E8500 (build #2)

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Proximon, I had a question. Do you think the finger method is a bad idea? I figured with a latex gloved finger I might be able to work the silver compound into those cracks between the pipes and the aluminum blocks, and then use a razor blade to level off.
 
That might be fine. I was a commercial painter for years so I tend to think that a hard surface such as a razor would force more product into a crack and allow less air. You just want to avoid trapped air in there.

Just remember that the goal is filled in cracks, but a minimal layer of TIM between the cooler and CPU. Less is better.
 
I'm having some issues with NewEgg (my order never shipped out, and it looks like there will be a delay shipping out a replacement...grrr). While I'm trying to work this out with NewEgg, I also wanted to have a backup plan. I think I can assemble a computer this weekend. I'm looking at MicroCenter as a possibility, but they don't have quite the same parts. Are these close enough? The price is a premium for perhaps a downgrade, but some computer is better than no computer :|

Gigabyte GA-EP45C-UD3R 775 ATX Motherboard ($140 after rebate)
OCZ Technology Titanium XTC Edition 4GB PC-6400 DDR2 Memory Kit (Two 2GB DDR2-800 Memory Modules) ($33 after rebate)
Intel Corporation Intel® Boxed Core 2 Duo Processor E8400 ($150)

I'm not sure what the difference is between motherboards, obviously the processor is a downgrade, but I might be able to compensate with a little OCing?

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

-Fred

EDIT Actually, the price is only a premium for the motherboard and maybe the cooler. The CPU is cheaper and the memory is about the same.
 
Is the only difference in the mother board (GA-EP45C-UD3R vs. GA-EP45-UD3R) that it supports DDR3 and has 2 fewer USB connectors? I can probably live with that. I didn't see the other mobo at microcenter.

Please help, I'm a desperate man! 😀
 
Glad to see someone getting almost the same setup as i do:

CPU: Intel E8400 rev E0
GPU: GeForce GTX 275 / Radeon HD4890
MoBo: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P (UD3R if not Radeon)
RAM: Corsair TWIN2X 8500C5 DDR2 4096MB CL5
DISPLAY: LG Flatron L227WT
CASE: Cooler Master 690
PSU: 650W Corsair / 620W Corsair (modular)
CPUcooling: Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB
DVD: LG DVD?RW GH22NP20 22x
other: Logitech UltraX Premium Keyboard
OS: Vista 64

But i cant decide about graphic card :cry:

What upgrades are you planing later on?


ps. Can someone tell me how much W corsair psu i need for future upgrade quad extreme + maybe graphic card change (also im planing to add external sound card, 4gb ram and sometimes plug in external hdd). There are calculators but for current setup one showed me 700W and other 350W -_-'
Sry for getting into your topic Fred 😀
 
There's strength in numbers 😀 I'm trying to avoid repeating my previous home-build experience where I went a bit "exotic" ...

The graphic card question is really tough. I'll I can say is WAIT! Both cards are spanking new, the GTX-275 is just coming into stock. The 4890 is attractively priced, but the prices will likely come down for the gtx-275. The features that distinguish the cards are ex 10.1 vs PhysX, but those are a draw (so few games take advantage of either of them). There may be fewer headaches with nVidia drivers, but you'll get better "bang for the buck" with ATi cards. I've heard good things about EVGA so that's tempting. Other than that, I'm also completely confused... For a while I was really tempted by the gtx 285, it seems to be the reference standard for the other cards, but the price is way high on that one.

For now I'm just moaning about EggHead. Royal mess up on their end with shipping out my order. It'll be almost 2 weeks if I wait, or I might cancel my order and buy everything at microcenter. They don't have the single-card mobo I list above, but they do have one of the ones you listed at a reasonable price:

GA-EP45-UD3P

...and that would commit me to the 4890 as you say, but I think crossfire is more stable on these setups (from what I've heard, you have to go I7 for a stable SLI system).

OTOH I noticed microcenter has a gtx-285 going for $295 after rebate. Almost low enough to think about 😛
 
Actually, how would you decide between these 3 mobos? These are what microcenter has:

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P 775 ATX Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR 775 ATX Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L 775 ATX Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-EP45C-UD3R 775 ATX Motherboard

The UD3P is I think the only one with 2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Graphics Slots - it supports CrossFireX. The GA-EP45-UD3LR looks very similar to the card I was originally going to get, but it's cheaper and has a lightly different configuration (one more PCI express x1 slot, one fewer PCI slot), it doesn't have any 1394 connectors, and no eSATAII connectors (if that matters). I'm confused between these.
 
The GA-EP45-UD3P is the top pick, because of build quality and stability in overclocking and general operation.

The GA-EP45C-UD3R is OK but the DDR3 functionality is useless. The GA-EP45-UD3R is about the same without the DDR3.

All three of those boards are pretty high quality. The UD3P (DDR2 version) is pretty much the top rated P45 board though.

The other two boards are decent picks, if the others aren't available or too expensive.
 
Thanks for the info! I had a bad shopping (shipping) experience with NewEgg, so I'm going to try my local microcenter. It turns out I can get everything for about the same price (more here less there). I have to "downgrade" to an E8400, but my super cooler should allow for some OC'ing (I hope :)). I upgraded the mobo, so I think it's a fair trade:

Dark Knight S1283V Heat-Pipe Direct Touch Air Cooling System - $60
Intel® Boxed Core 2 Duo Processor E8400 - $150
Titanium XTC Edition 4GB PC-6400 DDR2 Memory Kit (Two 2GB DDR2-800 Memory Modules) - $33 (after rebate)
GA-EP45-UD3P 775 ATX Motherboard - $125 (after rebate)

I don't have to pay shipping but I do have to pay taxes. The nice thing is that I can pick this stuff up tonight! :bounce:

I'm hoping RMA will be a bit easier through Microcenter if I have to return anything. We'll see how it goes.
 
Oh shoot, I should've waited for your response. I'll have to see how it goes with the OCZ. It's possible I could return it, I'm not sure.

The motherboard is awesome. I think I've got the cooler on right (I bought some OCZ Freeze). I haven't installed Vista-64 yet, but that's up next.
 
It all seems to be going according to plan. I ran memtest for a few hours and there were no errors (I can run it overnight next time). I'm installing Vista-64 as we type :) The next hurtle is video cards, and I'm trying to restrain myself as there's no real rush.

I'm a little unsure about how well I did the heat sinking. I have 3 fans in my case, two blow into the case, one of them is right in front of the CPU heat sink. I made it so the fan on the heatsink blows in the same direction into the fins (I'm not sure if this is right, but that's what happens when the Xigmatek logo faces outward). It's like having two fans, one right in front of the other, both blowing in the same direction. It doesn't seem quite right somehow, but I'm not sure what else I should do.

I'll see if I can replicate your overclocking
 
I think I might just be a frickin idiot 🙁

Audio was not working, and after trying to update the RealTek drivers, I decided that I should update the BIOS from F6 to F9b (I saw that listed for this board over at TweakTown). I created a 9Meg partition, put the F9b BIOS file on there, rebooted and hit the "END" button. qFlash launched but it seemed to be stuck. It wouldn't respond to any keys or anything.

So, I'm pretty sure qFlash was doing something with the BIOS, which I should have realized. But instead I did that one thing your not supposed to do in this case: I did a hard power down of the system. Ooog... Now the system won't post, it just power cycles on it's own 🙁

I realize I may have created a brick. I'm going to see if I can recover using the floppy drive (it was installed before this happened) following the guide over at TweakTown. I'm not sure what qFlash was trying to do. There was a menu there but I'm pretty sure I didn't select anything before the system froze...
 
Wow, false alarm! :ouch:

I did a bunch of fancy stuff under Linux to make a bootable disk with the flash utility on it. The floppy is an old one, but I ran several compares to make sure it was okay. However, it turns out that the system ignored my floppy and booted into Vista again. I must have put things into a funny state. I'm not sure what happened.

I don't trust qFlash now. And I certainly won't try to flash from Vista.

I'll have to see if I can do it from the little partition I made (make it bootable, put the autoexec.bat, FLASHSPI.EXE and bios file in there, tell the bios to boot from that partition, and reboot). Or maybe I'm scared straight and I'll just leave it alone for now...
 
Okay, I got my BIOS flashed to the latest, but audio is still not working to the front panel headphone jacks. I've seen a few articles with people trying to solve this problem, but the solution seems to be mysterious. I've downloaded drivers from Gigabyte and from RealTek. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Hey, thanks for the response, Proximon! The system is really pretty great, thanks for all the help here!

It turns out there's some sort of auto-detect setting for the headphone jack. I unchecked it and everything worked (the headphones weren't being detected). I can't seem to find the setting right now or I'd be more specific.

I've even got my old XP drive mounted and I'm porting stuff over from there. This is going to take some time, but it's really not too bad :)
 
One of my biggest fears was recovering e-mail and bookmarks/cookies. Getting all that back was extremely easy: I just moved the old profiles over (from \Application Data\ on the old XP drive, I had to rename the firefox one) and everything just works. Really great!

Now I have to deal with iTunes which is going to be a bit of pain.

One really boneheaded thing I did was to create an EFS folder in XP without saving the encryption keys somewhere. The data isn't essential, but if I can find a way to recover the keys it would be nice. I think I'm S.O.L. for that stuff though.
 
Okay, one strange thing with the audio. The Left-Right balance is way off. I'm pretty sure it's not the head phones (I've been using them for a long time, and they seem fine), but I'll check them when I get a chance. Not sure if this rings any bells for anyone though.
 
It's possible I did something to the jack or headphones while working on the computer, though this is the same case and pair of headphones I've been using with my last computer which didn't have the problem. Still, I'll check it out. I actually have another USB D/A if it's necessary, but I like being able to use the on board sound :)
 
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