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Keeping my s939 system a while longer

S

SlowSpyder

Lifer
For a while my Opteron 165 would no longer run at 2.7ghz. I've been stuck at the stock 1.8ghz. I just figured my motherboard had been degrading, then I started getting checksum errors on boot up. After a little research I swapped out my CMOS battery for a new one. Problem solved. Every now and then when I would be gaming (at 1.8ghz) the sound would skip, a CPU issue. I know it's no power house by any means by todays standards, but I'm running the Opteron at 2.55ghz now, and everything is as smooth as a baby's butt. What a difference an additional 750mhz makes. Who knows, maybe I'll get another year out of this system. With my Radeon 2900Pro at 800mhz and my dual core Opteron at 2.55ghz, it's still a capable system, even if outdated.

Just wanted to share my good fortune. 🙂
 
My 939 system is rocking me for a bit longer. My X2 4200+ oc'd to 2640mhz just played through Crysis on High last week. I paid $80 for that CPU.
 
Ya My socket 939 x2 4200 has served me well also, I dont even overclock and it still chugs along, I play mostly Cod4 and it runs that great, paired with a 8800gt it has lots of life left, I bit the bullet though and ordered a 8400 wolfdale, mobo and ram, so looking forward to that upgrade from 2.2 ghz. I think I will see a huge difference.
 
Going to recycle my 939 rig for my sister. It was great rig when I first built it and a lot of fun to oc but I just went quad and will not look back!!!
 
My CPU still rocks hard enough. I bought it like a month ago, and I thought it would just be some extra power for a dying, obsolete system, but it poured life back into it! (Had a 3000+ before)

I'll probably buy a new GPU in the next months, and I'm sure my PC will hold it's own just fine. 🙂 Will be more than enough for Crysis and upcoming titles, maybe for a year or so.

EDIT: And this reminds me I should check my mobo battery too... I think at the BIOS the battery reads 3.0v instead of 3.3v...
 
939 X2 3800 is still doing everything I want very well. My x800xl is my biggest problem at the moment, but it still does an adequate job.

What's really making me want to upgrade is the price of DDR2 Ram. I only have 1gb of DDR and for what it would cost me to bump it another 1gb I could get 2gb DDR2. My Asrock mobo takes an AM2 Riser and DDR2, but damn. By the time I do all that the cost comes out approx the same, if I don't plan on a much faster CPU. I'll hold out for awhile yet methinks.
 
My box continues to own. Blowing money on a new chip, motherboard and memory would be a total waste. Like others said, I'm gaming with high framerates and high details and Windows is smooth as silk. Socket 939 might be the bastard stepchild left on the street corner, but it works for me and quite nicely. I've played with nice c2d and quad boxes and there is absolutley no difference in general use (word, outlook, web, using the OS itself) and the difference in gaming is not really noticable to me, either. I guess I spend more time using my machine than running benchmarks and looking at FPS counters. Somone who just blew coin on a new rig might chime in and call us all morons, but that's the money talking. 🙂 I'll upgrade when my framerates drop below 60 in games (so far, not happening) or the system starts chugging during basic operations (not happening anytime soon). Hell, I have a couple friends who recently built new C2D boxes who couldn't beleive that my machine is as fast as it is. In fact, one of them insists on using norton and the entire nero suite as well as zone alarm and a few other junky apps and my box runs circles around his for most stuff and i'm getting higher FPS in CS:S. Go figure. 😀

I'll probably switch to a quad core CPU when today's chips are already obsolete and when DDR3 is just as cheap as DDR2.
 
Same here. I just can't part with my Opteron 165 / DFI SLI-DR combo. Serving me rock solid for 2 years, overclocked. I give away or sell systems/parts that are of no use to me, but the aforementioned rig has kinda grown in me and it'll probably stay with me until it dies. 😀
 
I've been looking at upgrading, I've been looking at AM2+ motherboards and even looking at <gasp> the current Intel lineup. It's not that I dislike Intel (well, other then them trying to force everyone to use Rambus back in the early P4 days.. ugh) but I've been using AMD forever and have been very happy with their products. The Opteron at 1.8ghz did ok, but it was starting to show it's age a bit. Now I can put off the upgrade for a while longer, we'll see how much time an extra 750-900mhz buys me. I imagine that at 2.5-2.7ghz it'll be 'fast enough' for a while. Who knows, maybe I'll even get one more video card upgrade out of this system before a system overhaul. My 939 motherboard has seen 2 processors (3000+ oc'd to 2.5ghz) and three video cards (6800GS @ 490/1.1, 7900GS @ 525/1.32, and my current Radeon 2900 Pro @ 800/1.6). It's served me quite well over the years.
 
Originally posted by: nerp
My box continues to own. Blowing money on a new chip, motherboard and memory would be a total waste. Like others said, I'm gaming with high framerates and high details and Windows is smooth as silk. Socket 939 might be the bastard stepchild left on the street corner, but it works for me and quite nicely. I've played with nice c2d and quad boxes and there is absolutley no difference in general use (word, outlook, web, using the OS itself) and the difference in gaming is not really noticable to me, either. I guess I spend more time using my machine than running benchmarks and looking at FPS counters. Somone who just blew coin on a new rig might chime in and call us all morons, but that's the money talking. 🙂 I'll upgrade when my framerates drop below 60 in games (so far, not happening) or the system starts chugging during basic operations (not happening anytime soon). Hell, I have a couple friends who recently built new C2D boxes who couldn't beleive that my machine is as fast as it is. In fact, one of them insists on using norton and the entire nero suite as well as zone alarm and a few other junky apps and my box runs circles around his for most stuff and i'm getting higher FPS in CS:S. Go figure. 😀

I'll probably switch to a quad core CPU when today's chips are already obsolete and when DDR3 is just as cheap as DDR2.
Click to expand...

I prett much agree with you. I bet most people had a perfectly capable gaming rig before the C2D's came out, but benchmarks sway a lot of people. It's not that the C2D's aren't better, they certainly are. But, I think sometimes people worry too much about benchmarks. But then again, I can't blame anyone, I like to tinker, and as soon as new technology comes out, I can't help but drool a little myself. My system does fine, but I can't say I wouldn't mind owning a nice quad core system either. 😉 But, I'm willing to bet there are a lot of people that had a perfectly capable and fast C2D machine at 3+ghz that have upgraded to the E8x00 C2D's just because they bench higher.
 
Out of my systems (in my sig), the X2 4800+ @ 2.8 GHz is actually my second favorite system. It's been a great machine since the day I built it. 🙂
 
My 4800+ at stock is still crankin' along fine. I'm using it primarily for music recording and composition chores now. My new Intel rig does feel enormously faster and more responsive.

Originally posted by: magnumty
Ya My socket 939 x2 4200 has served me well also, I dont even overclock and it still chugs along, I play mostly Cod4 and it runs that great, paired with a 8800gt it has lots of life left, I bit the bullet though and ordered a 8400 wolfdale, mobo and ram, so looking forward to that upgrade from 2.2 ghz. I think I will see a huge difference.
Click to expand...

You definitely will. 😀
 
For a while my Opteron 165 would no longer run at 2.7ghz. I've been stuck at the stock 1.8ghz. I just figured my motherboard had been degrading, then I started getting checksum errors on boot up. After a little research I swapped out my CMOS battery for a new one. Problem solved.
Click to expand...

I never imagined a CMOS battery could cause those problems. Nice troubleshooting! :thumbsup:
 
Originally posted by: Old Hippie
For a while my Opteron 165 would no longer run at 2.7ghz. I've been stuck at the stock 1.8ghz. I just figured my motherboard had been degrading, then I started getting checksum errors on boot up. After a little research I swapped out my CMOS battery for a new one. Problem solved.
Click to expand...

I never imagined a CMOS battery could cause those problems. Nice troubleshooting! :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Those little buggers can cause more trouble than you think. Having problems powering up/down the system can also indicate a need to replace the cmos battery.

Solved a similar problem doing so.
 
I had a sys with a dead batt. Booted up fine, I just had to reset everything on every reboot (rarely). Actually, I ran the machine OCed (the X2 4800 @ 2.8 in my sig) w/o any battery for about 2 months.

I finally got tired of resetting all the CMOS paramaters constantly, so I finally bought a replacement at RadioShack...
 
I am loving my Opteron 165 on my K8N Neo4 SLI. However, had I known the final cost of going to 2GB G.Skill and the CPU ($170), plus the mods my case needed to house a Thermalright 120 Ultra Extreme (mine could only mount one way which was not ideal) I may have just went to a C2D. Still at 2.7GHz, it's video that is mostly a bottleneck today. I will probably move up from my 6800GT OC soon.
 
We should start a longevity thread or at least a "clingers-on" club to see who can outlast everyone else with these last 939 boards. 😀 I don't see myself breaking down for a new system for at least 1 - 2 years.
 
Well, seeing as how I just got my Opty 165 and Nforce4 mobo last summer (at a profit, no less. You won't believe what some people will pay for those old P4s), I think I'll keep it for awhile. My only gripe is that it sometimes gets choppy in Supreme Commander single player. But hey, multiplayer is where it's at anyway, and I've never been the guy with the slowest CPU in any game I've played.
 
I'm running my x2 3800+ stock. I want to OC but i can't remember which sata ports are locked so i don't blow out my OS.

x2 3800+ zerotherm nirvana hsf
DFI Lanparty Ultra D flashed to support SLi
2x512mb OCZ El Plat rev2 Pc 3200
XFX 7900GTX 512mb
36gb WD Raptor (still alive and kickin' 😀)
1 x 160gb
1 x 250gb
1 x 320gb
 
Still on my 3700 Sandy eggo, with 2G RAM and X1800XT. Plays COD4 quite well at 1280x1024, as well as BF2. OC'd to 2.8 for a while now, but I've been trying really, really hard not to pull the trigger on an E8400 system with the samsung 30". It's been really tempting.
 
has anyone noticed stable memory speed decreasing as fsb increases? is the on-die memory controller to blame?

for example:
opt 165, asus a8n32-sli, corsair 2x1gb ddr400

the memory runs great up to 225 mhz at 1:1 fsb, 1.9vdc 2-3-3-8 1t

pushing the fsb further up, the threshold for RAM speed, at any timings, drops pretty consistantly. i've hit 2.7ghz on the chip and the memory maxxed at 185ish mhz.
 
my opteron 170 still rocks at 2.5Ghz, 250FSB, 1:1 ratio. 2GB of DDR-500, and a 7950GT 512MB. plays every game i have nicely...although my htpc is loads faster cause of c2d and an 8800, its still a very capable machine.
 
Originally posted by: jpbelauskas
I'm running my x2 3800+ stock. I want to OC but i can't remember which sata ports are locked so i don't blow out my OS.

x2 3800+ zerotherm nirvana hsf
DFI Lanparty Ultra D flashed to support SLi
2x512mb OCZ El Plat rev2 Pc 3200
XFX 7900GTX 512mb
36gb WD Raptor (still alive and kickin' 😀)
1 x 160gb
1 x 250gb
1 x 320gb
Click to expand...

Thats an easy one, all of em. I too have an early ultra-d with a 36gb raptor but, i have 2x1gb of teh plat rev.2 and a San Diego 3700+ at 3ghz. Good luck.
 
Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12
Originally posted by: jpbelauskas
I'm running my x2 3800+ stock. I want to OC but i can't remember which sata ports are locked so i don't blow out my OS.

x2 3800+ zerotherm nirvana hsf
DFI Lanparty Ultra D flashed to support SLi
2x512mb OCZ El Plat rev2 Pc 3200
XFX 7900GTX 512mb
36gb WD Raptor (still alive and kickin' 😀)
1 x 160gb
1 x 250gb
1 x 320gb
Click to expand...

Thats an easy one, all of em. I too have an early ultra-d with a 36gb raptor but, i have 2x1gb of teh plat rev.2 and a San Diego 3700+ at 3ghz. Good luck.
Click to expand...

so when you oc'd did you unplug your hdd's? or did you keep them plugged in?

btw just read your sig, GOOD LORD THAT'S A NICE OC 😀
 
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