double-start flakiness: I googled around and it's a bit of a common problem with this board once the TPU switch has been thrown. The solution that has worked for me was to disable the PLL voltage thingymabob in the bios. I haven't timed it, but it feels like I get to the desktop in about 30 seconds which is about half to one-third the time it took with the old components.... Happy is I Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum FoolTrottel Posted July 5, 2011 1. DDz Quorum Share Posted July 5, 2011 Good Job! And thanks a bunch for that PPL disable thingy tip, I just realised my system did the same thing! Switched PPL to disabled, and yes, it boots normal now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold_Gambler Posted July 5, 2011 Author Share Posted July 5, 2011 Good Job! And thanks a bunch for that PPL disable thingy tip, I just realised my system did the same thing! Switched PPL to disabled, and yes, it boots normal now! Glad that worked for you too, FT I'm going to tackle the 74 GB Raptor issue next. If I can't get it to work quickly, I'm not going to kill myself trying. It'd be nice to get it functioning but the 450GB Velociraptor more than takes care of my storage needs, I would mostly like to get the old Raptor working because I hate to have an "old" but perfectly functional component collect dust when I could use it. Something else I've been meaning to mention: the velociraptor seems to get flak in reviews and forums for being a "loud" drive. This has NOT been my experience. In fact, my whole build is much quieter than the old build. Maybe I just lucked out with a particularly solid unit. The loudest components are the DVD drive, on an intermittent basis, and a side chassis fan, on an continuous basis. The CPU, 6970 and VRaptors are very quiet (all on stock fan settings). I have not adjusted any of the fan settings so far, but once everything is ready to be closed up for the long term I am going to use the Asus utility to have the side chassis fan switch on only when a certain temp threshold is met (I haven't done it yet because it's rather tricky to plug that side fan's connection into the MoBo so while I'm taking the side panel on and off I'm not bothering to plug in that side fan). I don't particularly care if my case is loud or not (I usually wear headphones and I value performance over quiet and/or energy savings), but if anyone is considering a quiet build, my suggestion would be not to rule out the Velociraptor as a component based on it's alleged "noisiness". All in all, very happy with the build. Now all I need to do is convince my almost 6-yr-old son that Power Rangers: Super Legends is a boring game and not worth installing on the "new computer"! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JensenPark Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 I'm surprised you got this past your wife Angus. Did you hide it inside the casing the the old computer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold_Gambler Posted July 6, 2011 Author Share Posted July 6, 2011 I'm surprised you got this past your wife Angus. Did you hide it inside the casing the the old computer? I applied Conservative Party of Canada accounting techniques and told her it would cost only half of what it actually did. You'll note that I selected components that can be upgraded on the same mobo (the next Intel chip "Ivy Bridge" is supposed to be a 1155-pin chip and I'll be able to buy another 6970 with my slush-fund money and install it under cover of darkness). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JensenPark Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 ooh...I see some Liberal Pinko Commie is a still a tad bitter. If you are nice, I'll strike your name from the deportation list...but leave Dawn on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold_Gambler Posted July 8, 2011 Author Share Posted July 8, 2011 ooh...I see some Liberal Pinko Commie is a still a tad bitter. If you are nice, I'll strike your name from the deportation list...but leave Dawn on. Please add the children to the list. I've had it with them; they've had 6 and 3 years respectively to demonstrate that they would not impinge on my debonair bachelor behaviour and have failed miserably! I mean, it's been at least three days since I've been able to come home stinking drunk! Bringing back my swinging happy days is well worth my vote! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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