Please Help: A couple issues with 7VRXP & SX1030

[ReaverX]

I just built the following system

Gigabyte 7VRXP Rev 1.1
Athlon XP 1900+
Generic PC2700 512mb
Maxtor D740X-6L (60gb ATA133 7200rpm)
Gainward Ultra 650/XP (GeForce4 Ti4200 128mb)
Antex SX1030 (with 300w P/S)
Using onboard LAN and old SB Live 5.1 OEM

First issue: I bought an extra case fan (Sunon 80mm) for the front, the SX1030 comes with an optional spot, but I can't find any place to plug the fan in on the 7VRXP. Am I just blind? Is there such a thing as an adapter that converts the IDE power to 80mm fan power?

Second issue: Feature, or set up improperly? The power button doesn't shut the system down properly, nor will XP shutdown the system. What happens is when I flick the switch at the back of the case, all the fans fire up, but I get no video and so forth, I hit the power button and everything comes on, the system fires up and runs properly, when I go to shut down XP the screen hangs at 'Windows is shutting down'. Hitting the power button will sometimes act like a reset button, and sometimes shut the system down, but in the latter case the fans and fan on the power unit still run until I flick off the switch at the back of the case. Is this a feature or do I have something plugged in wrong?

Third issue: I'm getting 30 fps in Dungeon Siege in very calm and low poly situations, sometimes worse. Isn't that excessively low for my system?!

Many thanks to those who respond

 

[CrazySaint]

As for your power issues, I'm guessing that you've hooked it up wrong somehow. There should be places on your mobo to connect the case fan, check the manual. Also, there should be fan power adapters coming out of the PSU again, check the manual.

As for the lower video performance, the 7VRXP has some issues with running at only 100FSB and/or AGP2x when the power is low. Most people have been able to fix these issues by upping the vcore by 7.5% because the 7VRXP sets the default vcore at 1.72v instead of the required 1.75v.

 

[Czar]

1. How many pins is the fan connector? if its 3 there should be fan connector somewhere on the motherboard, just look for a connector alike to the one you plugged your heatsink fan into. If its 4 then connect the fan to the powersuply. (same as you connect your hd's into)

2. The button in the front is the power button, not the one in the back. The one on the powersuply is just to turn on and off power to the computer. The reason you say the fans power up is because of "leftovercurrent" that is released when you turn the power suply on, but it only lasts for a few seconds at most. The reason why the power button acts so weird is because its an atx case, all atx cases act like that. If you press it quickly it resets, if you hold it for a while it turns off.

 

[Slapstick]

There are 2 fan headers, CPU and System, (system fan header is for PWS that have a fan monitor or rear case fan) at the top of the board near the Dimm slots and one fan header by the North Bridge, (that?s unused since Gigabyte doesn?t put a fan on the NB). There are no fan headers down by the corner for a front intake fan. You are going to need a 3 pin to 4 pin adaptor or if you have an old 4 pin connector laying around just cut off the 3 pin connector and splice on the 4 pin. red fan wire to yellow on the molex connector for 12 volts).

What Czar said on the power issues. Try holding down the power button for 4 seconds, (the usual time for ATX supplies) and see if the system shuts down.

 

[ReaverX]

As for the fan: Slapstick hit it right on the head, the 7VRXP has a fan plug for the CPU Fan, Sys Fan and NB Fan, although the NB Fan connector is 2 pin. My extra case fan is 3 pin, so I guess I am going to need a 4 pin to 3 pin adapter.

As for the power issues: They remain unresolved. The issue here is that I cannot get the PSU and case fans to shut off without flicking the switch at the back of the PSU.

As for performance in Dungeon Siege: This is getting on my nerves, I tried a number of vcore, AGP voltage, and other BIOS tweaks. The bios says my host clock speed is set at 100 mhz, am I simply on crack or is the clock speed of a XP 1900+ not 266 mhz? It was defaulted at 100 mhz.

Thanks

 

[Slapstick]

Did you check the BIOS under ?Power Management Setup? and see if the Soft-off by power button is set to Instant Off instead of suspend? I also set all the ?wake on Events? to disable and the AC back Function to Soft-off.

Under Hardware Monitor & Misc Setup just manually set the host clock to 133.

 

[ReaverX]

Originally posted by: Slapstick
Did you check the BIOS under ?Power Management Setup? and see if the Soft-off by power button is set to Instant Off instead of suspend? I also set all the ?wake on Events? to disable and the AC back Function to Soft-off.

Under Hardware Monitor & Misc Setup just manually set the host clock to 133.

No I haven't checked the Power Management stuff, I will do so as soon as I get home from work.

And I will tweak the host clock up, that should make at least a bit of difference.

 

[bunker]

Did you read your manual for the motherboard???

There is a dip switch on the board you have to flip to change from 100mhz to 133 fsb.

Power...took me three tries to get the case wires (power, reset, hd activity) connected properly to the motherboard. Try flipping a few of them around.

 

[Slapstick]

bunker hit on the head

There is a dip switch on the board you have to flip to change from 100mhz to 133 fsb.

I forgot all about that dip switch

 

[ReaverX]

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that dip switch, I remember reading about it yes. Thanks

I'll play with the case wires a bit as well.

 

[ReaverX]

I went and flicked the 133 mhz BUS switch and lo and behold it worked, but it did not improve my frame rate whatsoever in DS, which leads me to believe it's something graphic related. I'm going to run 3DMark when I get home and see how I score, maybe it's just DS being a hog.