Little Brother's computer

[CodeNinja]

Long story short, my little brother has been chugging away on an old power mac for some time now. We're talking old, sub-1Ghz system. He's been doing a lot of audio work, he records bands and makes CDs for them, and the Mac works great as long as they have less than 4 separate audio tracks (each instrument is usually one or more track). Any more than that and it chugging horribly. Not to mention you can't game on it, for more than one reason.

So he had me price and put together a nice little system to use for both work and games. Do budget constraints we ended up using onboard Video, which sucks, but chances are someone in the family will get him a dedicated card for Christmas. Dunno who that'll be. ;)


Apevia X-QPack Black Mini-Tower w/ 420w PSU
Asus P5Q-EM MATX G45/ICH10R
Intel Core 2 Duo Wolfdale E7300
Corsair Dominator 2GB 1066 DDR2
LG 20x DVD R/W SATA
Seagate 640GB 7200RPM SATA
Windows XP Professional


The main reason we chose the X-QPack was because he'll be moving the computer around quite a bit, taking it to shows and recording sites. The handle on the case works quite well for this, and it has a front Firewire, which will work great with his sound interface.

The problem we're having is this: I've flashed the latest Asus BIOS and gotten all the latest drivers, XP is installed and fully updated, the X4500HD video is sucking horribly (as it should)... but the memory is being promlematic. We're currently running the Corsair, stable, at 800MHZ 2.1v. When it's clocked to 1066 (2.1v or 2.2v as specified by Corsair) at 5-5-5-15 timings (also from Corsair), the system randomly freezes or reboots while doing something as simple as surfing the web.

Temperatures are good (32c on the stock CPU cooler), voltages look fine. I suspect the issue is that the onboard video isn't working well with the 1066 setting on memory. Unfortunately I don't have a PCI-E card laying about (my system is an ancient Pentium 3ghz with an AGP card). Anyone have experience with this board and 1066 memory?

X-QPack Pron (sleeving is fun!) :D

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/codeninjasupreme/TimsComputer/th_ClosedFront.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/codeninjasupreme/TimsComputer/?action=view&current=ClosedFront.jpg)

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/codeninjasupreme/TimsComputer/th_OpenThreeQuarter.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/codeninjasupreme/TimsComputer/?action=view&current=OpenThreeQuarter.jpg)

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/codeninjasupreme/TimsComputer/th_OpenOtherSide.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/codeninjasupreme/TimsComputer/?action=view&current=OpenOtherSide.jpg)

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/codeninjasupreme/TimsComputer/th_OpenSide.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/codeninjasupreme/TimsComputer/?action=view&current=OpenSide.jpg)

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/codeninjasupreme/TimsComputer/th_CPU.jpg (http://s284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/codeninjasupreme/TimsComputer/?action=view&current=CPU.jpg)

I'm digging this case a lot.

[ExodusC]

I've considered a small case like that before, they seem like they would be great for moving my PC to LAN parties and such.

It's just problematic to find one that could somehow fit my four hard drives into one...

Edit: Sorry, I got caught up in the pictures and missed your question! Have you tried any other RAM kits in it? I'm not sure if the power supply would be an issue if it's causing this only when the RAM is running at 1066. You could have bad RAM modules, you may need to RMA...

[road-runner]

It is probably that apevia PSU...

[Tonucci]

Decent budget rig, but since he may get an discrete card I'd get an better PSU.

[STEvil]

Could be PSU.. or the ram.

Did you change the motherboard strap settings when you changed the ram frequency? Sometimes that can cause an issue.

[Source]

Yeah PSU could be troublesome.

Can a nice Corsair VX450 fit in there? :D
Edit, i see that the VX450 is a priced a lot higher in USA

----------------------

What about this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007

'Antec Earthwatts EA500 500W ATX12V v2.0'
$50,-

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story4&reid=35

It's getting a 9 from Johnny.
SUMMARY:
So there we have it. The Antec EarthWatts EA-500 500W power supply doesn't put out as much power as a lot of the power supplies we've been seeing lately, but it does put out enough for any one video card no matter how high end, and I would venture to say that it could easily support a pair of Nvidia 7x or ATI x1900 cards. It doesn't look like much, but it's quiet, efficient and has a very stable +12V output and you won't need a load shark to get the funds together to buy one.

The Good:
* Very stable +12V.
* Very efficient.
* Very quiet.
* Very affordable.

The Bad:
* Nothing really "bad" about this unit unless you're going to hold it's looks against it.

The Mediocre:
* Not a whole lot of power on the +12V. Trumped by other 500W power supplies on the market.

[CodeNinja]

I wouldn't be surprised if it's the PSU, I've never been a fan of any "case + PSU" units, they always seem to cheap out. The LG DVD is pretty short, so I think any normal-sized PSU will fit. Unfortunately it wasn't in the budget at the time.

What about a Corsair 400CX?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008

Also, any opinions on the Asus EN9600GSO 512mb PCIE card?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121255



As for 4 hard disks, I'm sure you could put them in if you put some sort of hard disk caddy behind the 120mm fan and above the CPU. But natively there is room for 2 hard disks.

Gonna have to order parts for my new computer, too. Can't decide if I want to go liquid or air cooled. :(

On a side note: Holy crap, that stock heatsink from Intel was a pain in the ass! Seriously, whoever came up with the "Push really hard and then turn the cam lock" design needs to be shot. I kept expecting to hear a "CRACK" as the board broke... not to mention I'm very unimpressed with the little plastic expand-o bits that hold it in place. Still, it seems to do the job, and is reasonably quiet... at least I know that I'm going aftermarket with my next system.

[Klarko]

Yeah im pretty sure its the PSU.

And yes that corsair powersupply is decent, what video card are you looking at for the discrete video?

[CodeNinja]

Yeah im pretty sure its the PSU.

And yes that corsair powersupply is decent, what video card are you looking at for the discrete video?

Asus EN9600GSO 512mb PCIE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121255


Also, anyone know if Mac USB keyboards will work on a PC? :confused:

Bah. Just got off the phone with him, apparently he hooked it up and now it won't boot into windows. Surprising, I had unhooked and reconnected it several times here, without problem. I guess he plugged the Mac keyboard into it, after I had him get his roommates PC keyboard, it made it to Check disk, which it's now running (sounds like he hit reset a few times during bootup). Seems to be stuck at step 2 of 3, though, and he said the hard disk is making a regular chck-chck sound. I've got this sick feeling that the drive died. :(

[Xel'Naga]

It's the PSU. Here is a jonnyguru review (possibly of a slightly older model), where is waaay out of specs even at 250W.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=79

[CodeNinja]

It's the PSU. Here is a jonnyguru review (possibly of a slightly older model), where is waaay out of specs even at 250W.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=79

Whoa, seriously... that's crap. :rofl:

Ok. Damn, well it'd sure have been helpful if it had done this before I gave it to him and he drove an hour back home. He's going to bring it back out in a few days, I guess I'll go hit up Newegg for a new supply and some cooling fans. :shrug:

[Klarko]

Asus EN9600GSO 512mb PCIE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121255


Also, anyone know if Mac USB keyboards will work on a PC? :confused:

Bah. Just got off the phone with him, apparently he hooked it up and now it won't boot into windows. Surprising, I had unhooked and reconnected it several times here, without problem. I guess he plugged the Mac keyboard into it, after I had him get his roommates PC keyboard, it made it to Check disk, which it's now running (sounds like he hit reset a few times during bootup). Seems to be stuck at step 2 of 3, though, and he said the hard disk is making a regular chck-chck sound. I've got this sick feeling that the drive died. :(

Link doesnt work, but yes seriously that PSU is garbage,

[CodeNinja]

Ah screw it.

After futzing around on newegg and the interwebs looking for a good PSU, I'm just gonna plop a Corsair 520HX in there and call it good. If he can make that fail, then he's doing something wrong. :up:

Also picking up a Scythe S-Flex-E 120mm for the back of the case, since the Apevia fan didn't light up (supposed to be blue). Well if it's not going to play nice, it can play garbage and we'll put some serious airflow in there. Getting a Rexus (Panaflo) 80mm for the front mount, just a little 20cfm fan, but it'll get some flow.

Grabbed up a Rexus high-speed 80mm to plop on my old P4-3ghz, since the CPU fan is making this horrible screeching "souls-of-the-damned-in-my-box" noise. Make's it hard to sleep and annoys the cat.


As for the bad video card link... I just noticed it's GDD2. Yeah, that's no good. Probably going to go with either a 9600GSO or a HD4670 of some type. We'll see, things might change by Christmas. I may decide to replace my clunker first. He's really looking to play GalCiv 2 and SimCity 4, amongst a few other games that really aren't all that graphically intensive.

[cloned]

I'd get a card with a dual slot cooler that exhausts out. That ASUS card would fill your case full of heat far more than a card with an ambiko cooler.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130397
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130360

I say go for one of these, plenty of power for most games and better heat management. Plus evga has great support(better than ASUS's recent track record) and the step-up program is always nice.

[ExodusC]

I'd get a card with a dual slot cooler that exhausts out. That ASUS card would fill your case full of heat far more than a card with an ambiko cooler.
That is a good idea, I would probably go with a dual slot cooler in such a small case like that, unless you manage really good air flow.

[CodeNinja]

Good advice. Airflow is an issue, although the new power supply will exhaust air from that area pretty good (it's right above it). I can't think of any other cards he'd need to add, and he'll still have one PCI and PCIE-1x available if he does. Both of those EVGA cards look like winners, I like the cheaper of the two obviously.

[Source]

Good advice. Airflow is an issue, although the new power supply will exhaust air from that area pretty good (it's right above it). I can't think of any other cards he'd need to add, and he'll still have one PCI and PCIE-1x available if he does. Both of those EVGA cards look like winners, I like the cheaper of the two obviously.Hmm, the 9800GT has double the stream processors for $20,- more.. It's even the same price as the 9600GT after rebate.
Plus the 9800GT has 2years warranty, Newegg states the 9600GT as 1 year.

[CodeNinja]

True enough.

We'll see what's available when it comes time to order. Right now I just want to get the system running stable. :(

[CodeNinja]

Well, I got the new HX520 installed. Had to take a dremel to the case to get it to fit, there was a piece of metal on the backplate that interfered with the power supply plug... so while I was at it I trimmed the support underneath to get more airflow into the fan as well (like an inch of it was blocked). The new 80mm fan in the front gets some nice airflow over the RAM, so that's a worthwhile upgrade right there.

All hooked up and ready to rock, right?

Wrong. The voltages are MUCH more stable now, and the computer will actually boot into the Seagate drive diagnostics (wasn't on the old PSU, which smelled burnt), but the Hard Drive is fried. Read errors up the wazoo.

If it's not one thing, it's another... :ROTF:

Thankfully Newegg RMA is painless, so it's off on Monday or Tuesday. :up:

Thanks for the help, guys!

[ExodusC]

Great! Let us know what happens when you get the hard drive back. Hopefully everything will be fine then.

[CodeNinja]

Got busy at work, so haven't really had a chance to post updates.

The new hard drive came back quickly from newegg, and now it looks like they no longer carry the Seagate in 640gb flavor. Well, we'll just have to keep an eye on it, and it does have a 5-year warranty through Seagate, so we should be OK.

The new 120mm Scyth and the Rexus 80mm fan made a huge difference in temps. Quite surprising, really, and now I feel much better about airflow over the RAM with the Rexus blowing on it. The one I put in my box dropped my CPU temps from 38c idle to 31c idle on the old Northwood 3Ghz (28c Ambient). Of course, could partially be related to all the dust I cleaned out.

You know your PC is old as hell when it's the fourth cpu fan you've installed on it. :ROTF:

Unfortunately I could never get the Asus to run 100% stable at 1066 RAM. It'd run great for a while, then randomly freeze for no apparent reason. So I sent it off to him at 800mhz. I really suspect it's related to the onboard video, since I doubt people who are bothering to OC to 1066 RAM are running the onboard. A XFX 9800GT is sitting in my closet right now, waiting to go in for christmas. It dumps into the case, unfortunately, but I believe it will be OK since I put ventilated card slots in. There should be enough air movement what with the large 120mm fan on the Corsair right above it.

Now to just get my own computer replaced... :D

[dkjbama]

The ram problem could just be a divider issue. Try bumping the NB voltage a smidge next time you work on it.

[STEvil]

the ram may have Micron D9 chips. Toss them out if so and get some cheap 800/1066 stuff with anything but micron.

[CodeNinja]

Really? I always thought Micron/Crucial was good stuff?

I'm not sure what chips it's got, I'll have to remove the heat spreader. Honestly it's not a huge deal, he's actually happy with the performance of the onboard video, so I doubt he'd notice if the RAM was 1066 or 800.

I do know that, unless the memory is defective, we won't be replacing it. He's not got that kind of money.

[ExodusC]

Really? I always thought Micron/Crucial was good stuff?

I'm not sure what chips it's got, I'll have to remove the heat spreader. Honestly it's not a huge deal, he's actually happy with the performance of the onboard video, so I doubt he'd notice if the RAM was 1066 or 800.

I do know that, unless the memory is defective, we won't be replacing it. He's not got that kind of money.
Yeah, I don't think having the RAM run at 800 instead of 1066 is that big of a deal with a PC like that, anyways.

[STEvil]

well, technically you should run something like memtest86 before chucking them, and trying the deepfreeze trick but really Micron D9's tend to die a lot.

D9 deepfreeze trick: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3392354#post3392354

Cant seem to find the dead D9 thread at the moment..

[CodeNinja]

well, technically you should run something like memtest86 before chucking them, and trying the deepfreeze trick but really Micron D9's tend to die a lot.

D9 deepfreeze trick: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3392354#post3392354

Cant seem to find the dead D9 thread at the moment..


Yeah, I wanted to do that before, but ended up pulling a few long nights at work. I barely had time to get all the software installed and a quick burn in done before it was out the door.

The freeze trick is... well... weird. :shrug:

Kinda like the "wrap your xbox in a blanket" trick for non-red ring of death no-boots, I guess. Unfortunately that didn't work so good for me. :shakes:

Well, do we have a list of confirmed D9 ram sticks? If people are having fits, I'd love to avoid them. I'm guessing the Ballistix sticks I was going to buy are probably D9. Shame about that, Crucial and Corsair were like my two goto manufacturers for RAM. I refuse to buy OCZ even though people claim they've not had trouble with it. They put OCZ RAM in our systems at work (total of 8 systems).

Every single one has had the RAM fail within 3 months. :eek:

[STEvil]

yeah, wrapping an xbox in a blanket is a very bad idea....

Pretty much any "performance" 1gb stick of ram is D9. There are exceptions now, but a few months ago it was pretty much anything. 2GB sticks are not D9 that I know of.

edit - Corsair/Crucial is a division of Micron (makers of D9), OCZ as well as pretty much everyone else just buys chips and rebrands or rebadges them. Would bet they were D9's.

[CodeNinja]

Well, apparently it's still working fine, so I'm not going to worry about it.

In fact, it's working so well, Comcast called him about the 250+GB/month data transfer rate he had in December!

Geez! :eek:

[B.E.E.F.]

would be great for moving my PC to LAN parties and such.

I've only heard of LAN parties. What exactly do you do at one?/What is the point?

[Source]

Game/share files etc. on a Network, so with network speed and 1ms ping in games :D
Also, just to meest the people you are playing with, little socializing :D

[CodeNinja]

I've only heard of LAN parties. What exactly do you do at one?/What is the point?

Oh man, I haven't been to one in a while... great fun though.

Basically you go and there are a bunch of people there. You all hook your computers together in a big network and then proceed to kick each others asses while talking trash, drinking beer, and eating pizza.

It's the geek equivalent of watching football, I guess. :yepp:

[B.E.E.F.]

It's the geek equivalent of watching football, I guess. :yepp:

Oh god, not football. Sounds much better than that.

[Ket]

This made me lol :D

"THE MEDIOCRE:
The fact that somehow the price of this brick is factored into the price I pay for an X-Qpack really pisses me off."