Just got me a new gaming machine.

[Tanzi]

Hello fine people,

My uncle built a machine for me and he showed me a few things here and there, but I want to learn as I go, so many questions may be coming.

He said to start with this forum as it seems friendly and busy.

 

[AtaruMoroboshi18]

Hello welcome to the board. My name is Ataru and I will be serving you Sarcasm on a silver platter. Over to your right you will see the giraffes, and to the left, a sign that says do not feed the hippos.

j/k Welcome and remember, you've got questions, we've got comments.

 

[bjc112]

Welcome to the forums!

Don't be afraid to use the SEARCH button for some of those soon to come questions.

Your uncle pointed you in the right direction!

 

[CrimsonChaos]

Nice forum for the most part, just ignore the few mean-spirited people you're sure to run into.

Otherwise, WELCOME!

 

[imported_Kensai]

Welcome to the forums,

My name is Bob the builder, I will be your host for this week.
Today's specials are, Sarcasm, Idiodicy and Stupidness.

Thank you and enjoy your stay.

 

[theMan]

WELCOME!

this should help you a bit: http://www.omnicast.net/~tmcfadden/guides/build/

 

[powerMarkymark]

Hey and welcome.

Oh..........don't forget to use the search function before asking a question.

M@rc

 

[WraithETC]

Wow he made you a pretty sweet rig.

 

[fierydemise]

just avoid the video forum its a constant flamewar over there not much real disscussion happens besides disscussion dealing with other peoples education level and fanboism

 

[KayKay]

great computer you have there, and yes this place is very friendly and very busy

 

[Tanzi]

Hiyas!

I've been doing a lot of reading on things and want to start tweaking around and break stuff.

I've gone through the bios options, but the last couple of updates for this bios have been pretty bad and I can't get the asus probe program to work.
I'm using the most recent bios update, but it's still a beta version.

I have the full version of 3dmark05, but it takes so long to run each time and I'm not sure what settings to use.
Same with the nvidia control panel settings.
What would be a good simple program to start off with that would let me check what tweaks work best without running through a 15 minute benchmark each time?

I just want to change one thing at a time and run a quick test to see the results.

 

[LoverBoyJ]

Welcome to the forum!!
Your uncle is right :thumbsup: this is one of the best forums out there.

Thats one sweet system you got!

 

[Umberger]

Originally posted by: Tanzi
Hiyas!

I've been doing a lot of reading on things and want to start tweaking around and break stuff.

I've gone through the bios options, but the last couple of updates for this bios have been pretty bad and I can't get the asus probe program to work.
I'm using the most recent bios update, but it's still a beta version.

I have the full version of 3dmark05, but it takes so long to run each time and I'm not sure what settings to use.
Same with the nvidia control panel settings.
What would be a good simple program to start off with that would let me check what tweaks work best without running through a 15 minute benchmark each time?

I just want to change one thing at a time and run a quick test to see the results.

welcome to the forums. i have no witty intro. i apologize.
as a short test, you can play a particular part of a game and take note of the framerate. this is a very rough estimate, and will not really show small changes very well, so 3dmark is really a better judge. you could use 3dmark03, instead of 3dmark05, it might run a good bit faster.

 

[Tanzi]

Oh good idea about the 3dmark03.

I managed to find what others are saying is the most stable bios version at the moment.
1007 Final.
I found two 1007 with different dates, so I'm using the one with the latest date.

Learning lots.

 

[Tanzi]

Got 13005 on 3dmark03 and 5309 on 3dmark05.

That's with the bios AI overclock at 5% and the vid card set with the optimal OC option.

Was surprised to see some of the cpu tests at 2 to 4 FPS on the 05 version.

 

[theMan]

those are pretty good scores. a bit of advice - dont use the auto overclock settings. i did a 10% and it raised my cpu voltage 20%! and with manual settings, i can do that at default voltage. just get cpuz, prime95, and superpi, and read the overclocking sticky, and do it yourself. also, download rivatuner or nvtweak to start oc'ing your gfx card

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Originally posted by: Tanzi
Hiyas!

I've been doing a lot of reading on things and want to start tweaking around and break stuff.

I've gone through the bios options, but the last couple of updates for this bios have been pretty bad and I can't get the asus probe program to work.
I'm using the most recent bios update, but it's still a beta version.

Sounds like fun - welcome to the forums (you'll fit right in). Nice rig by the way.

 

[Stokes]

I wish my uncle spoke english.....

nice build though! lol

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Hi welcome to the forums

I was one of the first to get the A8N-SLI back in december and am an avid overclocker and regular here. If you ever have specific questions about overclocking this board feel free to PM me.

Here's a few tidbits to get you started

1. Asus probe died with bios 1007 and up, but not to worry Asus has just released Asus probe II and its much better than the original. Just search the motherboard forum for "Asus probe II" and you will find a link to download it.

2. SuperPI is what I use for quick stability testing, run the 4m or 8m test they run about 3min and 8min respectively and are a good quick test. Once you find the O/C that you want, run Prime95 overnight to make sure its 100% stable.

3. Make sure you enable the PCI and PCI-E locks on this board by setting HTT to 201 or higher in the Jumperfree section of the bios. The PCI and PCI-E settings in the Jumperfree section don't work, the only thing that locks the buses is setting HTT higher than 200. If you boot up at 200 and overclock using a windows utility your buses won't be locked and your system will become unstable at about 215+mhz

4. The best windows overclocking utility is Clockgen NF4, google for it. You can safely use this program to increase HTT in windows. I would recommend making all other changes like multis, voltages and ram timings in bios only, its much safer this way.

5. The memory divders on this board are in the DDR subpage of the CPU configuration page in bios. They are labeled as "Max Memory Clock"
DDR400 = 1:1
DDR333 = 6:5
DDR266 = 3:2
DDR200 = 2:1
These are used to run your memory at a slower speed than your HTT, these can be helpfull in getting a good overclock. As you will read many times here CPU speed is the most important factor, so if ram limits your overclock use a divider. Never let ram limit your overclock

6. Other downloadable benchmarking programs that you might want.
Aquamark3
PCmark04
Cinebench
Sandra Sisoft
there are too many to list


And that is one smokin rig your Uncle built you. You must be his favorit niece

Have fun, and ask lots of questions there are tons of knowledgable people around here that will help. And don't let post counts fool you, there are some really sharp people around here with just a few posts, and some real Noobs that have thousands of posts.