Hi all,
First of all, I just want to say that it's great to be a member of this esteemed community and I hope in time, I can learn enough about overclocking to be able to participate in regular forum discussion without exposing my woefull ignorance of PC hardware.
In the mean time, I find myself in a bit of quandry. Like many enthusiastic PC boffins, I jumped into the home-build game without doing sufficient research before hand and now have an increasingly overwhelming stack of components which appear to be either incompatible or grossly underwhelmed and I could really use some charitable advice on how best to address my dilemna.
In short, I originally bought the following components with a view to building a powerfull, all be it compact gaming/3D Modeling rig:
O/S: Microsoft Vista Ultimate 64
Chassis: Silverstone Sugo SG-03 mATX Case
CPU: Intel i7-920 (C0)
Mobo: Rampage II Gene mATX
Memory: 6 x OCZ Platinum 2gb DDR3 2000MHz
Video: 2 x Nvidia Geforce GTX 295 in SLI
PSU: 700w Modular
HDD's: 4 x 2.5" Segate 500Gb drives in...
HDD Enclosures: 2 x A-Data 3.5" SATA RAID (2 x 2.5" SATA/SSD)
Optical: LG GGW-H20L Blu-ray Recorder
Monitors: 3 x Viewsonic VX1940w 19"
Stand: Ergotron LX Triple/Dual Display Lift Stand
USB: Logitech G35 Headset
USB: Edimax nLite Wireless LAN adapter
USB: Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard
USB: Microsoft Intellimouse
USB: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-900H
Initially all seemed well and the new build booted up without any problems. I continued to use the system at stock specs (I recognised my woefully inadequate knowledge of rudimentary Overclocking) for over a year.
Slowly, various components began to show signs of fatigue. The MS mouse developed quite a few quirks before the laser finally gave up so I replaced it with the Logitech Performance MX I still use now. The Razer Lycosa was a disaster from the start - the keyboard macro assignment layout representation was for the US version so when I confronted Razer about this, they said they would address the problem - I'm still waiting. Not to be outdone, I simply replaced the Razer with a Logitech G110 Gaming keyboard.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the A-Data RAID enclosures for my 2.5" HDD's had a lot of problems, mainly due to some sort of inherant incompatibility between the on-board ICH10R controller and the proprietary controllers used in the Enclosures themselves. I eventually overcame this by scrapping the RAID enclosures and buying 3 simple 2 x 2.5" to 3.5" HDD enclosures (Is that a backplane?) to mount the (now 6 x Segate 500Gb) HDD's.
The other peripherals have worked flawlessly with the exception of one of the 3 viewsonic monitors which started to dim then finally turned black (but with a power light still on) so that was replaced in a timely fashion by Viewsonic's friendly customer service reps.
As I say, all was well untill I started experiencing blue screens, crashes and random resets more and more frequently over the course of about a month. I then downloaded a multitude of assorted temperature utilties and it became clear that most of the internal components were running hot (especially the Northbridge). This all made sense as their was very little space left within the confines of the mATX case for decent air circulation.
With that in mind, I decided to bite the bullet and simply buy a new ATX case and motherboard - a fresh start so to speak.
In the end I decided to go with an iCute ATX case as the dimensions were modest but serviceable and seemed like a good compromise. I also decided to go for a Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (rev. 2.0) motherboard, which according to Newegg, should not only support my existing CPU but also used the same ICH10R raid controller so no need to laboriously recover my data and build a new array.
Since then (3 weeks ago) the problems have been piling up, as it stands now, my specs have changed somewhat to:
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64
Chassis: iCute A11-01 ATX Case
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (rev. 2.0)
CPU: Intel i7-920 (C0)
Memory: 6 x OCZ Platinum 2gb DDR3 2000MHz
Video: 2 x Nvidia Geforce GTX 295 in SLI
PSU: Professional Series Gold AX1200
HDD's: 9 x Seagate Momentus 2.5" SATA 7200 500GB
Enclosures: 2 x 5.25" StarTech SAS/SATA Internal Backplane (4 x 2.5")
Enclosures: 1 x Icy Box Superspeed USB 3.0 2.5" HDD Case
HDD's: 1 x Seagate Barracuda XT SATA 6Gb/s 2TB
Enclosure: Choice of 1 x Icy Box USB 2.0/eSATA 3.5" HDD Case or..
Enclosure: 1 x Akasa Integral S Black 3.5'' SATA USB 3.0 HDD Enclosure
Optical: LG GGW-H20L Blu-ray Recorder
Monitors: 3 x Viewsonic VX1940w 19"
Stand: Ergotron LX Triple/Dual Display Lift Stand
Stand: Ergotron LX Triple/Dual Display Lift Stand
USB: Logitech G35 Headset
USB: Edimax nLite Wireless LAN adapter
USB: Logitech G110 Gaming Keyboard
USB: Logitech Performance MX Mouse
USB: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-900H
So, that is currently the extent of my stockpile. As you can see, a pretty disperate collection of assorted technologies and I need someone's advice on how to get them all working together, namely, by procring whatever motherboard it takes...
My current motherboard isn't playing nice. It hates the fact that I have 6 DIMMS and won't, unlike my old Asus mobo, allow me to overclock them at all, not even to 1666. My CPU constantly overheats when pushed beyond 2.6GHz (So any suggestions about which CPU cooler to get would be most welcome). It also hates my external USB 3.0/SATA III drives/enclosures. They just whir up, transfer files very fast for about 10 seconds then hang the system.
Then it occurred to me that there is mention of Gigabyte boards sharing PCI 2.0 x16 slots bandwidth with the USB 3.0/SATA III controller which would explain why I can't get stable SLI performance with SATA III enabled in the BIOS.
SO FINALLY.. and please forgive me for writing such a long opening thread, I tried to compress my experienced into as few lines as possible, my ultimate question is this - bare in mind that I've managed to convince the retailer to refund me for the motherboard in view of the SLI/USB shortcoming so that I may purchase a more 'appropriate' alternative...
"If your mate had lumbered you with all this clobber and asked you to pick a motherboard to 'make it all work' at his expense, what motherboard would you pick? and what heatsink would you apply to an i7-920 (C0)"
points to bare in mind:
1) There are 8 x 2.5" SATA drives, ideally meant for an internal RAID setup
2) I gather Intel's IRST and associated controller and not 'REAL' hardware RAID so I would be happy to purchase a hardware RAID card however...
3) Would there be sufficient power/bandwidth/Slots for a dedicated PCI hardware RAID controller given that I would already be using 2 x PCI 2.0 x 16 slots for my Video cards? If so...
4) Could a dedicated USB 3.0/SATA III PCI controller card be used instead of the on-board controller for some motherboards thus freeing the video card PCI Slots to x16 each?
5) Are there any motherboards which can reliably overclock 6 x 2000Mhz DDR3 RAM (at least past 1333) - it seems like a terrible waste otherwise or can timings be set to compensate in some way?
...and as a final query, for any of you masochists who feel super charitable. How would you arrange/set-up this colossal pile of storage devices. Assuming you'd go with RAID and I'm using Windows 7 64, is there an efficient topological RAID configuration that would make best use of these HDD's whilst providing Speed and Security?
Thanks everyone, I really hope someone can help. I shall be forever endebted to those who help me finally address my problems for good.
Yours graciously,
Taciter
First of all, I just want to say that it's great to be a member of this esteemed community and I hope in time, I can learn enough about overclocking to be able to participate in regular forum discussion without exposing my woefull ignorance of PC hardware.
In the mean time, I find myself in a bit of quandry. Like many enthusiastic PC boffins, I jumped into the home-build game without doing sufficient research before hand and now have an increasingly overwhelming stack of components which appear to be either incompatible or grossly underwhelmed and I could really use some charitable advice on how best to address my dilemna.
In short, I originally bought the following components with a view to building a powerfull, all be it compact gaming/3D Modeling rig:
O/S: Microsoft Vista Ultimate 64
Chassis: Silverstone Sugo SG-03 mATX Case
CPU: Intel i7-920 (C0)
Mobo: Rampage II Gene mATX
Memory: 6 x OCZ Platinum 2gb DDR3 2000MHz
Video: 2 x Nvidia Geforce GTX 295 in SLI
PSU: 700w Modular
HDD's: 4 x 2.5" Segate 500Gb drives in...
HDD Enclosures: 2 x A-Data 3.5" SATA RAID (2 x 2.5" SATA/SSD)
Optical: LG GGW-H20L Blu-ray Recorder
Monitors: 3 x Viewsonic VX1940w 19"
Stand: Ergotron LX Triple/Dual Display Lift Stand
USB: Logitech G35 Headset
USB: Edimax nLite Wireless LAN adapter
USB: Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard
USB: Microsoft Intellimouse
USB: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-900H
Initially all seemed well and the new build booted up without any problems. I continued to use the system at stock specs (I recognised my woefully inadequate knowledge of rudimentary Overclocking) for over a year.
Slowly, various components began to show signs of fatigue. The MS mouse developed quite a few quirks before the laser finally gave up so I replaced it with the Logitech Performance MX I still use now. The Razer Lycosa was a disaster from the start - the keyboard macro assignment layout representation was for the US version so when I confronted Razer about this, they said they would address the problem - I'm still waiting. Not to be outdone, I simply replaced the Razer with a Logitech G110 Gaming keyboard.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the A-Data RAID enclosures for my 2.5" HDD's had a lot of problems, mainly due to some sort of inherant incompatibility between the on-board ICH10R controller and the proprietary controllers used in the Enclosures themselves. I eventually overcame this by scrapping the RAID enclosures and buying 3 simple 2 x 2.5" to 3.5" HDD enclosures (Is that a backplane?) to mount the (now 6 x Segate 500Gb) HDD's.
The other peripherals have worked flawlessly with the exception of one of the 3 viewsonic monitors which started to dim then finally turned black (but with a power light still on) so that was replaced in a timely fashion by Viewsonic's friendly customer service reps.
As I say, all was well untill I started experiencing blue screens, crashes and random resets more and more frequently over the course of about a month. I then downloaded a multitude of assorted temperature utilties and it became clear that most of the internal components were running hot (especially the Northbridge). This all made sense as their was very little space left within the confines of the mATX case for decent air circulation.
With that in mind, I decided to bite the bullet and simply buy a new ATX case and motherboard - a fresh start so to speak.
In the end I decided to go with an iCute ATX case as the dimensions were modest but serviceable and seemed like a good compromise. I also decided to go for a Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (rev. 2.0) motherboard, which according to Newegg, should not only support my existing CPU but also used the same ICH10R raid controller so no need to laboriously recover my data and build a new array.
Since then (3 weeks ago) the problems have been piling up, as it stands now, my specs have changed somewhat to:
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64
Chassis: iCute A11-01 ATX Case
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (rev. 2.0)
CPU: Intel i7-920 (C0)
Memory: 6 x OCZ Platinum 2gb DDR3 2000MHz
Video: 2 x Nvidia Geforce GTX 295 in SLI
PSU: Professional Series Gold AX1200
HDD's: 9 x Seagate Momentus 2.5" SATA 7200 500GB
Enclosures: 2 x 5.25" StarTech SAS/SATA Internal Backplane (4 x 2.5")
Enclosures: 1 x Icy Box Superspeed USB 3.0 2.5" HDD Case
HDD's: 1 x Seagate Barracuda XT SATA 6Gb/s 2TB
Enclosure: Choice of 1 x Icy Box USB 2.0/eSATA 3.5" HDD Case or..
Enclosure: 1 x Akasa Integral S Black 3.5'' SATA USB 3.0 HDD Enclosure
Optical: LG GGW-H20L Blu-ray Recorder
Monitors: 3 x Viewsonic VX1940w 19"
Stand: Ergotron LX Triple/Dual Display Lift Stand
Stand: Ergotron LX Triple/Dual Display Lift Stand
USB: Logitech G35 Headset
USB: Edimax nLite Wireless LAN adapter
USB: Logitech G110 Gaming Keyboard
USB: Logitech Performance MX Mouse
USB: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-900H
So, that is currently the extent of my stockpile. As you can see, a pretty disperate collection of assorted technologies and I need someone's advice on how to get them all working together, namely, by procring whatever motherboard it takes...
My current motherboard isn't playing nice. It hates the fact that I have 6 DIMMS and won't, unlike my old Asus mobo, allow me to overclock them at all, not even to 1666. My CPU constantly overheats when pushed beyond 2.6GHz (So any suggestions about which CPU cooler to get would be most welcome). It also hates my external USB 3.0/SATA III drives/enclosures. They just whir up, transfer files very fast for about 10 seconds then hang the system.
Then it occurred to me that there is mention of Gigabyte boards sharing PCI 2.0 x16 slots bandwidth with the USB 3.0/SATA III controller which would explain why I can't get stable SLI performance with SATA III enabled in the BIOS.
SO FINALLY.. and please forgive me for writing such a long opening thread, I tried to compress my experienced into as few lines as possible, my ultimate question is this - bare in mind that I've managed to convince the retailer to refund me for the motherboard in view of the SLI/USB shortcoming so that I may purchase a more 'appropriate' alternative...
"If your mate had lumbered you with all this clobber and asked you to pick a motherboard to 'make it all work' at his expense, what motherboard would you pick? and what heatsink would you apply to an i7-920 (C0)"
points to bare in mind:
1) There are 8 x 2.5" SATA drives, ideally meant for an internal RAID setup
2) I gather Intel's IRST and associated controller and not 'REAL' hardware RAID so I would be happy to purchase a hardware RAID card however...
3) Would there be sufficient power/bandwidth/Slots for a dedicated PCI hardware RAID controller given that I would already be using 2 x PCI 2.0 x 16 slots for my Video cards? If so...
4) Could a dedicated USB 3.0/SATA III PCI controller card be used instead of the on-board controller for some motherboards thus freeing the video card PCI Slots to x16 each?
5) Are there any motherboards which can reliably overclock 6 x 2000Mhz DDR3 RAM (at least past 1333) - it seems like a terrible waste otherwise or can timings be set to compensate in some way?
...and as a final query, for any of you masochists who feel super charitable. How would you arrange/set-up this colossal pile of storage devices. Assuming you'd go with RAID and I'm using Windows 7 64, is there an efficient topological RAID configuration that would make best use of these HDD's whilst providing Speed and Security?
Thanks everyone, I really hope someone can help. I shall be forever endebted to those who help me finally address my problems for good.
Yours graciously,
Taciter
Welcome to the Forums "Taciter"
Hardware section here but;
