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

[jcool]

Pics say more than words

Dunno what went wrong with your setup, it's definitely 8 cores in tasmgr. You did install a "ACPI-Multiprocessor" machine right?
If you chose "ACPI-Uniprocessor" that may be the problem...

[shanems3]

Pics say more than words

Dunno what went wrong with your setup, it's definitely 8 cores in tasmgr. You did install a "ACPI-Multiprocessor" machine right?
If you chose "ACPI-Uniprocessor" that may be the problem...

never mind, had a stupid moment.. lol, got processors from work for free.. they are dual core.. lmao.... my E5450's are quad but wont work due to bios.. lol... wow.....

no only problem i have is the pc shuts down in a 3d game.... making another thread for that one..

[jcool]

Shutdown in 3D? That one's easy. Get a new PSU

[shanems3]

Shutdown in 3D? That one's easy. Get a new PSU

thats what i was thinkin until it shutdown on me typing a message on this board.. since then, i put a fan blowing in my case to bring the Mobo Temp from 47c to 41 c and ran Prime 95 and Cinebench for 1 hour .... so i am thinking its a heat issue....

regardless, i am ordering a new PSU with new case with better ventilation

[jcool]

- updated post #1 with new bios

[shanems3]

jcool, wanted to ask ya, what heatsink is that on the NBridge chipset??

[jcool]

Alpenföhn (retail brand of EKL) Ötzi, only available in Germany afaik. Same brand as the mem coolers.

[sgmunson]

Hey all,

Just wanted to update the crew here on what I ended up with. Unfortunately, the costs of going to 8 cores were just too high, given a nearly $500 mobo and then at least a pair of $200 each cpu's, followed by a good $1000 worth of RAM, then add a case and PSU that would add yet another $500, and then a $400 graphics card, and then the $400 Blu-Ray DVD writer, and I was looking at well in excess of $3K, which was just too much at this point.

Thus I ended up getting a Smilodon RaidMax case (came with a 500w PSU that I didn't even know I was getting - bought it at a computer show for $109), an 850w ETASIS psu for $149, the Asus P5Q3 Deluxe WiFi-AP @n motherboard, 8 GIG of Corsair DDR3 (1333 MHz - PC10666) as four 2GB sticks. I will at least be capable of getting up to 16GB of RAM at some point in the future.

I decided on the Intel Q9550 for the cpu, as it's price was still within reason, and is only one step down in speed from the top end. I have the Panasonic Blu-Ray DVD writer on order, and some 160GB SATA drives, and then I'll install Vista Ultimate 64-bit with SQL Server 64-bit, and Roxio Creator 2009 Ultimate. I plan on some serious time spent transferring Hi-8 digital CamCorder tapes to Blu-Ray DVD via FireWire directly from the Camcorder, so I'd like to think this will be more than up to the task. I also have some plans to install a high-end computer chess program that's capable of using multiple processors.

I've been running the system with cpu, ram, & mobo in the case, and just using MSN chat and the browser in Asus' ExpressGate - a slick little set of tools... I know some folks who could easily meet ALL their computer needs with the ExpressGate browser and chat capability, by the lowest end Asus mobo with ExpressGate in it, and decent ram, plus a high-capacity SDHC card with USB converter. I was impressed, although I'm not sure if I have the sound hooked to the case properly, or if there's a problem with the case speaker as yet. I'll try and take some pictures after I get the HD's and DVD writer installed.

My number crunching obviously won't be in the 8-core class as I had hoped, but this will have to do until fiscal circumstances improve significantly. I also want to take the time to thank those of you who've been posting all your experiences here, as I've been able to gather quite a bit of guidance on the kind of things to look out for, and I feel I was far better prepared for my Quad-core purchase and assembly because of things I discovered in this thread. I initially tripped up on connecting the 8-pin power connector, but when I didn't see a boot-up in short order, and there weren't any beeps, I new I had something wrong, and went looking for another power connector because of what I'd read here. Sure enough, I had just missed the 8-pin, despite remembering to connect the 6-pin to the video card.

As I don't need that 500w RaidMax PSU, if anyone is interested, let me know. Thanks again everyone, and I'll post again with pics once I have everything up and running, and I'll no doubt be back seeking guidance on where to find some performance links and performance test s/w.

Steve
(aka sgmunson)

[STEvil]

$1000 for ram? What were you buying?

[jcool]

Erm yeah.. Scott (serlv) bought some cheap Supertalent 2GB sticks for like 52$ each, and from what I hear, they are working great.. So make that ~220$ for 8GB
But still, the total cost is high of course.

[shanems3]

agreed, i paid about 300 for my ram, its 2 4gb ddr667, which ill be selling soon to get ddr800

[sgmunson]

The original plan was 4 x 4GB OCZ or Corsair high-end stuff @ about $250 per stick. With my configuration adjusted downward, my 4 x 2GB Corsair DDR3 PC10666 which run at 1333MHz cost just over $350 for all 4 sticks.

Edit: Cost actually $320 after I receive my $30 Visa card rebate.

Steve
(aka sgmunson)

$1000 for ram? What were you buying?

[cbienlein]

what kind of temps is everyone seeing on the dual Xeons? im running 40 idle, 50 load...seems high

[shanems3]

38c idle, 55 full load, this is overclocked to 3.6ghz..

65is the max rated on this cpu so i am happy..

[jcool]

Idle? Mine don't even know idle
Full continuous BOINC load for 2 weeks now, Coretemps between 51 and 54C on all cores at 4,06Ghz which is pretty good.

shanems3, the max rated temps are way higher than 65 Tjunction is 95C for most Quads, even 100C for 45nm Dualies.

[cbienlein]

my 5430s are at 3.2 right now...good to know the temps arent too bad. id still like to bring them down some

[shanems3]

my 5430s are at 3.2 right now...good to know the temps arent too bad. id still like to bring them down some

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-8-000-BTU-Po...d=p3286.c0.m14

get that.. lol, duct it into ur pc

[Jaco]

My E5450's at 3.96Ghz gives me low 60's (running WCG ).
Running prime is another matter , more like 75°C !
But I don't run prime every day, it's just for stability testing

[sgmunson]

Here's the pics I promised - as attachments because they're not hosted on a URL. The process of building this system has been surprisingly easy, save two things:

1.) The room in this case isn't quite what I thought it would be, so if there's a next time, I won't choose to go cheap on the case. I found that the cabling was having trouble with the closing up of thr right hand side of the case and the hard drives and video card. Without even realizing it, I managed to bust off a piece of the plastic on one of the SATA power cables, such that you can see the pins from one side, in the process of just closing the right side of the case. This case has both sides capable of being folded down from the top.

2.) I appear to have misplugged a USB cable that goes to the front of the case, and I burned up two different SATA card readers before I realized I had it wrong. Sure wish I had known that was a possible outcome ahead of time. I had the cable plugged in backwards from what I could tell, but I'm not entirely sure, as I ended up letting go of the cable right after removing it from the pins on the mobo, and another possibility is that I only had half of it plugged in, but who knows which half. I can't even be sure I have it right at this point, but I won't be using those anytime soon. I guess I'll have to find a real cheap USB device to test it again later.

Next step is the install of Vista Ultimate 64-bit, followed by SQL Server Developer's Edition 2005 AND 2008, so that I have both versions available. Then I get a copy of the multi-processor version of Fritz (chess playing program) - perhaps for Christmas...

Anyway, if anyone has any guidance based on this post of the pics, please feel free to respond. Thanks!

Steve
(aka sgmunson)

[sgmunson]

Limit of 5 pics per post, so here's the next group of pics...

Steve
(aka sgmunson)

[D_A]

I take it you've sorted that cable management issue?

[sgmunson]

Here's the final pic with the CPU indicated.

Again, any feedback at all will be appreciated, especially with regard to the boo-boos I made. Thanks again, everyone.

Steve
(aka sgmunson)

[sgmunson]

I have it dealt with by virtue of having realized I was going to have to move the hard drives entirely into the part of the case that was designed to house them, which is a movable casing at the bottom. I had initially tried to put one of the four up inside the area normally occupied by floppy drives or other similar devices (and below where the external capable section of that part was), but the tail end of the video card was just too close for that. Unfortunately, I had busted the cable before I realized I had a problem. Sometimes, ya just learn the hard way...

Now that all 4 drives are down below, the issue is resolved, and the cables, while still unwieldy, are at least capable of being managed without disconnecting themselves or getting broken. There's still not a lot of extra space there, but it will have to do for now.

Dang!!! Almost forgot - any recommendations for freebie performance testing software? Also, given I have the Q9550 cpu on the Asus P5Q3 Deluxe WiFi AP @n mobo, any chance for viable overclocking? If not, no big deal, as I'll probably be drooling over the performance of a 2.83GHz quad-core as compared to my existing single core P4 at 2.66GHz.

Steve
(aka sgmunson)

I take it you've sorted that cable management issue?

[D_A]

BOINC's internal benchmarks, SuperPI, SiSoft Sandra ... I'm sure there's a ton more.

[Jaco]

excuse my ignorance , but what does this have to with the Asus Z7S ?