Okay! calling all hardware & software gurus-I need help

[jetoney]

Alright,
Obviously I am new to this, so bare with me, any help on the way the drives should be setup and why(as far as throughput & such) would be great. Also the tweaks that I am referring to are here:

http://www.opusaudioprojects.net/Win2k Installation and Optimzation Guide.doc

This computer is for music production only so everybody knows what I am up to.
Thanks in advance for any and all help!

This has been one helluva road!
With Opus's kind help I have built THE rig
ASUS P4B266(not sure if it is 845 or 845d)
512 DDRRAM PC100(corsair-that's right Opus I swicthed it, just in case)
Matrox g550
2-X-WD 7200 ATA 100 drives[1 onboard controller master(apps) -one on TX-2 master(audio)]
Plextor 24/10/40 IDE(secondary master onboard)
Sony 52X CDROM(salve to app onboard)
Promise TX-2 ATA100/133 controller

Here is the issue :
It will boot up fine at 1.6, when I overclock
to 2133 it fails to boot into windows at the windows startup point. I then cleared CMOS , reformatted, put all my stuff in it, then overclocked it, and it worked! Then, I did the tweeks a few at a time, and it still booted fine. then, I did the tweaks in the systems window and then the problem came back. what's going on here? is this a motherboard issue? is this a windows issue? As far as the tweaks go, or is this a overclocking issue? Just need a little help here. It always hangs at the starting Windows 2000 line, and reboots itself; over and over.

Thanx in advance,

JT

 

[jazztrumpet216]

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS!!!

Think I can help you out. The drive setup... in order to utilize RAID speeds, you will need 2 drives on that controller, not just one, and on seperate channels. I'd then just put the CD-ROMs on the master for the onboard then, but that doesn't make much of a difference at all.

As far as the reboot problem, I see two potential culprits... PSU and RAM. What kind of PSU are you using, and how many watts is it rated for? As far as the RAM goes... I think this is more likely... "PC100" DDR ram is called PC1600... and it is only rated to run on a 100MHz bus frequency... and if you are running at 2133MHz, you're on a 133MHz FSB (ignore the DDR bus and the QDR bus and all that shiznit, it's only dual pumped or quad pumped 100 or 133). Try raising your CAS times in your BIOS if they are not already at 3-3-3-7/9. Otherwise, the only way you'll hit 133MHz FSB is to get PC2100 or higher RAM.

As a side note, you have the i845D chipset, the i845 runs on SDRAM, i845D on DDR.

G'luck, and letus know of your progress!

 

[RnPgrosz]

As far as the reboot problem, I see two potential culprits... PSU and RAM. What kind of PSU are you using, and how many watts is it rated for? As far as the RAM goes... I think this is more likely... "PC100" DDR ram is called PC1600... and it is only rated to run on a 100MHz bus frequency... and if you are running at 2133MHz, you're on a 133MHz FSB (ignore the DDR bus and the QDR bus and all that shiznit, it's only dual pumped or quad pumped 100 or 133). Try raising your CAS times in your BIOS if they are not already at 3-3-3-7/9. Otherwise, the only way you'll hit 133MHz FSB is to get PC2100 or higher RAM.

Yeah, please clarify if that is PC2100 or PC1600. Like jazztrumpet said that could be your problem. Also make sure your hsf is good enough to be overclocking that much.

 

[jetoney]

My mistake-I am using pc2100DDR, I forgot to type the 2.
PSU is the ENERMAX EG365P-VE(FCA). 350W Power supply for AMD K7 & Pentium4.

Thanks for the quick response!

JT

 

[jetoney]

one more thing,
I take it by CAS times your referring to SDRAM configuration(latency & delays).
If I set to user define, I can get to 2.5,3,3,&7--my optimization mode is set to normal.

Thanks for your patience!

JT

 

[JBatOC]

To me, it sounds like CPU isn't given enough voltage (causing of random restarts)...I am not sure whether this would help, but on my friend's ASUS P4s333, it has a jumper that you can set in default or 0.2V higher. With it left in default, no matter what voltage I changed to in BIOS, it won't boot. But once I put the jumper into 0.2+V, it worked. After an hour runnning, put it back to default, it runs great after that.

J.B.

 

[jetoney]

Also, someone suggested I try to set my VCORE a little higher, like 1.55. It has been hovering around 1.47 & 1.49. What is strange is that two identical machines like this have been built, and are working flawlessly , using Kingston RAM no less, by just setting the system to 2133 in the BIOS and watching it go. I am stumped

JT

 

[jetoney]

sorry JBatOC, we must have posted around the same time.
Okay,
I set the VCORE to 1.55 in the BIOS(I did not change the onboard jumper), and it seems to be booting fine(both restart and cold boot) however, problems occurred later in the night , last night, when it had been on for awhile. In hardware monitoring it is now running at VCORE 1.53(I was at 1.47 before.

Also my MB temp seems to be running at 89F, I can't read the
CPU temp because it is locked in the BIOS maybe a BIOS fix will
help this (this is documented). I am using stock Intel fan(because it is quiet), and I took it off and put Artic Silver 3 on it , and it dropped my MB temp to 89F from 96F(don't know why?).So I have a few Q's:


A)is it okay to run at this voltage(damage CPU)? Is there a performance hit?

B)Is there a program that I can download that can test this machine for a couple of hours(hard work), to see if it is stable.

C)should I enable the mobo to do this voltage change?

D)once again , looking at my config , should I set up my main OS drive on the mobo master, or on the TX2 ATA100/133 controller(no RAID just control)?

E) should I set up both my drives off of the controller(master =APPS & OS /secondary=AUDIO files and put the
CDRW on the master- onboard, and CDROM on the secondary -onboard? or would it be faster to have the main drive closest to the BIOS or onboard for quicker access to data stream?

F) If I want to see how far this board will go(with this RAM & HSF)
what parameters should I be fooling with?

I appreciate all the help, I am actually quite into this OC thing(considering all the sleep I have lost), it is like a puzzle.

JT

 

[jetoney]

Bump!!

 

[jazztrumpet216]

OK, check your CPU temps. If they are acceptable (around 40C, preferably under), you can try adding a little more VCore to it (perhaps up to 1.6 in the BIOS). That should help stabilize things out PROVIDED TEMPS DON'T GET TOO HIGH. Keep using this method until you get too hot or unstable if you want to push it further.

There are many burn-in utilities and high-usage apps you can use for this purpose. You can download Si-Soft Sandra from downloads.com and go to the burn in wizard in there, just select CPU Arithmetic and Multimedia Benchmarks in a loop of around 100 times. Though the temps register a bit off in Sandra, they can keep somewhat of a tab on your temps and wether or not they are too high. Also, aoafiles has some good processor testing apps like Toast and Prime 95. Look under "Utilities" and then go to "CPU Burn in Stress"

If you're not going to use your drives in a RAID configuration, it really doesn't matter which controller you're on. Data transfer rates are fast enough these days that having one drive closer than another to the BIOS would only mean a difference in transfer rates in milliseconds (if that made sense, lol, I need sleep).

 

[jetoney]

Thanks JT216, I will give it a go !!
Thanks to everyone for their insight!!

JToney