** OFFICIAL ** Intel DX38BT & DX48BT2 BoneTrail Thread

[AKHandyman]

Okay guys, today I got a little early present from Santa: this nice BOXDX38BT mobo; an Intel QX9650 with a Zalman CNPS9700 NT; 4GB Corsair Dominator CM3X-1800DDR3 Memory; 4 Seagate HDDs and some Lite-On burners and a Big ole P190 that I want to put all of these into ... oh yeah, and TWO Sapphire ATI HD2900XTs 1GB GDDR4 memory each. Kind of nice, huh? I need a starting reference point in the initial set-up ... any help would be nice as I don't have a lot of time ... this set-up is for a friend who wanted it put together like yesterday ... I'll be looking for some pointers whenever someone can offer ... thanks

AK

[Randy]

Okay guys, today I got a little early present from Santa: this nice BOXDX38BT mobo; an Intel QX9650 with a Zalman CNPS9700 NT; 4GB Corsair Dominator CM3X-1800DDR3 Memory; 4 Seagate HDDs and some Lite-On burners and a Big ole P190 that I want to put all of these into ... oh yeah, and TWO Sapphire ATI HD2900XTs 1GB GDDR4 memory each. Kind of nice, huh? I need a starting reference point in the initial set-up ... any help would be nice as I don't have a lot of time ... this set-up is for a friend who wanted it put together like yesterday ... I'll be looking for some pointers whenever someone can offer ... thanks

AK

What OS are you going to use ?

[AKHandyman]

She wants WinXP64bit installed ... I agree as I think it to be the most stable and she doesn't want to have the headaches Vista brings ...

[AKHandyman]

I see your signature and it looks like you have it dialed in fairly well so far ... I am looking to get stability and performance without any serious overclocking ... my friend wants to use this for video encoding and graphic design ...

[Randy]

I see your signature and it looks like you have it dialed in fairly well so far ... I am looking to get stability and performance without any serious overclocking ... my friend wants to use this for video encoding and graphic design ...

Well,
I didn't have much luck with the crossfire set-up, and the majority of the bumps for most folks here was the initial bios, which has been somewhat ironed out with the latest bios. Just read through the thread, but your build should go smoothly.

[AKHandyman]

Well,
I didn't have much luck with the crossfire set-up, and the majority of the bumps for most folks here was the initial bios, which has been somewhat ironed out with the latest bios. Just read through the thread, but your build should go smoothly.

I have the rig up and running, but have yet to load the OS ... I want to load the OS onto two 320GB Seagate (RAID 0) ... it's taking a bit to go through this BIOS ... should I flash to the newest BIOS before I get started? What does the new BIOS do over the original? I have an external Floppy via USB so I shouldn't have any problems flashing the new BIOS, should I? I see that I can enable to boot from USB ... is there a way for the BIOS to recognize the USB Floppy? Just curious before I get started, that's why all the ???s

[gtj]

Do the BIOS first. No problems booting from a USB floppy. Just enable the boot from USB and set boot USB drives first. Also, make sure you have a diskette ready with the Intel RAID drivers on it. Vista has the driver built in but WinXP doesn't.

[AKHandyman]

Do the BIOS first. No problems booting from a USB floppy. Just enable the boot from USB and set boot USB drives first. Also, make sure you have a diskette ready with the Intel RAID drivers on it. Vista has the driver built in but WinXP doesn't.

Well, I ran into a bit of a problem trying to get the latest BIOS installed before I loaded the OS onto my RAID config ... so I am at the moment just going ahead and loading the OS with the original BIOS and will update AFTER I get WinXP64 loaded.
Can you tell me where in the BIOS is the setting for the voltage for vDIMM? I can't seem to find it ... and as well for the NB. Is it the vMCH? Never heard of that before ... this is my first Intel board ... so please be nice ...

[Tetras]

The Northbridge is vMCH yes (memory controller hub, what the NB is).

[Randy]

Well, I ran into a bit of a problem trying to get the latest BIOS installed before I loaded the OS onto my RAID config ... so I am at the moment just going ahead and loading the OS with the original BIOS and will update AFTER I get WinXP64 loaded.
Can you tell me where in the BIOS is the setting for the voltage for vDIMM? I can't seem to find it ... and as well for the NB. Is it the vMCH? Never heard of that before ... this is my first Intel board ... so please be nice ...

I believe you have to set the CPU and/or memory setting to manual versus auto to make those setting changeable.

[AKHandyman]

Merry Christmas everyone!!

I was able to load WinXP64 onto the RAID 0 config (two Seagate 320GB HDD) last night with no problems ... everything is stock for the moment ... no tweaks ... just loading the drivers and such ... it actually went real smooth ...

But I still have ???s, so AH'LL BE BACK!!

[gtj]

But I still have ???s, so AH'LL BE BACK!!

We'll be here.

[AKHandyman]

Okay, I tried putting the other 2 GB of Corsair Dominator memory in and it wouldn't boot ... I went into maintenance mode and upped the vDIMM to 2.02v ... and upped the MCH (Memory Controller Hub or to me NB ... ) to 1.375v;
the FSB Voltage Override to 1.300v; CPU Voltage Override (VID?) to 1.350v;
and changed the multiplier and frequency to manual: 9x400 ... and it looks like I was able to boot into windows ... are these voltages okay?

Just going at this nice and slow, seeing that I have never worked on an Intel board before .... but I am liking it as I go along ...

[gtj]

Do some OTRHOS or Prime95 testing with those settings to establish a good baseline. The voltages (except for vDIMM) may be a little high. I was able to do 400FSB with everything stock.

[Jasonx82]

nm ..

[AKHandyman]

nm ..

Not sure I know what that means ...

[AKHandyman]

Never Mind?

[mondocool]

I'm a bit jealous of those esata ports my dfi x38 board doesn't have them

[mondocool]

Never Mind?

Yes
Also is this mobo a 5 stage PWM analog or digital?

[Jasonx82]

is it normal for my quad to be off by 10c? 25c 25c 35c 33c idling via coretemp? This is on Stock settings with stock hsf.

[Randy]

Well, I ran into a bit of a problem trying to get the latest BIOS installed before I loaded the OS onto my RAID config ... so I am at the moment just going ahead and loading the OS with the original BIOS and will update AFTER I get WinXP64 loaded.
Can you tell me where in the BIOS is the setting for the voltage for vDIMM? I can't seem to find it ... and as well for the NB. Is it the vMCH? Never heard of that before ... this is my first Intel board ... so please be nice ...

Hey,
just wondered if you got your crossfire going on any games smoothly. I'm curious because I had mega issues, but I am running Vista and you said you were using XP64.

[gtj]

is it normal for my quad to be off by 10c? 25c 25c 35c 33c idling via coretemp? This is on Stock settings with stock hsf.

It's not unheard of. Did you reapply the TIM? For the quads, you kind of have to spread the paste evenly over the surface unlike the duos where you can just put a line down the middle. Also look at the windows performance monitor and see if the utilization is even at idle.

[Jasonx82]

It's not unheard of. Did you reapply the TIM? For the quads, you kind of have to spread the paste evenly over the surface unlike the duos where you can just put a line down the middle. Also look at the windows performance monitor and see if the utilization is even at idle.

yeah i did it twice.. reseated and even followed the directions @ as5 website

[gtj]

yeah i did it twice.. reseated and even followed the directions @ as5 website

As long as the temps are safe I wouldn't worry about it.

[Randy]

is it normal for my quad to be off by 10c? 25c 25c 35c 33c idling via coretemp? This is on Stock settings with stock hsf.

My temps are uneven as well.