My new PC

[Admiral Huddy]

Last week I was mainly building this beauty :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/hardhuddy/Misc%202007/PC4.jpg

Inside :

Q6600 (go) :)
Asus P5KC
4x1GB GeIL PC2-6400
Geforce 8800GTX (from previous build)
500GB SATA-II Samsung Spinpoint
250GB SATA-II WD
Liteon DVD RW
Artic Freezer 7
2 x scythe bays each have 120mm fans at front
1 x standard 120mm + 1 x90mm case fans at rear
Corsair 620w PSU
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Professional
Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP 24" widescreen LCD Flat Panel
Windows Vista-64 Ultimate
Porn stash! :evil:

all neatly tucked away :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/hardhuddy/Misc%202007/PC3.jpg


my desk looks much better :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/hardhuddy/Misc%202007/desk1.jpg


my lovely new 24" WS bad boy :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v16/hardhuddy/Misc%202007/desk2-1.jpg

Not got any benchmarks yet but all stable but it leave my old AMD X2 4400+ standing. I'm hoping to get this upto 3.2GHz within a few weeks..

build pics to follow

[Stan_Lite]

Nice spec dude :cool:

How'd you get on with the Vista drivers for the Fatal1ty with that Asus board? Any problems?

I had no joy with mine with my Asus P5N32-E SLI, couldn't get any decent sound at all just crackles and pops. Did some research and apparently some Asus boards (mine included :() don't like the Creative Vista drivers.

Hope you have more luck with your Q6600 G0 than me, I must have got the only duff overclocking one in the world - can't get it stable above 2.70GHz :'(

[Admiral Huddy]

This is a known problem as you know since the disappearance of the HAL. You would think that Creative would have come up with something by now.

It took me a whole eveing to get working. I just kept trying to install the drivers from creative download center but it seemed that Vista was off locating the drivers from it's own offsite database?? then it worked??

I found the the Alcemy utility works a treat.


What voltages were you using above 2.7Ghz? Did you change the FSB/RAM divider to syncronous? By default, I noticed from CPU-Z last night that it's set to asyncronous (2/3) this means at 300MHz your memory would become 450Mhz (900MHz effective). If you are using pc2-6400, then that's too ,much.. Sorry if you already know this.

[LeperousDust]

Wheres the water cooling Huddy, you have TONNES of room for a nice water cooled setup! :)

[LeperousDust]

//Edit: Ignore

[Admiral Huddy]

Wheres the water cooling Huddy, you have TONNES of room for a nice water cooled setup! :)

It's in my plans.. I've not installed a WC system as yet.. so I've asked Zirax to give me a hand. Once I've got the system past the 3GHz barrier then it's time to spend.. :D

[LeperousDust]

It really is a lot easier than people make out, it only gets tricky or difficult when you're running out of room. Water cooling my shuttle was bad for my blood pressure, but sooooooo quiet afterwards. I could stick clock it well even though i was using the (as silent as you get) Zalman Reserator! I definately recomend that to you for a begginers kit, but its still reasonable out the box but you'll never turn back after experiences true silence :p

[Stan_Lite]

This is a known problem as you know since the disappearance of the HAL. You would think that Creative would have come up with something by now.

It took me a whole eveing to get working. I just kept trying to install the drivers from creative download center but it seemed that Vista was off locating the drivers from it's own offsite database?? then it worked??

I found the the Alcemy utility works a treat.

I ****ed around with it for ages and never got it to work and got fed up in the end and bought a Trust card which worked fine - until I installed XP64 to dual boot it (with Vista 32bit). There were no 64 bit drivers for the Trust card so I had to buy yet another card which could work with Vista 32 bit and XP64 - ended up with an M-Audio card which works just dandy with both and is quite a good card.


What voltages were you using above 2.7Ghz? Did you change the FSB/RAM divider to syncronous? By default, I noticed from CPU-Z last night that it's set to asyncronous (2/3) this means at 300MHz your memory would become 450Mhz (900MHz effective). If you are using pc2-6400, then that's too ,much.. Sorry if you already know this.

I tried everything from stock up to about 1.6V and it wouldn't have it.
I set my RAM speed manually - I have pc2-8000 RAM (1000MHz) which I had running at 1066MHz with the B3 Q6600. I even set the RAM to 800MHz and slackened the timings just to make sure it wasn't the RAM at fault. I tried the B3 chip back in and it behaved exactly as before so it's definitely the g0 chip.

I'm going to try it in another board when I get home, see if that makes any difference.

[Will]

A fair few fans in there - how noisy is it? Looks neat though :cool: Was it the software install that took a week or the build itself?

[Admiral Huddy]

A fair few fans in there - how noisy is it? Looks neat though :cool: Was it the software install that took a week or the build itself?


I can't believe how silent it is :) The Sycth 120mm fans are superb and really make a difference.

It was sorting out the endless software problems as nothing seemed to work with Vista 64: Sound and printer drivers, benchmarking tools, etc.. Even the bloody Asus utlity failed to work tut tut. Must of them just needed patches or updates but it all takes time. I hindsight, what I sould have done was to find out and download all the stuff BEFORE the build.. ho hum!

I would like to run CPC benchmarks but the gimp test just freezes.. However, this is a known problem.

Orthas runs ok but I'm not sure how I can get this running on all four cores?

[Stan_Lite]

Orthas runs ok but I'm not sure how I can get this running on all four cores?

Make two separate directories with 1 copy of Orthos in each, open the application from each folder but don't start yet. Open task manager and find both Orthos entries under processes. Right click on each and select set affinity. Make sure one has 1&2 only ticked and the other has 3&4 only ticked. Close task manager and start both Orthos' running - et voila :)

[Admiral Huddy]

Your are a star :) I had four instances of it running on one core.. Needless to say, I had to hit the reset button :)

Have you had CPC Benchmarks running on Vista64?

[Stan_Lite]

Your are a star :) I had four instances of it running on one core.. Needless to say, I had to hit the reset button :)

You're welcome :)

Have you had CPC Benchmarks running on Vista64?

Not yet, only on Vista 32bit - worked fine on that. Worked fine on XP64 but I'll try it with Vista 64 when I get back.

[Admiral Huddy]

Cheers Mate..



Ok, now spec me a watercooling system for this:

[Zirax]

Watercooling, now you are talking my language. Yes I am a sad git and I watercooled my machine. Excessive, yes but I have a two year old machine running at 1900*1200 at high settings still.

What case is it that you have there? How would you feel if I told you to take all the innards out and start drilling holes in the case? It looks midi size which is going to be a tad fun to fit your watercooling in there. What is possible is to build a rad box and stand the machine on the box.

Really you are looking at a 120.3 PA setup with fans. Which is 44cm long, 13cm wide, and 12cm tall with the "silent standoff". Another word of warning is that it will take a long time to install water cooling and get a case setup correctly. Standard Laing DDC ultra or D5 pump, your choice of GFX and CPU blocks. One thing to note is to get a gfx block that you can re-use (so not a full face block). Set aside £2-300 but remember that a lot of bits only need to be bought once.

[LeperousDust]

I would say after a shuttle build he's got oodles of room in there zirax :) About the graphics card good idea, but what if he wants to cool memory too? I don't think it would take that long to install if you go about it logically, just fit a few blocks where heatsinks should be, bold a rad on somewhere sensible, and a res (not really needed in my books) and throw a pump with some room somewhere, tube it, bobs your mothers brother....

[Admiral Huddy]

It's a full tower Matt. Slightly wider than most too. That's a GTX in there so you can see just by that the amount of room I have.

I'd like to fit CPU and GPU cooling for now. I'm not sure about the Chipsets and memory yet. The chipset had a large heat pipe cooling the VRMs. Taking this off might be tricky.

Making holes isn't something I'd want to do but if I have to, then it's not a problem. I'm not keen on having a sepearte cooling tower either. I have kids with little fingers around :)

Can you spec a purchase list of items I'd need?

[Zirax]

I would say after a shuttle build he's got oodles of room in there zirax :) About the graphics card good idea, but what if he wants to cool memory too? I don't think it would take that long to install if you go about it logically, just fit a few blocks where heatsinks should be, bold a rad on somewhere sensible, and a res (not really needed in my books) and throw a pump with some room somewhere, tube it, bobs your mothers brother....

Good points, gah shuttle watercooling would be a nightmare. I would just have a slow turning fan over the gfx memory in the future. Thats not to say that the full face coolers are not good, I have an EK block and its excellent. This will depend on if he wants to spend 60-80 on a block each time he buys a new gfx card.

Agreed on the res point, and make sure you have a drainage point sorted.

Paul, i'll knock something together either over the course of the day or when I get back. Just to check, as a full tower does that have space for a second psu?

[Mark]

Unless that desk is extra high then are you sure that's a full tower? I have a pair of CM Stackers and they come a lot closer to the bottom of the desk than that does. :huh: :)

[LeperousDust]

Huddy you probably won't need a chipset cooling block, unless the chipset is noisy? Not sure about these new motherboards, the chipset heatsinks are bigger than my old CPU heatsinks now days =/

I'd possibly look into a full face cooler as more and more graphics cards are coming with full face coolers as standard ready for water cooling now days too, so you don't have to worry about upgrading. That way you get a lot of extra performance out of the graphics card (via memory and gpu tweaking). I assume youre doing this for overclocking, my main concern when it comes to watercooling is not of this. It's replacing every fan in my case with something quiet. So i never did cool my memory, and if you're aiming for silence rather than bleeding edge overclocking, i'd still suggest the reserator. I doubt your kids would screw it up, worst they could do is unplug the pipes to the reserator as thats the only connection. At the couplings have a valve on them so you can unplug the pipes without it just empting water everywhere. Don't do it while the PC is on mind ;).

I still managed to overclock with the reserator, moreso than i could with air too but not as much as some hard cord watercooling systems granted. Difference was, you didn't know if my PC was on or off... PSU was the only fan/moving part generating . THAT is how computing *should* be! :D

[Admiral Huddy]

Unless that desk is extra high then are you sure that's a full tower? I have a pair of CM Stackers and they come a lot closer to the bottom of the desk than that does. :huh: :)

Tower is 530 x 220 x 560 mm (H*W*D) - is that a full tower..

This is a picture of the it against the midi tower I had..

http://www.huddysworld.co.uk/Pictures/hardware/oldandnewcase.jpg

[Zirax]

Thats about the height of my chieftec dragon midi case. My cheiftec full tower is about ~66cm tall.

Now I know that in cases it has been shown that two PA160's outperform a 120.3, but i'll leave that upto Paul. Here is a rough guide. I need to re-educate myself on the hottest CPU coolers, but this will be close.

EK-FC8800 8800 GTX ~£52

Swiftech Storm G4 ~ £56 -- I always liked the RBX for maximum flow rate
Thermochill 120.3 - £57
Thermochill performance shroud £12 (removes fan deadspot)
Barbs for Rad 1/2" *2 - £4
Laing DDC ULTRA with Plexi - £61 or D5 vario for £58
Swiftech Micro res - £17
Tygon tubing £2 per foot OR Dangerden at £1 a foot. Depends on if you are a brand snob. Tygon will hold its shape better when bending around a case in my experience. A lot of people are using 3/8" tubing on 1/2" systems for increased flow rate and it makes it easier to connect. I used 1/2" tubing and the pipe warming technique, never had any leak.... ever.
Worm drive clips £2.50 for 25 from B&Q
PTFE tape
Fan controllers - £15 each. Brilliant for silence when working, and quickly cranking when gaming
Fans 120mm * 3 minimum - Everyone has an opinion here. I went for Nexus (Yate Loon) fans at £12 each. Papst are good, but low flow rate iirc.

Think that covers most stuff, will re-read in a mo.

Something to note about fans, one loud fan will wreck everything! Either put your hand in your pocket and stump up for all the fans to be changed to quiet ones or don't. There is nothing more annoying that realising that most of the noise from your pc is from one fan :)

edit: Also get onto http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/index.php and just read. If you spend a good few hours trawling the Intel and water cooling sections it really will be time well spent.

Oh and water additives, there is another minefield. Personally I use a car antifreeze solution (Halfords own blue). Zymol, water wetter with algae killer etc have all been used. They all do something.