Author Topic: New System and some odd issues (Read 800 times)

wabbit · « **Reply #15 on:** August 23, 2007, 10:18:09 PM »

15amps on the 12v is rather low. I suspect, that if you call your vid card company, they'll say it's too low for that card. I think yer right in thinking it's the P/S, but call your vid card company just to be sure...

Wabbit
Morals & Manners Officer
Whitey's Buccaneers
5th Army Air Corps

Spatula · « **Reply #16 on:** August 24, 2007, 12:06:16 AM »

I've installed the NGO 1.7.2 drivers and that improved my frame rates around 30% - so im happy(ish) with the framerates now. Im getting 55 FPS on average and as low as 35-40 and high as 70-75.

The lockup issue can be reproduced easy by starting iTunes. Locks solid before we get to the GUI. Browsing the web and using explorer seems a little more stable now too.

Spatula · « **Reply #17 on:** August 27, 2007, 03:11:31 AM »

FYI, i think i've got to the bottom of my instabilities.

I installed the NGO 1.7.2 drivers after trying the 1.7.3s with some issues. The NGO drivers have boosted my framerates about 30% and made the instabilities that i had been seeing in explorer and firefox dissapear.
But i still get these wierd solid lock-ups when starting itunes with the ipod connected. I tried lots of things including upgrading to an AcBel E2 470Watt power supply and nothing has worked in getting iTunes going. Everything else seems good now and getting 65-75 FPS in game and no micropauses.

My fix for the iTunes issue, was to uninstall it, and use WinAmp - it integrates perfectly with my ipod and is much better than iTunes.

So, im all sorted now

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #18 on:** August 27, 2007, 09:59:53 AM »

If you have iAnything installed in your computer you can only blame yourself for instabilities.

Did you try to boost the memory voltage already?

Spatula · « **Reply #19 on:** August 27, 2007, 04:35:02 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by MrRiplEy[H]
If you have iAnything installed in your computer you can only blame yourself for instabilities.

Did you try to boost the memory voltage already?

Nah, not yet - might try.

humble · « **Reply #20 on:** August 27, 2007, 04:45:37 PM »

1st,

your PS isnt worth keeping. You need 18@'s on your 12V rail. I think most people go overboard on PS's...but you do need to be prudent. 15@'s just is cutting it to close. I'd all but gaurantee the PS is contributing to the problems...given the investment in new "stuff" its not worth the risk. You dont need much more 18@'s on the 12V rail is fine. Most of the good reasonable PS's now have 20@'s on the 1st 12V and 18@ on the second. 16@'s is the bare minimum. As an example I have a 350W PS with 22@'s on my 12V rail (is driving my sons box). It's the usable wattage not the total. Your current PS has way to much unused pop in the 3.3 & 5 volt rails, which is typical...

Spatula · « **Reply #21 on:** August 27, 2007, 05:04:16 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by humble
1st,

your PS isnt worth keeping. You need 18@'s on your 12V rail. I think most people go overboard on PS's...but you do need to be prudent. 15@'s just is cutting it to close. I'd all but gaurantee the PS is contributing to the problems...given the investment in new "stuff" its not worth the risk. You dont need much more 18@'s on the 12V rail is fine. Most of the good reasonable PS's now have 20@'s on the 1st 12V and 18@ on the second. 16@'s is the bare minimum. As an example I have a 350W PS with 22@'s on my 12V rail (is driving my sons box). It's the usable wattage not the total. Your current PS has way to much unused pop in the 3.3 & 5 volt rails, which is typical...

I've replaced the PSU with an AcBel E2 470Watt supply w/ 2 x 12v Rails with 18Amps each. Hasn't really made any noticable difference. But its in there now and is much better than my old generic no-name POS supply and i can now rule out the PSU as a cause of anything.

Krusty · « **Reply #22 on:** August 27, 2007, 05:10:15 PM »

E4500 may be "Core 2 Duo" but it's not "conroe" - it's the lower-end Allendale core.

For example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2+50001157+40000343+1050722265+1051707842&Configurator=&Subcategory=343&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc= (let's see if that shows up properly)

Hold the phone! Winamp works with ipods?!?!? WTF didn't somebody tell me 2 months ago before I installed itunes?!?!?

How?

Spatula · « **Reply #23 on:** August 27, 2007, 05:14:13 PM »

My BIOS doesnt seem to have options for upping the voltage to the RAM

Spatula · « **Reply #24 on:** August 27, 2007, 05:19:49 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Krusty
E4500 may be "Core 2 Duo" but it's not "conroe" - it's the lower-end Allendale core.

Yer, i found that out. One of my diagnostic tools calls it a conroe, the other called it an Allendale. How much boost will a conroe give me over an allendale? Not that i really need it at the moment, i get good framerates as is.

Quote

Originally posted by Krusty
Hold the phone! Winamp works with ipods?!?!? WTF didn't somebody tell me 2 months ago before I installed itunes?!?!?
How?

Yup, just worked out of the box. Just uninstall all traces of itunes, and associated apps like applemobiledevice thingy and apple update etc. Double-check all services and startup registry entries are deleted.
You can copy 2-way to and from the ipod. I wiped my ipod and re-loaded all the tracks from the WinAmp library.

Krusty · « **Reply #25 on:** August 27, 2007, 05:53:21 PM »

I don't know benchmarks for sure, but my impression is that allendales are like celerons: cheaper to make and stripped down, using the same technology but with less performance. I could be wrong, but they are the "lower end" and will have lower performance.

Keiler · « **Reply #26 on:** September 04, 2007, 02:34:00 AM »

I had probs with my radeon 1950 pro as well. I dont know if this issue has been fixed by the maker, but there might be two chips on the card which get extremely hot, like 260F°.

I dont find a good picture right now. But they are fairly easy to locate, if they are on your card, still.

The are opposite to the monitor plug, on the same plane as the cooling assembly. Open the case and look for two small (roughly 1x0,5"), black bricks which are so hot you cannot touch them when running a 3d application.

My fix was to get small passive RAM coolers and glue them to the aforementioned small black bricks with some heat conducting glue (arctic cooling for example. [edit] not to be confused with thermal grease!). Plus I put a 40mm low noise fan next to the coolers to blow the warm waste-air of the gfx card away from them.

No issues since.

Best regards,
Matt

Fulmar · « **Reply #27 on:** September 04, 2007, 09:05:16 AM »

We've tried the Dual Core Windows XP Patch already, right?

Allendales are very good CPUs. Very good price/performance ratio. They may be cheaper, but these aren't your old Celerons. They out bench some Athlon X2's depending on which Allendale you have. They are definantly faster than the Older P4 Smithfield and Presler cores. Single core Prescott's that are 3.6ghz are still out benched by the Allendale.

Oh, and they overclock very well.

Spatula · « **Reply #28 on:** September 04, 2007, 05:51:18 PM »

Yer, i applied both the patches and followed skuzzy's advice in the posts in the Technical Support board. That fixed the spinning clipboard issues etc.
Now my system is solid as a rock. Performance in AH2 is more than adequate, so im happy. One day i may upgrade to a E6XXX conroe, but no real need to do so now.