help the village idiot

[joshuajames]

well i've looked at a number of forums, and you guys here at xtremesytems seem to be the most knowledgable as far as computers. so i've come to you in need of help. ok, first i'll tell you my set-up. amd x2 4200+, 2gb ocz pc4000, 500 watt power supply, bfg oc 7800gtx, dfi nf4 sli-d mobo, zalman cpu cooler, windows xp home with all the updates. now, my problem is that i feel my system really isn't going that fast, compaired to my old dell 2.0ghz, also i ran 3dmark05 and only scored a 6500. i just got this computer and it's the first computer that i've had that's not a just a dell or something like that, something that requires a little more knowledge. so if you guys could help me with getting together all the necessary drivers for my system and whatever you think would help it run better, i would appreciate it. also, if you think i should try overclocking or boosting performance, anything you can help me with there would be awsome. (overclocking guides, programs, facts, anythign).
thanks for the time and help, i really appreciate it.

[trakslacker]

first off, welcome to XS Joshua! Glad to have you here. I'll head off in search of a few guides, and will edit back here with some info. I'm sure you'll get other ppl in a few minutes in here with advice as well.

But just off the bat, we will definitely get that system of your's overclocked. Everything you have listed there is just begging to be pushed. One thing I'm curious on though, is what brand of PSU do you have?

[bachus_anonym]

Do you have "Cool 'n Quiet" Enabled in BIOS? How are you running your X2? Stock 200x11=2200Mhz or overclocked?

[joshuajames]

thanks for the welcome, and extremely fast response. yea, people have been telling me to overclock. yes, cool n quiet is enabled, i can dissable it you want. i havea 500 watt antec psu. i believe my x2 is at the normal 200 by 11, yes.

[bachus_anonym]

disable cool n quiet first, please :)

[tatts]

what bios are you using? if its the original 510 that maybe causing your problems (it should tell you a date in cpu-z or on the post screen at boot up)

[joshuajames]

ok, cool and quiet is diabled. as for the bios.
BRAND: phoenix technologies
VERSION: 6.00 PG
DATE: 6/23/2005

[tatts]

that means your using 623-3 bios so that shouldnt be a problem, did you install a fresh windows or just swap your hdd over? & have you downloaded all the latest drivers?

[bachus_anonym]

ok, cool and quiet is diabled. as for the bios.
BRAND: phoenix technologies
VERSION: 6.00 PG
DATE: 6/23/2005
Did you get any improvement from disabled "Cool and Quiet"? Also, you can try to Disable Errata 123 Enhancement in BIOS. It potentially can give some more performance but *might* in rare situactions cause instability. Give it a go, run a bench and reprt back :)

[[XC] leviathan18]

yeah tell us the brand of the psu and disable cool and quiet

[tatts]

yeah tell us the brand of the psu
dfi need a 480w + psu with about 30A
one thing ive just thought of, are all 4 power connectors in the board?
(24pin, 4pin, molex & floppy)

[joshuajames]

it's an antec psu. that's the thing, what drivers do i need to get, and from where. i haven't run the 3dmark yet, i will when i get home( have to go to practice). i'll go ahead and disaple that errat thing, see what happens. but the main disappointing factor is that on my last 3dmark i only go t6500, and i see people with same cards getting mid 8000s or higher with overclocking, not to menchion cpu and ram speeds taht are much higher. i used to ahve xp pro on my computer, but one day i started up the computer and it said a file was corrupt, and i had a bootleg copy so i coudln't reinstall, so i had to put in xp home, after i whiped the harddrive.
i'll be back around 7 30-745 and we can continue. tahnks a lot guys.

[Mr. Tinker]

You haven't said what harddrive you are using. That can have a marked effect on percieved "peppiness."

Edit: oh, and don't sell yourself short. The fact that you are willing to take some chances and work on this disqualifies you for "village idiot" status. :)

[joshuajames]

lol, thanks for the comment tinker. my harddrive is nothing special, you may be right, it's a 80 gb western digital, 7200 rpm, 8mb cache.

[tatts]

are all 4 power connectors in the board? (24pin, 4pin, molex & floppy) most people seem to miss the floppy one

[joshuajames]

i don't have a floppy drive, other than that everything is connected fine.

[Mr. Tinker]

DMA enabled? Still sounds like a slow harddrive thing.

[joshuajames]

i'll check on the dma thing,is it in the bios? also someone earlier suggested disabling the errata 124, which i tried (the other errata, i think it's like 94 or something was disabled to) and when the initial load was over my screen got all fuzzy, so i enabled it and everything was fine.

[joshuajames]

just ran 3dmark05 again, 6420. less than before, what's up guys, lol, just playing. i think it has to be a driver or something of that nature.

[[XC] DragonOrta]

what drivers are you running on your video card?

[joshuajames]

i'm guessin the drivers are 6.70, plus what came on the bfg disc. but on the everest thing( some program i have) it says my gpu clock is 275mhz and my memory clock is 652mhz, is this right?

[sin0822]

porabbly HD, they are proabbly the #3 most importatn thing in realtime system performance as far as in windows/ applications are concerned. Also dont forget to install VGA drivers after chipset drivers.

Also ifyou dont have vga drivers installed it would feel liek a laggy systems. And sometimes depending on video card, yoru scroll down a page will lag and skip.

[joshuajames]

i'm not sure what vga drivers our, but i remember when i first got the system the page would lag, after some drivers it didn't. so i imagine i have the vga drivers. but i don't remember which order i installed the drivers.

[joshuajames]

i'm thinking maybe i should just whipe the system and start over with all new drivers and stuff, then see how my benchmarks are, then work into some overclocking. but idk, we'll just see what happens.

[tatts]

i don't have a floppy drive, other than that everything is connected fine.
i meant the power on the mobo which needs a floppy connector (between the graphics & cpu)

[joshuajames]

yes, everything is connected properly, it has a custom wire job by a techy friend anyway.

[[XC] Lead Head]

i'm guessin the drivers are 6.70, plus what came on the bfg disc. but on the everest thing( some program i have) it says my gpu clock is 275mhz and my memory clock is 652mhz, is this right?


i am not quite sure about 7800GTX speeds, but i think the core should be about 300 or 400MHz and the efective ram clock should be over 1.2GHz

[[XC] leviathan18]

430 to 490 core 1250 to 1300 mem

[joshuajames]

yea, but still back to the point, will you guys look at my first post and try to help me out there.

[Overconfidence]

I'd say drivers... go to nVidia's site and get the latest drivers (should be fairly easy to find). After that, check your 3Dmarks and see where you're at. Try to delete your old drivers first, though.

Wiping it and re-installing everything and the latest nVidia drivers would definately work, too.

From my experience, the drivers that come with the card are usually crap.

[joshuajames]

ok i'll do that overconfidence. so you guys know i just oc'd my card to 490/1420 and got 8198 on 3Dmark05. i went in the details section and it said my cpu got a score of 6606, pretty good? i just need to learn how to oc my cpu now, and maybe ram.

[einCe]

his gtx is throttling, same :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing thing happened to me. i hope you figure out how to fix it :D

[joshuajames]

no i don't know how, and the last time i ran 3dmark it froze eince. can you help me fix it?

[texuspete00]

A lot of new builders forget the drivers for their mobo. Check your graphics card temps in the driver as well.

[joshuajames]

i went to the dfi website and got the drivers. i'm prettys ure all my tempsa re good.