Skulltrail @ XS

[Delex]

@FUGGER-Drwho?
Do you know what mean if the debug led say 00 error code when I'm starting the system?

The board don't start again after a crash@5.6 GHz - 1.83V - @-165°C

[Fr3ak]

Can you get into the maintenance-BIOS by setting the jumper to 2-3 and bootup?

[Delex]

Nope! This is the problem I would try better this platform because the two cpus worked @ -165 and -170°C during the CPU Test

[Charles Wirth]

THERMTRIP kicked it, you should see a message on screen that the machine has been shut down due to x.

Usually pulling power for a full reset is best.

You also might be getting too cold.

[Delex]

THERMTRIP kicked it, you should see a message on screen that the machine has been shut down due to x.

Usually pulling power for a full reset is best.

You also might be getting too cold.

It was without any component (rams, battery, cpus) for 24h on my desk..but the POST error is the same

[Charles Wirth]

Oh, you might have killed.

try single cpu's?

[Delex]

Oh, you might have killed.

try single cpu's?

Yes, already tried. The first problems were there. I started without CPU0. After the boot I turned off and inserted the cpu again and after that the system worked good again. Now the system don't boot. But I insulated correctly and only after 45 min/1 h of tests it seems don't wokring fine again

[Charles Wirth]

Dry it all out with hair dryer or overnight and hope it fires, might have condensation giving you a problem.

[Delex]

Dry it all out with hair dryer or overnight and hope it fires, might have condensation giving you a problem.

Already made

[CyberDruid]

Just a little brainstorming and update here, for US President day:

We are adding the more memory timing tunning parameters in the bios, as so many of you did request it.

The board will be available very soon for purchase, we are done with all the hardware part

If you have access to the GDC , you can all stop by Intel area, I will be there, and will be happy to answer any questions. Use the pass code "xtremesystems" to get to me. I will have the main board designer with me, if you have VR questions, or any other interesting request, our hears will be wild open.

I am now working on planning Skulltrail II hehehe!!! This time, NO FB-DIMMS ... but if you have ideas, email them to my1stname.myfamillyname@intel.com

Many people think that Dual channel DDRIII or DDRII would have been enough for Skulltrail. I want to give some rational on this:

With 8 cores, you get much more MEM requests than with 2 or 4, and those are usually "stream" request. the "today" DDRII/III memory controlleurs are not really design for some many ways, and with 8 Cores, most of them will have to break streams more than 50% of the time, as soon as you get memory intensite. So, taking the actual single processor chipset and add shared FSB would have been slower, only Jounalist could have come up with this idea ... (Kidding)
The naive person will compare the DDRII or III to the FB-DIMM and will concluse that you could beat it, and this conclusion would be totally wrong.
If you want to feed 8 cores properly, or 8 threads, you need a memory controler design from the ground up, allowing read and write at the same time. You need more "ways", and you need to fast forward from core to core faster. Uniform memory is much harder to archive than NUMA, NUMA is the easy way. As you probably saw on the 4x4, NUMA slow down compare to most of the desktop boards, when it gets to games, and not only by few %, but by more than 15% (On UT 3)
When the 8 cores are requesting data on the 2 FSB of Skulltrail, the S5400 does a much better job and any DDRII subsystem from any brand. who ever tell you the opposite need to talk to me, I did a lot of research on this, and I could never beat the S5400 on simulation.
Now, think about it, if it was that easy to use a DDRII/III controler, it would have been pure profite for my platform, in terms of $(X48 is cheaper than S5400), so, if the performance could have been there, I would have done it.

And for the journalist that think they know better than us, well, come and spend a month with me, with the sim tools, and you ll understand that when a platform stack up more than 1.7 Billion transistors, life and tech choice are more than educated choice, we don t decide to do a platform only with the chips we have, we always check to make sure it will be the best we can produce. I am shock about few journalist writing thinks like "just an other 8 cores machine", look at the complexity of this machine, and ask yourself why other people cancelled it, if it was that easy, they would have done it.

so, now, a lot of people asked me: "Why Skulltrail?"
My answer is simple: "Because we can and because few wants it"

I never saw anybody going after " Aérospatiale" for doing the concorde, or Ferrari for doing the Enzo ... but I saw some article where people did not understand ... measuring power on SKT, or trying to compare the platform without doing the tuning and clocking required ... for those web site, I just now know that they are disconnected from the industry they try to comment about, they lost the passion. The most rational buy for a car is a NEON from Dodge, or something like this, but if you can have the BMW M5, what do you take ... this is what the "big web site" are forgetting, they became un emotional, and so, bad advisor for their readers. The same journalists that accused us of having no creativity shoot on a new creation! Duh!

Best regards to all, If you want more crazy hardware, I need your support! I want to keep the Dialog open!

Who? alias Francois Piednoel

BRAVO!

This will be my first Intel motherboard. I chose this platform precisely for the reasons you state above. Thank you for doing something no other MFR could do. Your committment to the enthusiast has warmed my jaded heart

[Delex]

I tried now and...the Skulltrai lsystem wkoring again Strange

[Charles Wirth]

You got lucky but then again, Intel boards and chips are very durable.

Im planning on another round of LN2 soon.

[Delex]

You got lucky but then again, Intel boards and chips are very durable.

Im planning on another round of LN2 soon.

Lucky...yes BTW...You tested the vmods for SKull?

[Zytek_Fan]

BRAVO!

This will be my first Intel motherboard. I chose this platform precisely for the reasons you state above. Thank you for doing something no other MFR could do. Your committment to the enthusiast has warmed my jaded heart

I hope to join the club sometime soon...
Maybe...

[T_M]

Lucky...yes BTW...You tested the vmods for SKull?

The question that i want an answer too also

[illmatik]

i didn't know Idaho had indoor plumbing!

as far as purchasing that second cpu later is that you will have a difficult time finding a matching stepping cpu (fleabay).

Hey, isn't Micron headquartered in Boise? They might hold up production of those sought after 333 FB-Dimms if you guys keep bashing their home state!! :P

As far as skull trail's viability goes, after showing these results to a couple of quantitative analyst/trader types who write their trading models in kxsystems' Q/KDB+ language, much drool had to be mopped up. In their world, the highest # of threads @ the highest clock in a single box under your desk can provide one's strategy quite the moneymaking advantage..or at least much safer trades after being able to execute (and possibly complete) more (or longer, or more longer even!!) simulations to aid in their decisions.

And here I am, as always, just having pulled the trigger on a new quad system for my new audio recording/mixing/mastering/midi rig thinking skull trail was still a ways off. I doubt I'll even stress 4 OC'd cores in normal operations w/ a bunch of plugins loaded although I'm sure I'll try to find a way or reason to justify why I should start designing a new one!!

[Movieman]

Hey, isn't Micron headquartered in Boise? They might hold up production of those sought after 333 FB-Dimms if you guys keep bashing their home state!! :P

As far as skull trail's viability goes, after showing these results to a couple of quantitative analyst/trader types who write their trading models in kxsystems' Q/KDB+ language, much drool had to be mopped up. In their world, the highest # of threads @ the highest clock in a single box under your desk can provide one's strategy quite the moneymaking advantage..or at least much safer trades after being able to execute (and possibly complete) more (or longer, or more longer even!!) simulations to aid in their decisions.

And here I am, as always, just having pulled the trigger on a new quad system for my new audio recording/mixing/mastering/midi rig thinking skull trail was still a ways off. I doubt I'll even stress 4 OC'd cores in normal operations w/ a bunch of plugins loaded although I'm sure I'll try to find a way or reason to justify why I should start designing a new one!!

I'm still looking for those 3-3-3-12 FBDimms.
If anyone finds them give me a yell please.
Thanks!

[Silver Bullet]

Anyone know of a supplier in Canada (or will ship to canada) for either set of ram:

Mushkin 2X2GB PC2-6400 240PIN DDR2-800 FBDIMM 976596A

or

KINGSTON, 4GB (2 x 2GB) ValueRAM Dual-Rank KVR800D2D8F5/2G

I've been looking around some US sites have either or but they don't ship to Canada

update: nm .. found some

[Zytek_Fan]

I'm still looking for those 3-3-3-12 FBDimms.
If anyone finds them give me a yell please.
Thanks!

You're gonna have to call Micron about that

[NeedMoMegaHurtZ]

@FUGGER:

When you get a chance, can you put your BEAST through the x264 encoding benchmark run by XS member graysky?

This is one application where multiple cores should actually be utilized effectively and the top spot is held by dual clovers @ 3.0GHz (only )

The XS thread is here http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=158199

The mainpage is here
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.a...pgno=0#Results

Your "toy" @ 4.4Ghz should destroy this

[lutjens]

I'd love to know why these boards are taking so long to become available...many places have them listed, but all have them backordered until typically late March-April. The CPUs are available, but not the boards.

Why the delay???

[dinos22]

here is what i mean about slow booting skulltrail

video is the best way to explain it

http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?vid...KyIOb3dZokW75e

[RottenMutt]

you have obviously never owned a workstation board, bios always takes a long time to post.

has anyone purchased one yet BOXD5400XS???
or here D5400XS

[p2501]

you have obviously never owned a workstation board, bios always takes a long time to post.

True, i remember my 760MP board needed ~40sec from switching it on to VGA init. On this board it was the ECC ram that took so long, at least for me (so maybe the FBDIMMs are keeping it from booting faster?). Seeing this YouTube link dinos posted really makes me want to go dual socket again for folding.. gawd, SkullTrail rocks!

[dinos22]

you have obviously never owned a workstation board, bios always takes a long time to post.

has anyone purchased one yet BOXD5400XS???
or here D5400XS

charles in this threads doesn't seem convinced it's anything out of the ordinary

i owned many many different boards and tested even more...this one was very slow.........one of the slowest booting boards from newer era that's for sure heh