My Dual Harper - Asus Z7S WS living review *56K warning*

[neveroffline]

Ok so I finally got my replacement Z7S and have it up and running, now downloading updates and benchmarks. I will have some screenshots from stock 5410's in the next week or so using stock cooling. The heatsinks are cool to the touch after 5hrs maybe 50% idle.

My new 24" LCD is not working right however, so this is my second RMA on this build, well third. lol My good ole trusty 17" CRT is running the sweetie now. I also updated bios to 302. I couldn't get raid to work however until I changed the boot order from default, then worked like a charm. Entire 64 bit Vista took maybe 20 minutes to install, no .

GPUZ is up, 3dMark06 is also up. Dual 3870's but am curious as to the other posters scores with his new 4850's, I may return these 3870's even though they use a higher clock and faster ram due to the reviews I read on the 4850's. I hate losing a slot because mine are dual slotted. We shall see, I'm still within the 30 days. Crysis demo I will run tomorrow on full to get a feel.

I have another 2 8cores identical 5410's running from dell, so I'm interested in the perf diff here.

Cheers and thanks for everyones input.

[jcool]

Good to see you got it up and running. If you're looking for a 3DMark comparison, here is a single HD3870X2 on my Z7S (though a lot more CPU speed compared to stock 5410's). Since 06 is too (single) CPU-dependant you won't get good numbers there on stock speeds, however gaming should work great.

[jcool]

Crap, looks like my harpers are down. Just checked and windows was half-frozen... shut it off and restarted, but it froze again instantly. Tried again with stock clocks but it doesn't boot any more, with the HDD making funky noises. Looks like the 2,5" HDD I took from my IBM X60 wasn't made for 24/7 operation... oh well. Gotta get my Raid 5 array up soon, let's see what I can find until then... Might try that diskless cruncher thing for a while.

[jcool]

Update, found a 20GB IDE HDD lying around labeled "checked & working w/ no defective sectors, 06/10/06"
Installing Win XP x64 on this drive right now, lol. Hopefully this one will last until I get the raid 5 up and running...

[neveroffline]

Update, found a 20GB IDE HDD lying around labeled "checked & working w/ no defective sectors, 06/10/06"
Installing Win XP x64 on this drive right now, lol. Hopefully this one will last until I get the raid 5 up and running...

I love having spare parts. I tried 3 video cards to rule them out over my stupid new 24" LCD that liked to turn on and off at random. I'm getting reading to run 3dmark06 on one 3870 here in a bit, will let you know. Not bad on your X2 - does that use about the same watts as the single 3870? I might consider that over the 4850 depending on price. Sorry about your issues today, trust me I feel for ya.

[Movieman]

You know whats a great drive for a cruncher?
an old single 36 gig Raptor.
Not that much $$ but fast and lasts..

[jcool]

Well, it depends. A LOT of raptors around here have died, but I guess if they die then they die quickly. And if they last, they'll last forever.
The old raptor is a little too noisy for my taste though, and HDD speed doesn't really matter for the crunchers OS.
I'm still contemplating what to do about my HDD setup, whether I'll install the OS directly on the Raid 5 array, which will effectively eliminate the possibility to shut down the drives when not needed. On the other hand, I will save one disk and too many spinup/downs aren't healthy anyways.

I love having spare parts. I tried 3 video cards to rule them out over my stupid new 24" LCD that liked to turn on and off at random. I'm getting reading to run 3dmark06 on one 3870 here in a bit, will let you know. Not bad on your X2 - does that use about the same watts as the single 3870? I might consider that over the 4850 depending on price. Sorry about your issues today, trust me I feel for ya.

The X2 eats about double the power of a single 3870
Also, two single 3870's in CF mode will need considerably less power than a 3870X2 when in idle. You could also pair your single 3870 up with a 4850, that should work well too.

[[XC] serlv]

over my stupid new 24" LCD that liked to turn on and off at random. I'm getting reading to run 3dmark06 on one 3870 here in a

You know, I get the same thing on my 24" WS LCD. It is as if the thing goes to sleep ( as in Windows inactivity powersaving mode ), but I'm not necessarily inactive when it happens. A wiggle of the mouse or a touch of a key and it'll come back in a few seconds, but it is annoying as hell.

[neveroffline]

You know, I get the same thing on my 24" WS LCD. It is as if the thing goes to sleep ( as in Windows inactivity powersaving mode ), but I'm not necessarily inactive when it happens. A wiggle of the mouse or a touch of a key and it'll come back in a few seconds, but it is annoying as hell.

LOL... It was doing it in the bios, at post sometimes I wouldn't even get a screen, and in attempting to install vista - on off at random. Touching the mouse did nothing, nor did the spacebar, so I doubt it's the same issue. It does what I said, goes in and out at random and sometimes doesn't turn on at all. Now that I have the crt connected, go figure, the crt doesn't do any of that. I'll give the LCD one more shot later on today then it's getting RMA'd. My friend has the exact same LCD and it doesn't do this. Also, none of my other 3 lcd's do that. I don't want to go into my horror story with newegg on this build, but I will say my rma list and orders/returns from this build are lengthy - that's whats been annoying as hell for me.

[[XC] serlv]

I don't want to go into my horror story with newegg on this build, but I will say my rma list and orders/returns from this build are lengthy - that's whats been annoying as hell for me.

Sounds like a nightmare...

Yeah, my LCD thing is different. somewhat annoying, but doesn't happen often enough to make me pull my hair out. Furthermore, it din't happen at all when I used it on a different rig (via a VGA hookup ) for a few months. It is only on this rig, using an HD 3870's DVI hookup, that it started happening. I'm thinking it might be the DVI cable...

[jcool]

My 24" doesn't behave any different from any other LCD or CRT I have owned so far...
Anyway, my rig is up and crunching again, this trusty old pre-2000 hdd seems to work fine
I tried to get BoincPE to work, it's a real PITA though... might work with more "normal" hardware, but it didn't even take the 5400 chipset and marvel LAN drivers I fed it so it was a nogo - also maximum ramdisk size was 512MB - hardly enough for 8 threads WCG

Still lost half a day - day to this..

[neveroffline]

My 24" doesn't behave any different from any other LCD or CRT I have owned so far...
Anyway, my rig is up and crunching again, this trusty old pre-2000 hdd seems to work fine
I tried to get BoincPE to work, it's a real PITA though... might work with more "normal" hardware, but it didn't even take the 5400 chipset and marvel LAN drivers I fed it so it was a nogo - also maximum ramdisk size was 512MB - hardly enough for 8 threads WCG

Still lost half a day - day to this..

Good to hear it's back up! Ok after about 24hrs straight my cpu heatsinks are still not even warm to the touch. My scores on 3dMark06 however disappointed me with a single 3870 stock.

3dmark 11,300
sm2, 3, and cpu were all around 4500

I will run it again and grab a SS later.

CPUZ is showing my cpus running at about 1.9 not 2.3 all the time, so maybe I need to disable something in the bios. It'll hit 2.3 if I push it a bit. I'd like to try a conservative OC at this point. jcool where should I start? I'm at 333 fsb right now, so stock.

Stock cooling but the heatsinks are not even warm, only thing really even warm to the touch right now is the ram, but not anywhere near hot. And well the 3870 is a lil warm, but not bad. All the fans spun up fast during the 3dmark test.

I'm willing to run any benchmarks you guys want from this at stock.

Thanks for everyones help, it's great to be octo.

[jcool]

You show 1,9Ghz because speedstep/C1E is active, that is normal and doesn't affect performance when needed. See my 3DMark pic above, it also shows only 2,5Ghz in idle, while being 3,2 under load.

Where do you start? Easy, go into bios and set FSB to 400
Not much options there to mess around with anyways...
You do have DDR2-800 FBdimms, don't you? Make sure you have a fan over them, as they are gonna get hot when running 400Mhz+
No need to raise any voltages yet. Just try FSB 400 straight, it should work. Use Prime95 to test stability, and monitor your temps closely. You can use Everest for CPU temps, substract 10C from the reading though as it uses the wrong Tjunction just like coretemp.

[neveroffline]

You do have DDR2-800 FBdimms, don't you? Make sure you have a fan over them, as they are gonna get hot when running 400Mhz+
No need to raise any voltages yet. Just try FSB 400 straight, it should work. Use Prime95 to test stability, and monitor your temps closely. You can use Everest for CPU temps, substract 10C from the reading though as it uses the wrong Tjunction just like coretemp.

I have 667 Transcend FBDimms, but I do have fans over them. Should I still try the 400 fsb with these? I don't have Everest, is it a free download? So basically whatever bios says for the temps I can subtract 10c?

My CPU 0 was at like 50c and my CPU 1 was like 40.5, so I may need to remount cpu0's heatsink and apply artic silver, it's still using the default thermal pad from the heatsink after about 20 remounts - lol. Thanks again.

[jcool]

Ah well, I thought you had 800 sticks. Too bad, some people had performance issues with 667 mem while overclocking in the past, so make sure you update to the latest bios (0302).
You might want to try fsb 400 as well, but raise Vdimm a bit (1,86V maybe).
And no, the "substract 10C rule" is for coretemp-based programs only, you can use coretemp as well since it's free

[neveroffline]

Ah well, I thought you had 800 sticks. Too bad, some people had performance issues with 667 mem while overclocking in the past, so make sure you update to the latest bios (0302).
You might want to try fsb 400 as well, but raise Vdimm a bit (1,86V maybe).
And no, the "substract 10C rule" is for coretemp-based programs only, you can use coretemp as well since it's free

Just installed it, it's showing 50c for cpu0 and 41c for cpu1 idle. That good?

Thanks. I will try to OC later when I get home.

[jcool]

Seems like you need to remount CPU0 cooler.. idle temps aren't important anyways, what counts are load temps (while running prime95 SmallFFT).

[minhgi]

You mean you set FSB to 400 but it's unstable? Try running a smaller multiplier like 7x at FSB 400 and check with prime. If you are stable, then you need a Vcore mod. Good luck with finding the right pins to insulate though, I haven't come across an appropriate howto so far...

After checking my bios, my memory setting was at 667, after a fail overclock. I google up the manufacturing number and found out that the memories are made for PC2-5300. However, the label on the memory said PC2-6400.
How that possible!? I am getting my stuff from newegg from now on and stop being cheap.

About the HD4850, they kicks ass against the GTX280 in CF. I had not benchmark them yet, but sure that they are on the par or less Nvidia offering. Most reviews indicate so.

I had a pair of Sapphire HD3870 Toxic single slot not doing anything after my replacement of the 4850. Looking forward to sell them.

[STEvil]

Where did you buy the memory from?

[neveroffline]

Seems like you need to remount CPU0 cooler.. idle temps aren't important anyways, what counts are load temps (while running prime95 SmallFFT).

I'm just curious, but what should my prime95 temps be in degrees C under full load, and how long should this test take? I'd rather not remount the heatsinks cause it is a PITA, and if it's stable no need to.

BTW: I ran Prime95 under SmallFFT and it didn't crash.

Thanks.

[minhgi]

Where did you buy the memory from?

A place call memorysales.com. It was on Google shop ad. From reviews, they have over 1500 reviews. Loooks kinda reputable.

Anyway, I had order from newegg for ADATA memories that have 5-5-5-12 timing compare to most that are 5-5-5-15. I hope there can be some performance improvement.

[MrBean]

Ok, just got back in from Bangkok after a week business trip, and my wife hands me a parcel - yeay - my new memory!!

I am stoked....

And, without further ado, here they are, in all their glory....



a close-up (if somewhat blurry, soz) so you can spec the part-number:



and here you can see where I have installed them for quad-channel operation, in the 4x white slots on the Z7S....



and a last shot of the memory:



Well, I can confirm the memory works 100% fine, no issues - I ran the latest memetest version, which managed to get them up to around 58deg C, even with a 3-fan Dominator cooler - will do something special to keep them cool(er).

I installed 32-bit Windows Server 2008, which of course only detects around 3gig of the ram, but Windows installed without any issues, so all ok. I guess I am in memory heaven.

Hope this helps those out there looking for compatible ram for this board

Here is the correct ram from BigFiveShop.

Paid $540- AUD for these puppies, not bad.

[minhgi]

Ok, just got back in from Bangkok after a week business trip, and my wife hands me a parcel - yeay - my new memory!!

I am stoked....

And, without further ado, here they are, in all their glory....



a close-up (if somewhat blurry, soz) so you can spec the part-number:



and here you can see where I have installed them for quad-channel operation, in the 4x white slots on the Z7S....



and a last shot of the memory:



Well, I can confirm the memory works 100% fine, no issues - I ran the latest memetest version, which managed to get them up to around 58deg C, even with a 3-fan Dominator cooler - will do something special to keep them cool(er).

I installed 32-bit Windows Server 2008, which of course only detects around 3gig of the ram, but Windows installed without any issues, so all ok. I guess I am in memory heaven.

Hope this helps those out there looking for compatible ram for this board

Here is the correct ram from BigFiveShop.

Paid $540- AUD for these puppies, not bad.

Is that how you support to setup the memory module if you want quad channel. I thought the manual had prefer to the the 4 closet slots to the CPU?

[jcool]

No, like I said earlier, you have to use the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 6th slot counting from the NB. Or as MrBean put it, use the white slots.
Great pics btw MrBean
Strange that you get up to 58C with a fan attached, I haven't seen more than 55C on one even after 5h of memtest, most are below 50C. I guess that shows how strong these ram(m)bock's really are. But I wouldn't worry, anything below 80C is perfectly fine.

minhgi, you can try to increase vdimm to get them running at 400mhz. I'd still rma them though, they can't sell you 667mhz DIMMs for 800's.

Justin, how is your OC coming along? Tried 400 yet?

[minhgi]

No, like I said earlier, you have to use the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 6th slot counting from the NB. Or as MrBean put it, use the white slots.
Great pics btw MrBean
Strange that you get up to 58C with a fan attached, I haven't seen more than 55C on one even after 5h of memtest, most are below 50C. I guess that shows how strong these ram(m)bock's really are. But I wouldn't worry, anything below 80C is perfectly fine.

minhgi, you can try to increase vdimm to get them running at 400mhz. I'd still rma them though, they can't sell you 667mhz DIMMs for 800's.

Justin, how is your OC coming along? Tried 400 yet?

I had try to up the v-dimm volt but no luck. I can oc to 360FSB then after that my pc would just lock up. Anyway, let me see if i can try to the 4 quad channel thingie. I'm just going to have to wait for those other ram. just another weeks before I can get them.