- Joined
- Jul 31, 2003
- Location
- Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Lake Tahoe
It started a few weeks ago, My q9650 trucking along on a 4ghz overclock, everything seemed fine...then the California summer heat kicked in, and my home office, which is poorly air conditioned, became hot as hell.
Slowly and surely the CPU took a major dump and before you knew it, I was getting errors on all four cores. Even going back to default BIOS settings couldnt save the CPU.
So I went out and decided to get a new system, but first, a really good portable AC. I bought a 12,000 BTU ac and now the room is a nice 65 F all day long.
I decided to go with the i7 980x, figured I don't want to have to buy another computer upgrade for another 6 months-12months. I already have two ATI 5870's, so nothing changed there. I picked up 12gb of Patriot 1600mhz memory, and a EVGA x58 classified mobo.
Once it was all setup, the EVGA mobo didnt want to post. I tried this and that but all I received was a nice "68" code on the LCD and i sent it back.
Next round I bought an Gigabyte x58AUD3R, set it all back up and this time, it POST's! ok I thought I was getting somewhere. I immediately go into BIOS and go into the M.I.T. or whatever, to tweak voltage settings, cpu speed, etc. and the BIOS freezes...yah I know right...Ive never had a BIOS freeze in over 20 years. I reboot, clear CMOS, remove the battery, test different memory (even though this memory is brand new). So I reboot, which puts me in this weird looping reboot sequence where my keyboards LED's flicker over and over until it reboots again and again. I had to clear CMOS, remove the memory, boot, then shut down, put the memory in and reboot to POST. I enter BIOS again, and I can change EVERYTHING, I just cant select the M.I.T.s screen otherwise it freezes.
I go into windows, and everything seems fine. I check temps on CPU, they seem fine. I check temps on GPU and I notice the GPU is running much hotter than normal. A quick glance into my case and I can understand why, the GPU's sit practically on top of each other, unlike my old mobo the Gigabyte ud3p where there was like a inch between them.
I have random errors, tiny apps freezing, windows "not responding" to "end process", I can't play BF2 I get this punkbuster "heartbeat stopped error" , and my memory reports that its only running at 1066 not 1600, attempting to turn it up via the included Gigabyte overclocking tool makes the computer go into the crazy looping reboot sequence again.
I contacted Gigabyte, who told me "it be memory controller problem, easy fix to, go BIOS, select M.I.T. and change memory voltage and set to 1.7 not 1.5, if not work, take older CPU and put in, then flash BIOS, then put your 980x CPU back in and everything work fine"
Well aside from the horrible english, he must not have read in the email when I wrote, " I can access everything in BIOS just fine EXCEPT M.I.T. page"....
The secondary solution was to simply grab a CPU that I don't have and use *that* one to do a BIOS update, then put mine back in.....riiiiight.
Anyways I have two questions,
One , what is the hands down best, least headache, gauranteed to support my i7 980x CPU (with overclocking ability on the board as well) ?
and TWO:
if you see the pic below, I can't imagine that everyone is running the GPU's sandwhiched so close to each other like I am, is there an extension Crossfire cable so I can run the second card in the slot on the bottom of the board?
btw, I have a Level 10 case, some large motherboards may not fit.
please o please help a brother out!
Slowly and surely the CPU took a major dump and before you knew it, I was getting errors on all four cores. Even going back to default BIOS settings couldnt save the CPU.
So I went out and decided to get a new system, but first, a really good portable AC. I bought a 12,000 BTU ac and now the room is a nice 65 F all day long.
I decided to go with the i7 980x, figured I don't want to have to buy another computer upgrade for another 6 months-12months. I already have two ATI 5870's, so nothing changed there. I picked up 12gb of Patriot 1600mhz memory, and a EVGA x58 classified mobo.
Once it was all setup, the EVGA mobo didnt want to post. I tried this and that but all I received was a nice "68" code on the LCD and i sent it back.
Next round I bought an Gigabyte x58AUD3R, set it all back up and this time, it POST's! ok I thought I was getting somewhere. I immediately go into BIOS and go into the M.I.T. or whatever, to tweak voltage settings, cpu speed, etc. and the BIOS freezes...yah I know right...Ive never had a BIOS freeze in over 20 years. I reboot, clear CMOS, remove the battery, test different memory (even though this memory is brand new). So I reboot, which puts me in this weird looping reboot sequence where my keyboards LED's flicker over and over until it reboots again and again. I had to clear CMOS, remove the memory, boot, then shut down, put the memory in and reboot to POST. I enter BIOS again, and I can change EVERYTHING, I just cant select the M.I.T.s screen otherwise it freezes.
I go into windows, and everything seems fine. I check temps on CPU, they seem fine. I check temps on GPU and I notice the GPU is running much hotter than normal. A quick glance into my case and I can understand why, the GPU's sit practically on top of each other, unlike my old mobo the Gigabyte ud3p where there was like a inch between them.
I have random errors, tiny apps freezing, windows "not responding" to "end process", I can't play BF2 I get this punkbuster "heartbeat stopped error" , and my memory reports that its only running at 1066 not 1600, attempting to turn it up via the included Gigabyte overclocking tool makes the computer go into the crazy looping reboot sequence again.
I contacted Gigabyte, who told me "it be memory controller problem, easy fix to, go BIOS, select M.I.T. and change memory voltage and set to 1.7 not 1.5, if not work, take older CPU and put in, then flash BIOS, then put your 980x CPU back in and everything work fine"
Well aside from the horrible english, he must not have read in the email when I wrote, " I can access everything in BIOS just fine EXCEPT M.I.T. page"....
The secondary solution was to simply grab a CPU that I don't have and use *that* one to do a BIOS update, then put mine back in.....riiiiight.
Anyways I have two questions,
One , what is the hands down best, least headache, gauranteed to support my i7 980x CPU (with overclocking ability on the board as well) ?
and TWO:
if you see the pic below, I can't imagine that everyone is running the GPU's sandwhiched so close to each other like I am, is there an extension Crossfire cable so I can run the second card in the slot on the bottom of the board?
btw, I have a Level 10 case, some large motherboards may not fit.
please o please help a brother out!