OT: PC Gaming Hardware Thread

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Sun Sep 02, 2007 3:16 pm

dbdynsty25 wrote:Paging files are worthless to me when you've got 2gb of ram...It's only really necessary when you are running smaller amounts of ram and you need to allocate ram. XP does a pretty good job of that automatically when you've got large amounts of ram.

That's what I thought, thanks. DB I got another question for you regarding SATA assignments. The short of the story is the problem just fixed itself and I don't know why, maybe you do.

I recently installed my new Gigabyte mobo. It has 4 SATA motherboard assignments:

SATAII0
SATAII1
SATAII4
SATAII5

I have to SATA 3.0 drives (250GB Western Digital and a 400GB Samsung)

I plugged my 250GB drive into SATAII0 (Port 0)
I plugged my 400GB drive into SATAII1 (Port 1)

-------------------------------------------------------------
When I boot my system BIOS reads IDE CH0 Master 250GB and IDE CH1 Master 400GB. That's fine because that's the order I want the smaller drive assigned as Drive C:

I booted off of my XP Home SP2 CD and it loads and I press enter to get to my drives list to partition and format. Problem #1 The screen says wait for about 1 minute before it changes and asked to press F8. Once I get to my partition screen i'm greeted with Problem #2 The drives are in the reverse order. My 400GB drive is listed first and the 250GB follows that. My only solution was to switch the SATA cables at the hard drives. When I did that my BIOS said the 400GB drive was now assigned to IDE CH0 Master and the 250GB drive was assigned to IDE CH1 Master. When I booted off of the CD again I had to wait another minute before I could press F8.

When I got to the partition screen the drives were listed in the order I wanted 250GB drive was my first selection and the 400GB followed. Still something was right because I had to wait a minute before I was asked to press F8.

I went back into my BIOS and noticed that the SATA controller was running in Legacy mode, so I changed that to Native Mode. I went ahead and changed the SATA cables back to the way they should be, even though I still wait a minute to press F8. Viola now my drives matched the proper order on the BIOS screen and the partition screen. Problem #3 When I created a partition for the 250GB drive it defaulted to drive c: and the 400GB drive to drive d: So now I go to format drive C: and I got a message asking do I want to format drive D:......huh !

----------------------------------------------------
Okay back to the BIOS and I changed my SATA drives to ACHI mode. When I rebooted I got the startup message that my XP Home SP2 CD does not support that mode. I knew that because it goes to my Dell notebook that doesn't support ACHI. What the hell I booted anyway. After pressing enter I instantly got the message no drives available press F3 to quit. Ok back to the BIOS, I disabled ACHI. I went to my BIOS main menu screen and selected Standard CMOS. No drives listed except my CD/DVD drives.

Cool no problem I did a IDE Auto-Detection even though my SATA drives would not reappear. I saved my settings and rebooted from my CD. I press enter after Windows loads and I instantly was asked to press F8 I no longer had to wait a minute. I go to my partition screen and my 250GB drive is listed first and my 400GB followed ! So everything is connected logically the way it should, my drives are listed in the correct order at the BIOS screen. They are correctly listed at the Windows Partition/Format screen and I no longer have to wait a minute to press F8.

DB, what the hell did I do to fix it? That was one weird ass problem, does any of that make sense to you?

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Sun Sep 02, 2007 3:56 pm

That issue must be a Gigabyte issue on their SATA controller. Mine does the same thing! I've got the DS3 board and I have to literally unplug my 500GB storage drive when I go to install a fresh OS. That's the only way I can get my 150gb Raptor to be the first logitcal drive, even though it is plugged into "0" and the 500gb is in "1". It's the lamest crap ever. I haven't been able to find a fix, but it's not that big of a deal to me. I'd rather spend the two min. unplugging the 500gb drive than to troubleshoot the BIOS issue.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Sun Sep 02, 2007 4:58 pm

DB, that fixed the problem.

I installed XP and afterwards I booted off the CD and everything's the way it should be. Next time you get the chance try my fix maybe you won't have to unplug your 500GB anymore.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:32 am

DB I bought another 2GB of G-Skill PC6400 memory on sale from newegg.com for $79.99 with free shipping. So now my system has 4GB total. In your opinion does XP or Vista take advantage of the 4GB? I've read that Vista and XP (32bit) only recognize 3.5GB's max.

Will I notice a performance boost going from 2-4GB's?

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:12 pm

You will not notice at all really. XP definitely won't because it can only use 2GB and Vista will use all 4, but there isn't any software that can utilize it. I believe Flight Sim X uses almost all 2GB, but that's about as close as you'll get.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:56 pm

Hey db, as I mentioned my memory which is PC6400 runs at 800mhz stock. PC8500 memory runs at 1066mhz which is basically overclocked PC6400. What mem timings would I use to overclock PC6400 to bring it up to PC8500?

My mem timings are 5-5-5-12 if that helps.

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 3:36 pm

I NEVER overclock ram anymore...I've burned up too many sticks in my lifetime. So you're on your own on that one.

drbaseball · Post by **drbaseball** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 5:41 pm

drbaseball wrote:
dbdynsty25 wrote:Yup, you'll be fine to drop a Core 2 Duo in that thing with a ASUS p5nsli mobo. No problem.

Just make sure you get a Core 2 Duo with a 1066fsb...the newer ones have the 1333fsb. Any of these models will work:

e6320 1.8 ghz
e6300 1.86 ghz
e6420 2.13 ghz
e6600 2.4 ghz (my processor of choice)
e6700 2.66 ghz

At $230 from Newegg...the e6600 can't be beat in my opinion.
That is indeed great news.

The more I think about it, however, the more ticked I get about the whole situation. I went back and looked at my spec sheet. It says: Intel Core Duo 3.2ghz. There is NOTHING about a "Pentium D."

Now I understand that the Pentium D uses two processors. Knowing what I know now, I think it is very misleading to list a Pentium D as a "Core Duo." I have the manual for the processor and it says "Intel Pentium D." There is NOTHING about it being a "Core Duo."

I've decided to go down there in the AM and raise a real stink. I figure if I have already decided to replace the thing on my own, what do I have to lose? At worst he will tell me to get lost, at best he would give me a $199.99 credit from the Pentium D toward a true Core Duo. I am also going to bring in a copy of New Egg's price for the e6600...just in case he thinks he can jack up the price beyond his normal markup.

I'll be there in the morning, and I'm bringing justice with me! (I live 15 minutes from Tombstone, AZ)

Thanks for reading the rant.

Update:

I spoke with the owner this afternoon. I think he really does believe that I would be better served with the Pentium D and was somewhat annoyed by the whole conversation. Nonetheless, he assured me that he wants me happy and satisfied and will put in the system whatever I request.

I asked for the e6600. It will be in on Monday and he will do the swap then. Total cost for the upgrade will be $80.

Needless to say, this ended far better than I originally anticipated. Thanks all for the advice.

JB

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 5:42 pm

Good to hear. And he's an idiot if he thinks the D is a better processor. LOL.

eman · Post by **eman** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 7:14 pm

I voted ignorant...

A lot of these shop owners get so inundated with day to day business that they lose touch of what is really happening in the industry.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 7:19 pm

I say it's a little of both. I remember about a two years back going into a couple of shops and asking questions because I was building a gaming rig. Within 5 minutes I left because it sounded like I knew more than they did. One shop even admitted they build systems for people who just want to use their PC for the internet and they weren't up on the latest processors and such.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 3:40 pm

DB or anyone who has knowledge of Outlook 2007. I need someone to help me setup Outlook 2007 email service using Yahoo Mail. I've read that it now requires a pay subscription and i've talked to others who say you don't.

eman · Post by **eman** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 10:58 pm

Rodster wrote:DB or anyone who has knowledge of Outlook 2007. I need someone to help me setup Outlook 2007 email service using Yahoo Mail. I've read that it now requires a pay subscription and i've talked to others who say you don't.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 415AATRfec

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Sat Sep 08, 2007 1:34 am

Obviously eman linked the right article...but I use Yahoo almost exclusively and to use POP Access to Yahoo, you need the 20 dollar a year PLUS account.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Sat Sep 08, 2007 12:14 pm

dbdynsty25 wrote:Obviously eman linked the right article...but I use Yahoo almost exclusively and to use POP Access to Yahoo, you need the 20 dollar a year PLUS account.

Thanks db and eman.

One quirk i'm already running into using the C2Duo's is that certain games like NR2003 runs at 4-7 FPS. What I have to do is bring up task manager then right click on NR2003, then select CPU Infinity, then disable CPU 1. I have to do this everytime I run NR2003. Is their a way that I can automate this so I don't have to deselect CPU 1 for games that don't support dual processors?

drbaseball · Post by **drbaseball** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:17 pm

drbaseball wrote:
drbaseball wrote:
dbdynsty25 wrote:Yup, you'll be fine to drop a Core 2 Duo in that thing with a ASUS p5nsli mobo. No problem.

Just make sure you get a Core 2 Duo with a 1066fsb...the newer ones have the 1333fsb. Any of these models will work:

e6320 1.8 ghz
e6300 1.86 ghz
e6420 2.13 ghz
e6600 2.4 ghz (my processor of choice)
e6700 2.66 ghz

At $230 from Newegg...the e6600 can't be beat in my opinion.
That is indeed great news.

The more I think about it, however, the more ticked I get about the whole situation. I went back and looked at my spec sheet. It says: Intel Core Duo 3.2ghz. There is NOTHING about a "Pentium D."

Now I understand that the Pentium D uses two processors. Knowing what I know now, I think it is very misleading to list a Pentium D as a "Core Duo." I have the manual for the processor and it says "Intel Pentium D." There is NOTHING about it being a "Core Duo."

I've decided to go down there in the AM and raise a real stink. I figure if I have already decided to replace the thing on my own, what do I have to lose? At worst he will tell me to get lost, at best he would give me a $199.99 credit from the Pentium D toward a true Core Duo. I am also going to bring in a copy of New Egg's price for the e6600...just in case he thinks he can jack up the price beyond his normal markup.

I'll be there in the morning, and I'm bringing justice with me! (I live 15 minutes from Tombstone, AZ)

Thanks for reading the rant.
Update:

I spoke with the owner this afternoon. I think he really does believe that I would be better served with the Pentium D and was somewhat annoyed by the whole conversation. Nonetheless, he assured me that he wants me happy and satisfied and will put in the system whatever I request.

I asked for the e6600. It will be in on Monday and he will do the swap then. Total cost for the upgrade will be $80.

Needless to say, this ended far better than I originally anticipated. Thanks all for the advice.

JB

We did the swap today, no problems.

The first thing I did when I got home was run 3dmark. My score went from 7100 to 8100. I expected better, but I felt that any increase would prove that I went with the better processor.

But because I was thinking it would be even better, I have run the test 2x since then. I scored in the low 6000's each time. With the Pentium D I had one of the fastest system with my configurations (per 3dmark). With the core duo, however, I now have one of the slowest. Any thoughts?

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 11:41 pm

That's why those test scores are meaningless...and why I stay away from them. They don't take entire systems into account, they are normally focused on one or two core functions and everything else, including gaming performance, really isn't tested. The only thing that counts is FPS when you're playing a game. If it's smooth at the res you want to run, who the hell cares what 3d mark says?

I haven't run any of those tests in YEARS. I upgrade my system and if it plays games better than my previous, I'm happy.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:13 am

I agree with db. I never have paid attention to 3d Mark scores and don't care. What's important is how the games play on my rig and not some abstract numbers to tell me how good my system really is.

What i'm really concerned about is whether I can play GTR2 with 36 cars on the track, full details and run the game at a solid 60FPS. That's more important than what any 3D Mark score tells me.

drbaseball · Post by **drbaseball** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:01 pm

dbdynsty25 wrote:That's why those test scores are meaningless...and why I stay away from them. They don't take entire systems into account, they are normally focused on one or two core functions and everything else, including gaming performance, really isn't tested. The only thing that counts is FPS when you're playing a game. If it's smooth at the res you want to run, who the hell cares what 3d mark says?

I haven't run any of those tests in YEARS. I upgrade my system and if it plays games better than my previous, I'm happy.

I really wasn't concerned about the actual score (8100) but rather the drop in scores (6400 than 6100). I am actually starting to wonder if I have a heat issue.

My wife, without knowing anything specific about the situation, immediately noticed that the new computer is suddenly quieter. Is it possible the CPU fan isn't working after the swap?

I ran 3dmark this morning after having the machine shutdown all night. I was back up to 8400 this time. I just checked my CPU temperature and it is running at 77c. Is that too hot?

All of this is on top of the fact that our swamp cooler just quit (its an Arizona thing). As such, our house is currently running at a "cool" 86 degrees.

On the bright side I am noticing an improvement in game performance. Zero hicups in Bioshock now. Also, I ran a performance test in F.E.A.R. with 0% below 25fps. That was a first.

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 1:52 am

The Core 2 Duos run a little hotter than the pentium Ds...they also have a different fan system, where they are variable speed. You can enable or disable this in the bios. If you think it's running too hot, just keep the fan on normally. You will get more noise though. I keep my house at 80 degrees during the summer (and even warmer upstairs), so I know the ambient temp shouldn't have much to do with it. 77C is much hotter than 86F. Obviously if it's cooler in the house the temp of the CPU will go down, but it's not killing your system.

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 10:21 am

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/09/12/ ... dual_core/

Heh...apparently there is a new low-end Pentium Dual Core out that can be overclocked like mad. Too bad it has only 1/4 or 1/2 of the L2 Cache...but still, it's rather impressive getting a 1.8ghz chip up to 3.2 on stock cooling. of course Intel has crippled it...but still...impressive anyway.

drbaseball · Post by **drbaseball** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 6:28 pm

drbaseball wrote:
dbdynsty25 wrote:That's why those test scores are meaningless...and why I stay away from them. They don't take entire systems into account, they are normally focused on one or two core functions and everything else, including gaming performance, really isn't tested. The only thing that counts is FPS when you're playing a game. If it's smooth at the res you want to run, who the hell cares what 3d mark says?

I haven't run any of those tests in YEARS. I upgrade my system and if it plays games better than my previous, I'm happy.
I really wasn't concerned about the actual score (8100) but rather the drop in scores (6400 than 6100). I am actually starting to wonder if I have a heat issue.

My wife, without knowing anything specific about the situation, immediately noticed that the new computer is suddenly quieter. Is it possible the CPU fan isn't working after the swap?

I ran 3dmark this morning after having the machine shutdown all night. I was back up to 8400 this time. I just checked my CPU temperature and it is running at 77c. Is that too hot?

All of this is on top of the fact that our swamp cooler just quit (its an Arizona thing). As such, our house is currently running at a "cool" 86 degrees.

On the bright side I am noticing an improvement in game performance. Zero hicups in Bioshock now. Also, I ran a performance test in F.E.A.R. with 0% below 25fps. That was a first.

I think I have really bad news. The temperature on my CPU climbed to 85c. Meanwhile, my 3dmark2006 scored dropped to 4400. I know the score shouldn't matter...but a 50% drop?

After 5 days of this I finally checked the case. None of the case fans were spinning. I have taken it to the shop for them to check.

Do you think permanent damage has been done to the system? Everything seems stable, but the continuous drop in 3dmark score has me very concerned. In addition, Madden is now dropping into the 30s when it was running at a flat 60 fps.

Help!

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 6:41 pm

Don't know without looking at it myself. The case fans are usually plugged in to either the power supply or the motherboard, so check those connections first. 85 isn't that hot for your CPU...so don't worry about that. I doubt anything is ruined. Just gotta get the cooling situation figured out.

drbaseball · Post by **drbaseball** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 6:47 pm

dbdynsty25 wrote:Don't know without looking at it myself. The case fans are usually plugged in to either the power supply or the motherboard, so check those connections first. 85 isn't that hot for your CPU...so don't worry about that. I doubt anything is ruined. Just gotta get the cooling situation figured out.

The shop is checking the fans and cup temp now.

Would heat explain the drop in performance? Assuming we get the cooling under control, should things return to normal?

If the computer appears to be running fine, but is not nearly as fast as it should be due to being exposed to overheating, then I would imagine it is going to be VERY difficult to get the shop to acknowledge this.

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 6:50 pm

Yes, performance will suffer with extreme heat. If you've got no case fans, you've just got component fans (CPU, VIDEO) that are just cranking hot air into the system. With no exhaust, you're just recycling hot air. Not a recipe for high performance.