Why can't my new Asus P5N32 NF4 SLI Intel OC worth a crap

[Altimeter88]

OK I finally went against my intuition and past experience (300+ systems built) and purchased an Nforce 4 chipset instead of Intel.

Anyway upgraded my current Dual core setup (Asus P5WD2 Intel 955 chipset) that is only a month or so old to the new Asus P5N32 because of the great review I read and how good he OC potential was supposed to be.
My old setup with the P5WD2 w/ P4D 2.8 ran totally stable at 3.4Ghz, I didn't try pushing it any higher than that.

So I put this new MB in my system and upgraded the soudcard to the X-Fi Fatal1ty.
For starter the sound card has issues with cracking and popping because of the Nforce chipset but hopefully a BIOS release or me sending the card to Creative for a firmware update will fix that.

The main problem though is that my system will not overclock worth crap. I try to go to 3Ghz and my system will not even post, then I get a message saying OC failed. Sometimes it will boot into windows and I can even perform a 3D Mark test but then if I reboot the system it will never shut down to reboot, it just hangs with a black screen.

You can see my sig for system components. My temps have never been better, my CPU and MB tems are below 40 deg. C
I have tried the following settings and combo settings but nothing seems to work:
I have even set the RAM timings really high(slow) and set the speed to 533 instead of 667.
I have tried different voltages for the RAM, everything from 1.8-2.1 (2.0 worked in PWD2)
Different Voltage for CPU core: Auto, 1.385, 1.4 (1.4 was fine in my PWD2)
I turned Spread Spectrum off and on but that didn't make a diff.

There is no place to lock the PCI frequency at 33.3Mhz like there is in the Intel chipsets so I could try pulling my SC out and then botting.

My PS worked fine in my old system and my UPS reports that it is providing about 285Watts of power (under load) to my system. So that should be enough although I would rather have an ATX2 PS with 2 12V rails.

So please chime in if you have any experience with OCing and Nforce 4, I hope to think that I am just doing something wrong because I am new to NF4 bioses.
I am really missing the stability and compatibility of the Intel boards, it seems like it is just not worth the potential issues that you are likely to run into with the NF4 boards.

Anyway I would appreciate any help I can get before getting rid of this and going back to my 955 setup.

 

[Markfw]

The 820D is one of the worst chips out there, why did you even get it ? I say cut your losses and get an X2. I got my 820d just so I could see how bad it is, and its bad....

Stop blaming it on the chipset, and put the blame where it belongs, one the chip ! SLI ? so you are a gamer, and got the worst chip possible for gaming ?

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
The 820D is one of the worst chips out there, why did you even get it ? I say cut your losses and get an X2. I got my 820d just so I could see how bad it is, and its bad....

Stop blaming it on the chipset, and put the blame where it belongs, one the chip ! SLI ? so you are a gamer, and got the worst chip possible for gaming ?

okay, then why waste your money on a 820D if you KNOW its bad? you just had to waste money to see for yourself? thats pointless. and the 820D isnt THE worst, its okay for gaming, and obviously AMD excels in that. stop blaming the poor guy.

anyway, did you try OCing w/o your creative x-fi installed? hmm...i doubt anything else is hindering your OC, and obviously it isnt your CPU/memory/PSU...maybe your mobo BIOS sucks. wait for a new one. i remember that lots of people had issues with their P5ND2, until asus kept on revising their bios...and still afterwards people had issues. so i think you should wait for a new bios revision and try anything else you can think of to OC.

hope that helped at least somewhat...

 

[Altimeter88]

Thanks for the responses. guys.

Where do you get the info that the P4D 820 is "one of the worst" chips out there?
Read this Tom's Article and explain to me why I would want to spend all the extra money on the X2 (it usualy takes an $800 X2 4800+ to beat the P4 840 in the various benchmarks), and on top of that have the potential bug related issues with nForce?
Here is a quick Benchmark summary and link:

--------------------X2 4800+ ($787)-------------------P4D 820 @ 3.2ghz ($240)

Doom 3--------------- 81.6-----------------------------------79.3
3DMark 05 CPU--------6484---------------------------------6076
mPeg1 -> 2-------------1:17---------------------------------1:18
Divx Enc.----------------3:30--------------------------------3:44
WinRar-------------------2:01--------------------------------2:16

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/200508011/index.html


Yes AMD does beat Intel slightly in some of the benchmarks but they are more expensive and have more issues (mainly due to MB/chipset issues).

Knowing this before my purchase I decided to give it a try. I knew that I might have issues with the Fatal1ty SC and NF4 but I was hopefull, no luck though. I get crackling and popping when there is nothing playing. This cards works flawlessly in my Intel board.

Now on top of that I can't OC worth a crap and I think it might be due to no option of locking the PCI bus to 33.3 Mhz.


I will pull the Fatal1ty and see if that helps but if I can't use that card then the board is pointless, I will return it and just use my Intel. I really want this to work and give a non-intel platform a chance.

 

[Markfw]

I got the 820D just so I could evaluate it honestly, without people telling me I'm talking out of my a$$. As you notice I have 3 X2's and a dual Opteron (and an opteron 170 coming next week).

So again, the 820D is a furnace, doesn't OC for crap, and the X2 3800 wipes the floor with it in every benchamrk I have run, and none of those are games !

I stand by my initial post, cut your losses and get an X2.

 

[blackllotus]

Originally posted by: Altimeter88
Thanks for the responses. guys.

Where do you get the info that the P4D 820 is "one of the worst" chips out there?
Read this Tom's Article and explain to me why I would want to spend all the extra money on the X2 (it usualy takes an $800 X2 4800+ to beat the P4 840 in the various benchmarks), and on top of that have the potential bug related issues with nForce?
Here is a quick Benchmark summary and link:

--------------------X2 4800+ ($787)-------------------P4D 820 @ 3.2ghz ($240)

Doom 3--------------- 81.6-----------------------------------79.3
3DMark 05 CPU--------6484---------------------------------6076
mPeg1 -> 2-------------1:17---------------------------------1:18
Divx Enc.----------------3:30--------------------------------3:44
WinRar-------------------2:01--------------------------------2:16

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/200508011/index.html


Yes AMD does beat Intel slightly in some of the benchmarks but they are more expensive and have more issues (mainly due to MB/chipset issues).

Knowing this before my purchase I decided to give it a try. I knew that I might have issues with the Fatal1ty SC and NF4 but I was hopefull, no luck though. I get crackling and popping when there is nothing playing. This cards works flawlessly in my Intel board.

Now on top of that I can't OC worth a crap and I think it might be due to no option of locking the PCI bus to 33.3 Mhz.


I will pull the Fatal1ty and see if that helps but if I can't use that card then the board is pointless, I will return it and just use my Intel. I really want this to work and give a non-intel platform a chance.

I believe you mean PD 840

 

[Markfw]

Yes the 820 is 2,8 ghz, and your benches are for the 840pd EE which costs more then the 4800.

In my test I OC'ed the 820d to the max on better air cooling then the 3800 OC'ed to the max. And the 3800 still creams it ! In heat, benchmarks and power consumption

Get your facts straight !

 

[Altimeter88]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
The 820D is one of the worst chips out there, why did you even get it ? I say cut your losses and get an X2. I got my 820d just so I could see how bad it is, and its bad....

Stop blaming it on the chipset, and put the blame where it belongs, one the chip ! SLI ? so you are a gamer, and got the worst chip possible for gaming ?

You said the 820 is the problem, hmm...:
820 in my 955 board = no problems and OCs awesome at 3.4Ghz (only cost me $240)
Fatal1ty SC works flawlessly in my 955 board and sounds great on my Klipsch 5.1 Ultras
Setting PCI lock at 33Mhz in the BIOS works great in my 955 board
I can play every game I own (all but FEAR) at my native 1920x1200 res on my 2405FPW

820 in the Nforce4 SLI platform = can't OC worth crap, note even 100Mhz
Fatal1ty SC, pops and cracks always (must get a Bios update or a physical RMA for a firmware update) and hopefully the problem will not be as bad all the time
No option to lock PCI bus at 33Mhz

So how is the P4D 820 the problem? And please explain how purchasing a higher priced AMD/Nforce setup will make my computing experience better.

Cost is no issue, I just enjoy playing games more than I like running benchmarks and showing my buddies that my $700 X2 is 8 FPS faster than his POS $240 overclocked P4D 820 that is running at 3.4Ghz, while ignoring the fact that my sound sucks and I am hoping that the next BIOS update from ASUS will fix my problems.

I hope you see what I am saying, maybe I am wrong but to me it is just stupid to spend the money on a high end X2 just to get a few FPS more out of a game and deal with the issues and incompatibilities that might arise. I know Audigy 2 owners have issues too with at least some versions of the NF4 chipsets so it is not just the X-Fi board.

I think the potential is there for it to be a great board and I hope that I am ranting in vain and overlooking a setting somewhere that will fix my issues but so far I am not impressed.
I refuse to be loyal "FanBoy" to any one brand or vendor, I simply purchase what is the best value considering price and performance. AMD used to be all I would turn to until the P4 Northwoods came out, then I feel Intel took a slight edge as far as overall value because of the chips ability to OC well. I have not turned back to AMD since then. Now I feel Intel is the clear winner in price and performance. It seems you have to spend a lot more to get even a decent jump in performance over an overclocked 820 running at 3.4Ghz.

Like I said, maybe I am wrong and if I am show me where I am, but saying "that chip sucks why do you even have one" doesn't really show me the error of my ways.

I will happily go out right now an purchase a sweet X2 setup if you can show me how it is a better overall value.
My needs:
great gaming capability for FPS games
totally stable desktop performance for everyday tasks and audio/video editing and encoding large HD videos etc.
Has to be compatible with my X-Fi Fatal1ty sound card

The cost increase by going to an X2 has to be closely proportional to performance increase over a comparable overcloced P4D 820 running at 3.4Ghz

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
The 820D is one of the worst chips out there, why did you even get it ? I say cut your losses and get an X2. I got my 820d just so I could see how bad it is, and its bad....

Stop blaming it on the chipset, and put the blame where it belongs, one the chip ! SLI ? so you are a gamer, and got the worst chip possible for gaming ?

Mark, the guy is new to the forum and wants some help. Your post is completely uncalled for, grow-up. If you can't help, then don't say anything.

 

[Markfw]

Well my $322 X2 3800 blows right past my 820D @ 3.43 (higher than yours) by as much as 50% in some benchmarks, so have fun with your crap. screw the $700 X2, thats for those with more money than brains.

Edit: Caveman, I tried the first time to be constructive, and tell him to cut his losses and get an X2, and I get flamed.

Whatever, I'm out of here. have fun with your 820.

 

[Capt Caveman]

OP - Ignore the troll. Anandtech unfortunately is not an Intel friendly forum. When you were only looking for help, you shouldn't have to defend your decisions. Honestly, I would check out ocforums.com, xtremesystems.com and abxzone.com as you'll be greeted more warmly there. Also, you'll find experienced and excellent Intel folks there that will be willing to help. When I got my first Intel system, they helped me immensely. Good Luck!

 

[Altimeter88]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Well my $322 X2 3800 blows right past my 820D @ 3.43 (higher than yours) by as much as 50% in some benchmarks, so have fun with your crap. screw the $700 X2, thats for those with more money than brains.

Again, it seems fanboys like to use words like "blows right past" and "sucks" and "way faster than Intel sh#$" etc.
I don't care about some meaningless benchmark optimized for AMD reporting 50% performance gains on Intels. I want real numbers in games or encoding.
What I do care about is what I said in the end of my pervious post, show me how AMD is a better value and meets those points I posted:

My needs:
great gaming capability for FPS games
totally stable desktop performance for everyday tasks and audio/video editing and encoding large HD videos etc.
Has to be compatible with my X-Fi Fatal1ty sound card

The cost increase by going to an X2 has to be closely proportional to performance increase over a comparable overcloced P4D 820 running at 3.4Ghz

 

[Altimeter88]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman
OP - Ignore the troll. Anandtech unfortunately is not an Intel friendly forum. When you were only looking for help, you shouldn't have to defend your decisions. Honestly, I would check out ocforums.com, xtremesystems.com and abxzone.com as you'll be greeted more warmly there. Also, you'll find experienced and excellent Intel folks there that will be willing to help. When I got my first Intel system, they helped me immensely. Good Luck!

Thanks for the support Capt.
Don't worry, having a tech job I have a bunch of AMD fanboys here at work too who claim system supremecy, but it always gets back to stupid statements and artificial benchmarks.
I don't argue that the X2 is not a better chip but just because it says AMD doesn't mean it is better overall considering everything. I consider many factors when spending my cash on a new system.
Like I said I am loyal to no company, I want someone to show me how the X2 is a better value than what I have and I will switch in a heartbeat, but just because someone says it "kicks ass" or "blows right by my 820" doesn't mean anything to me.

Anyway I will check out those forums you mentioned, thanks for the response.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Altimeter88

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Well my $322 X2 3800 blows right past my 820D @ 3.43 (higher than yours) by as much as 50% in some benchmarks, so have fun with your crap. screw the $700 X2, thats for those with more money than brains.

Again, it seems fanboys like to use words like "blows right past" and "sucks" and "way faster than Intel sh#$" etc.
I don't care about some meaningless benchmark optimized for AMD reporting 50% performance gains on Intels. I want real numbers in games or encoding.
What I do care about is what I said in the end of my pervious post, show me how AMD is a better value and meets those points I posted:

My needs:
great gaming capability for FPS games
totally stable desktop performance for everyday tasks and audio/video editing and encoding large HD videos etc.
Has to be compatible with my X-Fi Fatal1ty sound card

The cost increase by going to an X2 has to be closely proportional to performance increase over a comparable overcloced P4D 820 running at 3.4Ghz

Real numbers in encoding ? Read my post on the subjext. Intel 820D=17 hours, AMD X2 3800+=11 1/2 hours. Is that good enough ? Thats exactly why I bought the chip. If you would research first, read reviews, etc.. you would see that I post facts. If you don;t believe be, ask Duvie, he was over here and verifying my benchmarks, and he is one of the most avid ex-intel fans out there. Its just that they don't offer anything worht buying now.

As to your needs, and X2 3800 and Neo4-F is just fine, I have one of those too.

OP: I have a 820D@3.43, and an X2 3800 @ 2550 . You tell me any benchmark you want run, and If I have the software to do it, I will with Duvie as a witness. Hows that for constructive help ?

 

[Duvie]

Yeah dont quote THG ifyou want to be taken seriously....I can pull 6 plus articles now that show you a P-D 820@3.2ghz or even a straight up 840 doesn't hang with a 3800+ in several test.....

As for you sound issue...Some mobo with onboard sound have issues once you start ocing so have you seen if the issue happen with nothing oced or tweaked???

What is the PSU being used and what is the cooling??? I have seen an 820 with the best air cooling and it was hard without the case open to keep it under 60c period....The Asus temp probe could be borkjed....Asus has been famous for that....

Also some Asus boards suffer extremely from vcore droop....may need to mod it...

 

[Altimeter88]

Real numbers in encoding ? Read my post on the subjext. Intel 820D=17 hours, AMD X2 3800+=11 1/2 hours. Is that good enough ? Thats exactly why I bought the chip. If you would research first, read reviews, etc.. you would see that I post facts. If you don;t believe be, ask Duvie, he was over here and verifying my benchmarks, and he is one of the most avid ex-intel fans out there. Its just that they don't offer anything worht buying now.

As to your needs, and X2 3800 and Neo4-F is just fine, I have one of those too.

OP: I have a 820D@3.43, and an X2 3800 @ 2550 . You tell me any benchmark you want run, and If I have the software to do it, I will with Duvie as a witness. Hows that for constructive help ?

Sweet we are getting somewhere as those are impressive numbers with apps that are not artificial. I will check out your posts and check out some more reviews because I enjoy being proved wrong.

Just FYI I am not trying to be offensive, it is that I am just fed up with people being loyal AMD Fanboys because they have traditionally been the "littly guy" and everyone wants to hate Intel. I always get this from an inexperienced PC builder and they will never give me anything but useless benchmarks to try and prove how they are better.

My co-worker (who has built a ton of high performance systems) about a year or so ago went from a solid P4 OC'd 3.6Ghz setup to an X64 because he read about how much better they were etc. He told me that it is finally time to switch back to AMD and that the X64s "blow" away the P4s. Over the next 6 months he went through 3 top end boards all with various buggy issues that were annonyances and finally said that he just wants his stable great performing P4 back because it was too much of a hassle and never totally stable and/or had various compatibility issues and he was sick of dealing with it. He just said it is not worth it to get 90FPS in Doom 3 instead of 70FPS and deal with all the other problems.

So I am totally willing to give the X2 a try, I will have to do some reaseach and see how well they overclock and if those numbers you reported are really atainable by most users.

My problem though is still with my vid card which hopefully will be fixed with a BIOS update because I really don't feel like sending it all the way back to creative.
OK so asuming I can get

Thanks for the good info!

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Altimeter88

Real numbers in encoding ? Read my post on the subjext. Intel 820D=17 hours, AMD X2 3800+=11 1/2 hours. Is that good enough ? Thats exactly why I bought the chip. If you would research first, read reviews, etc.. you would see that I post facts. If you don;t believe be, ask Duvie, he was over here and verifying my benchmarks, and he is one of the most avid ex-intel fans out there. Its just that they don't offer anything worht buying now.

As to your needs, and X2 3800 and Neo4-F is just fine, I have one of those too.

OP: I have a 820D@3.43, and an X2 3800 @ 2550 . You tell me any benchmark you want run, and If I have the software to do it, I will with Duvie as a witness. Hows that for constructive help ?

Sweet we are getting somewhere as those are impressive numbers with apps that are not artificial. I will check out your posts and check out some more reviews because I enjoy being proved wrong.

Just FYI I am not trying to be offensive, it is that I am just fed up with people being loyal AMD Fanboys because they have traditionally been the "littly guy" and everyone wants to hate Intel. I always get this from an inexperienced PC builder and they will never give me anything but useless benchmarks to try and prove how they are better.

My co-worker (who has built a ton of high performance systems) about a year or so ago went from a solid P4 OC'd 3.6Ghz setup to an X64 because he read about how much better they were etc. He told me that it is finally time to switch back to AMD and that the X64s "blow" away the P4s. Over the next 6 months he went through 3 top end boards all with various buggy issues that were annonyances and finally said that he just wants his stable great performing P4 back because it was too much of a hassle and never totally stable and/or had various compatibility issues and he was sick of dealing with it. He just said it is not worth it to get 90FPS in Doom 3 instead of 70FPS and deal with all the other problems.

So I am totally willing to give the X2 a try, I will have to do some reaseach and see how well they overclock and if those numbers you reported are really atainable by most users.

My problem though is still with my vid card which hopefully will be fixed with a BIOS update because I really don't feel like sending it all the way back to creative.
OK so asuming I can get

Thanks for the good info!

well it is likely your friend is incompetent or an idot...I went from INtel systems (high end) for 3 years to an A64 setup and first try I had no issues...Its called doing some fvckin research before you build a system...probably bought a bunch of cheap arse mobos, ram, and power supplies like 80% of the other idiots around here who have trouble with their systems....

In 7 years I have never had one problem with any mobo or system I have built...I buy high quality though....PSU are enermax or better....MOBOs tend to be MSI, Asus, etc...Ram is never the cheap sh^t....

Do not troll the boards with AMD instability issues...Most instability issues posted on the boards are user error.....Only a handul of issues or actually the hardware issue and even then sometimes a piece of hardware is defective...Look at your wonderful Intel system you have now...maybe you should just blame all of INtel and go to an AMD setup...bad example for you to use in this thread!!!

 

[Capt Caveman]

Guys, all he asked was help with overclocking his motherboard, not a pissing match over his decision and what's better.

OP - I have no experience with the Nvidia Intel Chipset. As mentioned by secretanchitman, have you tried running your system without the sound card? It will at least factor out that as an issue. You should be fine with that psu. Gosh, it's been a while since I've played around with an Intel bios. You have bios option to change the pci-e frequency but not the pci, that's weird.

Can you oc to 2.9 stable?

 

[Altimeter88]

Originally posted by: Duvie
Yeah dont quote THG ifyou want to be taken seriously....I can pull 6 plus articles now that show you a P-D 820@3.2ghz or even a straight up 840 doesn't hang with a 3800+ in several test.....

As for you sound issue...Some mobo with onboard sound have issues once you start ocing so have you seen if the issue happen with nothing oced or tweaked???

What is the PSU being used and what is the cooling??? I have seen an 820 with the best air cooling and it was hard without the case open to keep it under 60c period....The Asus temp probe could be borkjed....Asus has been famous for that....

Also some Asus boards suffer extremely from vcore droop....may need to mod it...

Yeah sorry about the 840 vs the 4800+ I didn't realize that it was the smithfield Core. I would like to see seome actual number of the x2 vs an OC'd 820 so I will do some searching for them.

Temps should not be an issue at all, I have the Zalman CNPS9500 which is amazing. My case and fans etc. are in exactly the same setup as they were before I purchased this NF4 board when my system was running stable with the Asus 955 board. Like I said even a 100Mhz increase will cause the system to sometimes not boot. I was able to get through 3dMark just fine but then when I shut down the system it wouldn't shut down, both MB, CPU, and GPU tems were really pretty low.

The sound is troubling, why would they not provide a PCI lock at 33Mhz??? I just can't understand this. If it is indeed overclocking the PCI bus when I up the FSB then that will be a problem for sure. Not to mention all the onboard components that use that bus will have issues too.

Any of you AMD owners get the option to lock the PCI bus?

By the way the sound card has issues (popping/cracking noise) even when they system is not overclocked. It is a known issue with the NF4 and the X-Fi.

 

[Markfw]

Alright ! Very constructive post !!!

Now back to business.. Problems with any chipset can be attributed to any number of causes, CPU choice of AMD or Intel is not in question, I have both, they are both stable. Some mobo OC better than others. Even by THG Intel on SLI is not stable. I don;t blame that on Nvidia, just the combination of the newest crap from Intel and SLI (they don't have their own chipset that even supports it, hint, hint)

As far as benchmarks, heat, and power consumption, every site on the internet (well every reputable one) will support my position, but they don't allways do it OC'ed, which is why I got my 820D, becuase I wanted to compare MAX OC to Max OC.

I will see if I can find my old thread and link, and Duvies too.

I can't find Duvies response post right now, but in general, do a search for "3800" or "820" on this forum, and read every reply. And the benchmarks included in those posts.

Then if you want more info, reply back, I will bench anything you want.

Here is my first post

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Altimeter88

Originally posted by: Duvie
Yeah dont quote THG ifyou want to be taken seriously....I can pull 6 plus articles now that show you a P-D 820@3.2ghz or even a straight up 840 doesn't hang with a 3800+ in several test.....

As for you sound issue...Some mobo with onboard sound have issues once you start ocing so have you seen if the issue happen with nothing oced or tweaked???

What is the PSU being used and what is the cooling??? I have seen an 820 with the best air cooling and it was hard without the case open to keep it under 60c period....The Asus temp probe could be borkjed....Asus has been famous for that....

Also some Asus boards suffer extremely from vcore droop....may need to mod it...

Yeah sorry about the 840 vs the 4800+ I didn't realize that it was the smithfield Core. I would like to see seome actual number of the x2 vs an OC'd 820 so I will do some searching for them.

Temps should not be an issue at all, I have the Zalman CNPS9500 which is amazing. My case and fans etc. are in exactly the same setup as they were before I purchased this NF4 board when my system was running stable with the Asus 955 board. Like I said even a 100Mhz increase will cause the system to sometimes not boot. I was able to get through 3dMark just fine but then when I shut down the system it wouldn't shut down, both MB, CPU, and GPU tems were really pretty low.

The sound is troubling, why would they not provide a PCI lock at 33Mhz??? I just can't understand this. If it is indeed overclocking the PCI bus when I up the FSB then that will be a problem for sure. Not to mention all the onboard components that use that bus will have issues too.

Any of you AMD owners get the option to lock the PCI bus?

By the way the sound card has issues (popping/cracking noise) even when they system is not overclocked. It is a known issue with the NF4 and the X-Fi.

pretty much all asus mobos and major brands have locks...My agp board I set to 66 or 67 and that locks it.....I have seen one quirk on my MSI board (but I read about it before I bought it so it wasn't an issue) where ports 1 and 2 of my SATA would not lock...so I have to use 3 and 4.....

With my PCI-e board I jus set the freq to 100 and that locks it as well....



The opnly board I have even ha that the sound got shaky after ocing was an Asus mobo but it was using a sis chipset....

 

[Altimeter88]

well it is likely your friend is incompetent or an idot...I went from INtel systems (high end) for 3 years to an A64 setup and first try I had no issues...Its called doing some fvckin research before you build a system...probably bought a bunch of cheap arse mobos, ram, and power supplies like 80% of the other idiots around here who have trouble with their systems....

In 7 years I have never had one problem with any mobo or system I have built...I buy high quality though....PSU are enermax or better....MOBOs tend to be MSI, Asus, etc...Ram is never the cheap sh^t....

Do not troll the boards with AMD instability issues...Most instability issues posted on the boards are user error.....Only a handul of issues or actually the hardware issue and even then sometimes a piece of hardware is defective...Look at your wonderful Intel system you have now...maybe you should just blame all of INtel and go to an AMD setup...bad example for you to use in this thread!!!

I agree with you 100% and I don't like when Intel users bash AMD/NForce because of "icompatibilities" etc. That is why I tried to be very specific: X-Fi and OC problems, everything else works great. I am hoping to find that my problems are something I overlooked. But if you read some of what I said I don't put any cheap part in my systems. Like I said, cost is no issue (well to a point, no way am I going to wast money on a $700 CPU) but my buddy and I only buy the very highest quality components and always have the leading edge stuff with the most expensive vid cards available. We always buy the new Vidcard like the day it comes out, no way in hell are you going to find a cheap ass MB in any of our systems. But we also expect near perfection to a point where other don't. I don't overclock a system and get through one benchmark and exclaim "Yeah my system is running stable at 4.xGhz" becuase it was able to complete this 1 benchmark.

I spent $260 on my Fatal1y which was an upgrade to my Audigy 2 ZS Platinum, I expect near perfection for that price.
This new Asus board is top of the line, I expect near perfection out of it, if I don't get it I will get something else.

When I was building high end P4 875P systems I went through the top Giga-Byte 875P, then the top Abit 875P, until I was blown away with the perfection of the Asus P4C800E Deluxe. I was just missing something with the other two boards, there were small things that some would overlook, they weren't absolutly stable at 3.6Ghz when most others would say they are stable. The Asus on the other hand was incredible, never a single issue on my two systems Asus 875P systems in a year of high end heavy use (one as my desktop gaming rig and one as my HTPC).

I guess I was spoiled and now that I have to troubleshoot I am not happy.

You read my post above, I am willing to replace any component if it will make a difference, but I don't enjoy just throwing money on new things for no reason. I do find any and all excuses to upgrade anything in my system but I have to restrain myself sometimes. That is why I have not upgraded my Thermaltake 560W PS to a newer ATX2.0 dual rail because it works fine and is a pretty good PS. BUT if it will fix my problems I have no problems getting a new one.

So please don't lump me in the group of budget PC builders who buy cheap used crap with little experience putting things together. I upgrade my system or at least major components at least every 3-6 months and I only get the very best stuff.

 

[Markfw]

OK, based on you ltest reply, here is my advice. You want fast and stable and encoding and games and budget is not an issue ? AMD X2 something (if you don't OC, then pick one, but you OC'ed the 820, so I say Opteron 165 or 170).

Next, motherboard. Well, I don't do SLI, so I can't recommend one, but I usually like ASUS, but DFI seems to be king lately, just keep researching.

As far as creative labs ? I won't buy their crap ever since they denied my rebate for not including "the entire box flap" on my rebate, so I won't go there either.

Just find a good cpu, then a good motherboard, and then find a card that works in it.

 

[ribbon13]

You should have gotten basically the same motherboard, with a different socket.

That being socket 939

 

[Altimeter88]

Mark,

I read your encoding thread and I want to compare the encoding test with the same settings, movie (Annie I think) etc. that you used, do you remember all that stuff and what you did?

I still have my other Asus 955x board and I want to compare my times to yours with my processor running at 3.4Ghz.

In the mean time I will try pulling my SC and testing it.

Also someone indicated that just setting the PCI-E Clock to 100 would also lock the PCI bus to 33Mhz even though it is not displayed. Can anyone confirm this? I need to find a tool that will show PCI bus freq. with my system overclocked (if I can boot into windows).

Anyway thanks guys for all the info, I got no work done tonight