BF2S Forums Massive re-tooling of my rig. I need help...

Whenever I do a big upgrade like you are I always do a full reformat and install. That way you start off with a clean slate, no worries about old drivers or settings going haywire.

Get everything put together, CPU, mobo, GPU, drives, etc. and then boot with the Vista disk and have it do a reformat and then install. Once Vista is installed install your mobo, GPU and other drivers and then games and personal stuff(music & pr0n).


P.S. Everybody loves fried okra, some people just don't know yet.

Sounds like you got it down. Good luck!

BF2 works on 64-bit Vista. Google it.

If I give you good advice can I have the recycled parts for free?

check the EVGA message boards regarding that board.  it's definitely flaky.  i have one.  here's my saga:

1) bought EVGA 680i board jan 20
2)  failed to boot when in SLI mode (had to upgrade bios to P24)
3)  put mobo in case and it shorted out - believe one of the pins of the inductors on the board was too long and made contact with the back of the case.  suggest snipping these off.  board build quality is not great.  lot of caps were bent at 45 degrees, etc when i opened the box.
4)  got new board last week.  had p24 bios installed already (lucky).  i was able to boot win xp, etc with mobo in the case and everything.  knock wood it stays stable.  supposedly there is new bios (p25) but i haven't installed it.

with my zalman 9700 cpu cooler, i was able to boost the frequency of my QX6700 to 3.4 GHz from 2.66GHz.  my temps are in the high 50C range during stress and 39C idle and this is at 1.325V.  i can do 3.6GHz by playing with FSB and voltages, but it isn't stable for 3dmark06 (it will run xp and bf2 - just not benchmark). 

word is that you can't get real high FSBs on these boards for some reason (at least with quad cores).  i managed my speed increase by mucking with multiplier (fsb is only 1133 i think).  the board is supposed to be capable of 1333 FSB.  if you are interested in overclocking, again, check the evga boards.  every time i go above 1200 FSB, it won't boot.

i wish you luck on your build! 

http://www.evga.com/community/messagebo … ORUM_ID=26

I recommend:

1. Back up your data to a storage drive.
2. Wipe your XP drive.
3. Install XP to one drive.
4. Install Vista to another, for a healthy dual-boot system (I don't recommend using the same drive for two operating systems).
5. If Vista pisses you off at any point, you can go back to XP. Personally, I'm only going to Vista when I stick together a nice little (or will be, once Vista gets its hands on it) 4GB system, and only when DX10 compatibility forces me to do so. Vista is such a trashy piece of work that it makes Windows 95 look like a viable upgrade from 3.11.
6. Ignore suggestions about going to Macs and running BootCamp. I see $3000 Mac systems with freaking 7300GT video cards and DDR2-667 memory.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2007-02-14 17:41:48)

i bought the board from Fry's electronics (chain store here in CA) so i just returned it to them and said it was a bad board and got a new one on the spot since it was within their 15 day window for returns on bad product. 

the new board luckily had p24 bios which had the sli fix so i didn't have to do anything special with new board and i got sli working out of the box.  also, the new board had better build quality.  however, to be safe, i snipped off some of the end of those inductors so they wouldn't hit the back of my case.  runs like a champ now (knock wood).

the EVGA is a board based on the reference design done by nvidia.  EVGA and the others all use the same design from what i hear so they should all suffer from mostly the same core issues. 

i maintain that the EVGA board is a good board - just that it's a bit flaky from my experience.  once you get it running, it kicks butt.  plus, it's cheaper than the ASUS Striker by about a hundred bucks.  Now, the striker has cool things like english POST codes instead of numbers, lit up text indicating what the IO port connectors do, and also has a built in reset-cmos switch.  but for 100 bucks extra?  there's probably more to it, but i paid 270 and am happy enough with EVGA overall.  i probably could get things cheaper from newegg, etc but i'm impatient and like to go to store and buy it - no waiting.

now, if you are getting new mobo/processor, etc, i'd consider upgrading your stock cpu cooler as well.  i got the Zalman 9700LED cooler for about 70 bucks.  the thing rocks.  it's frickin huge however it really cools the cpu well.  it also should come with a small nail-polish sized bottle of their thermal grease which makes applying that stuff really easy (using brush built into the cap).  i did have to modify the backplate of the cooler but with a xacto knife or boxcutter (what i used), its really easy.  on that evga site i sent you can see instructions which i basically followed.  Now, this cooler dropped my temps by probably 10 or 20 degrees C under load.  with your chip, i hear people getting 1-1.5GHz over stock.  i'm saying this to you because while you have the chance, put the cooler on from the start so you don't have to take the mobo in/out/in/out and risk all kinds of goofy problems.  just something to think about. 

let me know if i can help if you do get the board.  i'll do whatever i can, ok?

good luck!

The stock cooler and heatsink on my e6600 keeps temps a cool 34 degrees celcius at idle, and max 40 under load. Just make sure you got good airflow above and below the heatsink and fan.

Another reason to replace the stock cooler is noise. My AC Freezer 64 is much quieter than the stock AMD cooler.

the zalman should fit but it might be tight.  the heat sink part has these fins that are actually cross over the plane of the board up near where the power supply usually is in the ATX form factor.  so to say a different way, the thing is too big to fit within the confines of the board dimensions.  i was worried about this but it turned out to not be a problem for me.  i have about 3/4 of an inch clearance between the top edge of the board and the power supply and it fits  for me.  i have it oriented such that the fan blows the air out the back.  now, if you can't fit it that way, you can orient the thing so it blows the air from bottom to top of the case (vertical alignment).  if you do it this way, your memory might have problem if you are using fancy tall heat spreaders.

bottom line:  i think you'll be fine with the zalman oriented horizontally blowing air out the back of the case.