Details on my Xmas Built PC

[RichPLS]

Asus A8R-MVP, current BIOS 4.02
Opteron 175 ~ 939-pin CPU
Thermaltake BigWaterSE
4x512MB Corsair Xpert Twinxp1024-3200xl (spd 2-2-2-5)
HiS X1800XT 512MB Video Card
2x74gig Raptor ~ RAID0 boot drive
2x250gig SATA2 WD SE16 ~ (data and scratch disk)
Plextor 716AL slot load 16xDVD burner
Antec True Power 550watt PSU
Lian Li PC-60plus Black Aluminum case
Lian Li TR-3B ~ 3.5” LCD fan control/thermometer
Dell 2405FPW ~ 24” LCD monitor

Computer is running great. Never figured out what went wrong with RAID 1 running on non-boot drive though.
I created the RAID0 and RAID1 within bios before install xp-sp2.
Then installed using F6 RAID drivers and formatted only C drive.
After installing XP I had to format RAID1 drive assign a letter.

Used it couple days, reinstalled OS same way, but did nothing to the RAID1.
After installation went to disk manager, and I could not assign a letter to RAID1 partition even though it showed up healthy and active?
Oh well, I even tried one drive in another XP PC, and it acted the same, could not assign drive letter, even though single drive (in other PC) showed up active and healthy, only option was reformat!
I posted this on Asus newsgroup and emailed Asus support, no reply from Asus....
So I ditched RAID 1 since it wasn’t helping security in this scenario, and I am using the two drives as just two disks, one for data, other for backup and swap file, while OS is on the RAID0 boot drive.

Fastest stable overclock I can reach is 2680; I seem to hit a brick wall at around 2700 MHz.
Whether I use 11x250 or 10x270 or even 10.5x260 it fails, but back down 5MHz and works pretty good, and it makes no difference at CAS 2.5 or 3, using 3, 3, 8, 3, around 2680 is my limit. Any tips?
But this system is quick and stable; I keep it at 2440 MHz (11x220 at 2.5, 2, 7, 3).

4,478 3DMarks06
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=82839

9,637 3DMarks05
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=1742014

 

[RichPLS]

I was trying to keep the two 512's I took from previous build.

 

[Vile]

Nice gfx card and monitor

 

[endyen]

Have you tried lowering your HTT multiplier to 4? It uses that multiplier and your base speed to determine the HTT speed.
At a base speed of 240, and a multiplier of 5, you would be trying to run your HTT @ 1200. That would be too fast. 4 times 240 would give 960, which would be fine.

 

[RichPLS]

Besides, it is not the RAM that is holding it back. I got 265 on this RAM, and know it will go further. This is at 2.8volts, but did not matter if i went to 2.95 volts.
The CPU is what seems to be the limit, since any way configured, the limit is just over 2700MHz.
I saw a review on an AnandTech Overclocking Article right around Xmas eve , where they used 2x512MB OCZ EL Platinum and 2x1024 and 4x512MB. They were crashing at a wall at 2700MHz also, using a DFI nForce4, X2-3800 and a 7800GTX.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

Dell 2405FPW ~ 24” LCD monitor

I'm so glad you went with that, unlike your original idea of 2*2005's. Now you can join the elite club of me, DH, and now you. And let's face it: That's the only reason you did it right?

 

[RichPLS]

Shhhh, don't want everybody jumping on the bandwagon.