New Rig

Not all new, but I got a new motherboard, CPU, ram, and video card.

Board - Gigabyte P35-DS3P (upgraded from DFI PS83-BL - 865PE)
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo (upgraded from P4 2.4GHz)
Video - GeFORCE 8600GT (upgraded from Radeon 9600xt)
Ram - G.Skill DDRII800 PC2-6400, 1024MB x 2 (upgraded from 256 x 4)




Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4500 @ 2.20GHz
Speed : 2.20GHz
Cores per Processor : 2 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Type : Dual-Core
Internal Data Cache : 2x 32kB, Synchronous, Write-Thru, 8-way, Inclusive, 64 byte line size
L2 On-board Cache : 2MB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 8-way, Inclusive, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing

System
System : Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P35-DS3P
Mainboard : Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P35-DS3P
Bus(es) : PCI PCIe IMB USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : 1 Processor(s)
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC (APIC) : Yes
System BIOS : Award Software International, Inc. 255.255
Total Memory : 2.00GB DDR3

Chipset 1
Model : Giga-Byte (Bearlake) Processor to I/O Controller
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 244MHz (976MHz)
Total Memory : 1GB DDR3
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 488MHz (976MHz)

Video System
Monitor/Panel : Plug and Play Monitor
Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT



System Memory Controller
Location : Mainboard
Error Correction Capability : None
Number of Memory Slots : 4
Maximum Installable Memory : 4GB
Bank0/1 - A0 : DIMM 1GB/64 @ 800MHz
Bank2/3 - A1 : Empty
Bank4/5 - A2 : DIMM 1GB/64 @ 800MHz
Bank6/7 - A3 : Empty


Logical/Chipset 1 Memory Banks
Bank 0 : 512MB DDR3 5.0-5-5-15 CR2
Bank 1 : 512MB DDR3 5.0-5-5-15 CR2
Maximum Installable Memory : 8GB
Supported Memory Types : ECC DDR2 DDR3
Channels : 1
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 488MHz (976MHz)
Maximum Memory Speed : 2x 800MHz (1.60GHz)
Multiplier : 6/3x
Width : 64-bit
Memory Controller in Processor : No
Refresh Rate : 7.80µs
Power Save Mode : No
Fixed Hole Present : No
Maximum Memory Bus Bandwidth : 7.63GB/s



Memory Module 1
Model : F2-6400CL5-1GBNQ
Type : 1GB DIMM DDR2
Technology : 16x(64Mx8)
Speed : PC2-6400U DDR2-400
Standard Timings : 5.0-5-5-15
Version : 1.2
Memory DC Line : 1.80V
Set Timing @ 400MHz : 5.0-5-5-15
Set Timing @ 267MHz : 4.0-3-3-10

Memory Module 2
Model : F2-6400CL5-1GBNQ
Type : 1GB DIMM DDR2
Technology : 16x(64Mx8)
Speed : PC2-6400U DDR2-400
Standard Timings : 5.0-5-5-15
Version : 1.2
Memory DC Line : 1.80V
Set Timing @ 400MHz : 5.0-5-5-15
Set Timing @ 267MHz : 4.0-3-3-10


System SMBus Controller 1
Model : Intel 801xx/63xx SMBus
Version : 0.02
Specification : 2.00
Advanced TCO Mode Enabled : Yes
Slave Device Enabled : Yes
PEC Support : Yes
Speed : 100kHz

Congratulations on going dual-core! That second core makes a big difference.

I'm not sure that my memory is running in dual channel mode. My understanding is that it is auto detected, but In my last system I believe the bios had a setting and SiSoftware Sandra told me it was in dual mode.

Quote:
The sticks are in slots 1 & 3. I did not see a bios setting to enable dual channel so I am guessing it is enabled automatically.



Also, I had problems installing 2 games. Each had a problem where it couldn't find a movie file during installation. C&C3 and Company of Heroes (came with video card). I had no problems reinstalling Planetside and C&C3 was installed previously. This could be an issue with my CD/DvD drive. My old board had 2 IDE slots, but on this board I must share 1 slot with my HD. The jumper is set to slave. Perhaps something is loose, I don't know if that would cause misreads.

Deity wrote:

It usually depends on the slots ie. fitting to 1 & 3 would be dual-channel but 1 & 2 would not. Might be the other way round depending on manufacturer, so best to check the documentation.

It might be mentioned during POST by the BIOS. If there is a splash screen, it can usually be disabled in the BIOS or if U press a certain key during POST (I think it's TAB on mine).

Quote:

Most likely an IDE problem. I've had problems with drives running in cable select mode but since your DVD drive is set to slave, this should be fine. Might be worth checking the jumpers on the hard disk to be sure (should be master).

Could also be a connector issue, so replacing the IDE cable might be a good idea. Also, if the power comes through a splitter these tend to get worn out so I'd make sure it's wired direct to the PSU wherever possible.

IMO, IDE is on the way out and you'd be better off with SATA. It's much faster & better supported on new boards.

This is an interesting thread as the parts for my new machine have started to arrive and I'm also using the Gigabyte P-35 DS3P (Rev. 2.0) board.

The CPU is the quad core and I'll be using a new SATA hard drive. 4G of Patriot LLQK RAM, but only went with a 8500GT video card as I deemed the higher ones are still too expensive and with what applications I run and the quad core and the RAM I'll do fine enough with the 8500GT - when I'm ready to upgrade the video card I should be comfortable enough with the system to look into a dual card setup. But for now my goal is to have the base system up and properly running.

Since I have another machine to pull parts from I'm going to so some swapping around and use an IDE dvd burner and dvd reader in the new one and have a dvd burner and cd burner in this one (this one is getting a new hard drive as the 5+ year old one in it is (has) failed. I also wasn't sure about the SATA drive power connections so I held off on getting SATA dvd drives but now that the new power supply has arrived I see I could have gotten new ones. But I don't like to waste stuff so I'd just as soon make use of the old IDE drives.

I don't know if I'll put a sound card in the new machine. The motherboard has 7.1 sound built in on it and the only reason I could see to use my audigy2 sound card in it is to get the eax sound effects and use the front panel that has a handy firewire port on it. If I do out it in I have a Live 5.1 card to put in this machine (which isn't too bad, it's just that since agp's and ide's are going away it isn't worth the investment of a new motherboard and ram that would be needed to upgrade the cpu).

The last time I did major motherboard level upgrading to a PC was more than 5 years ago so I have had a lot to learn about how the internal components have changed since then. I've done a lot of studying and have read plenty of user reviews and that Gigabyte motherboard looks to be a gem. I need it to be too as I look to get a lot of years out of a system while being able to do gradual upgrades on it.

I'm sticking with XP as the OS. I've read nothing but bad things about Vista and I have some older software (remember Carmageddon?) that I know will not run on Vista. So the quad core and the RAM are probably overkill for now.

I'm also doing a nice job of stressing myself out worrying about getting the new build up and running. I've got an external drive so if somebody could tell me what folders and where they're at to copy over my web bookmarks and email address book it would be appreciated.

For Deity's IDE hard drive/dvd problem I also think checking the jumper settings on both is a good place to look. On the post screen when you boot up if you're fast enough you can see if the system is seeing the hard drive as the master and the dvd drive as the slave.

Mmmmmmmmmmm......master & slave. How about if I start posting up the ckbd series fom usenet several years ago?

@Deity, usually the slots for the ram are color coded, so in order to use the Dual Channel, your suppose to place the ram in the same colored slots. If 1/3 or 2/4 are the same color you should be automatically using the dual channel, but if it's 1/2 and 3/4 then you'll need to move a stick over to the other slot.


@otiscleotus, note that WinXP will not see all 4GB of ram you have, it will only detect 3.5-3.7, that's one of the weaknesses of XP. But that doesn't mean not to use all 4, just didn't want you to wonder why your system didn't see 4 gigs when that's what you have.

The slots are red and yellow. 1 & 3 are yellow & that's where I plugged them in. I'm just looking for some conformation that they are running in dual channel mode since there is no option to turn it on or off that I can find.

Quote:


I think I had my CD drive connector plugged in upside down. I went by the picture in the manual before, but I looked at it & I'm pretty sure the red wire goes where it says R, even though the other 2 letters don't match the colors of the other 2 wires. Anyways, flipped it over & installed C&C3 successfully, but still can not install Company of Heroes.

Deity wrote:
If there's no option to turn it on, chances are that it's automatically enabled.

Quote:

The coloured strand of the ribbon cable corresponds to pin 1 of the device. Most drives have this to the right. Also, most IDE connectors are keyed so you can't plug it in upside-down. It sounds to me like this could be a very old cable and it may be crippling the devices by not allowing full-speed UDMA (as well as possibly having worn-out contacts). My advice would be to replace this with a newer one (there should have been at least one with the motherboard).

I was referring to the CD connector with 3 wires, not the IDE cable. Also, I have an Antec Cobra rounded IDE cable, not a ribbon. http://www.dvhardware.net/review31_anteccobra.html



I'm not sure how to interpret this benchmark. My RAM is 2 x DDR2-800 PC2-6400. It says current chipset/memory is DDR3 PC3-7800. Could that be because it's running in dual channel?

http://www.gskill.com/en/f2-6400cl5d-nq.html





SiSoftware Sandra
Benchmark Results


Int Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth : 4.13GB/s
Float Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth : 4.14GB/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance vs. Speed
Int Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth : 4.33MB/s/MHz
Float Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth : 4.34MB/s/MHz
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance vs. Power
Chipset(s)/Memory Power : 16.30W
Int Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth : 259.51MB/s/W
Float Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth : 259.88MB/s/W
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Int Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth
Assignment : 3.87GB/s
Scaling : 4.02GB/s
Addition : 4.30GB/s
Triad : 4.33GB/s
Data Item Size : 16bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 54.18%

Float Buff'd iSSE2 Memory Bandwidth
Assignment : 3.96GB/s
Scaling : 4.03GB/s
Addition : 4.35GB/s
Triad : 4.20GB/s
Data Item Size : 16bytes
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 54.25%

Performance Test Status
Run ID : Intel (Bearlake) Processor to I/O Controller; 1x 1GB DDR3 PC3-7800 (5.0-5-5-15)
Platform Compliance : Win32 x86
Memory Used by Test : 511.97MB
NUMA Support : No
SMP (Multi-Processor) Benchmark : No
Total Test Threads : 1
Multi-Core Test : Yes
SMT (Multi-Threaded) Benchmark : No
Processor Affinity : P0C0T0
System Timer : 2.20GHz
Page Size : 4kB
Use Large Memory Pages : No

Features
SSE Technology : Yes
SSE2 Technology : Yes
SSE3 Technology : Yes
Supplemental SSE3 Technology : Yes
SSE4.1 Technology : No
SSE4.2 Technology : No
EMMX - Extended MMX Technology : No
SSE4A Technology : No
HTT - Hyper-Threading Technology : No

Chipset 1
Model : Giga-Byte (Bearlake) Processor to I/O Controller
Revision : A3
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 244MHz (976MHz)
Width : 64-bit
Maximum Bus Bandwidth : 7.63GB/s

Logical/Chipset 1 Memory Banks
Bank 0 : 512MB DDR3 5.0-5-5-15 CR2
Bank 1 : 512MB DDR3 5.0-5-5-15 CR2
Channels : 1
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 488MHz (976MHz)
Multiplier : 6/3x
Width : 64-bit
Memory Controller in Processor : No
Maximum Memory Bus Bandwidth : 7.63GB/s

Thanks for the information on the RAM Ozzy. I've sort of suspected I might run into something like that and now will not panic when I see that. I was thinking of going with 64 bit XP but with all the other new things to learn and find my way around I stuck with the known 32 bit XP. Vista looks to be plan evil, the Iolo System Mechanic 7 of OS's.

I have had a similar problem as Deity's Company of Heros issue with some other software within the last year. I can't remember if it was due to trying to load it somewhere other than main drive C, a previous installation that I had to get tech support help to remove and reinstall, or something that I just gave up on. One thing to try would be to just search the cd/dvd for that file and see if it is there or somewhere else on the disk.

When the new motherboard gets here (I'm getting it from a place that will attach the cpu and RAM and fire it up to see that it works, I really didn't want to go through the fight and force it takes to get intel cpu's onto their boards again and don't want the surprise of DOA parts to try and troubleshoot) I see I will have a lot more to catch up on with a new BIOS.

@Deity,

By the looks of it your RAM benchmarks are fine, but your using DDR 3 memory, and it's possible you'll need to update the BIOS of the mobo in order to support that memory.

DDR 3 is newer than the DDR 2, but the DDR 2 still seems to be a lot cheaper and works just as good, if not better than DDR 3.

Now as far as the game is concerned, since it's freezing on an .avi file, I would see if you can aces the CD\DVD with VLC Media Player and see if you can play that file, if the file plays properly using the player, than I wouldn't be surprised to see it fall back to the DDR 3 ram you using, especially if the mobo doesn't support DDR 3.

The memory is labeled DDR2

Deity wrote:

That's strange that the Memory test has DDR3 listed, and that what you listed in the first post, unless it was a typo.

I'll bet it's DDR 3 even though it's labeled DDR 2, especially since the memory test listed it as DDR 3.

Check the Gigabyte website for the P35-DS3P and see if they support DDR 3, or have a BIOS update that supports it.

Wait a sec., I just check their site, and it's DDR 2, so, you may just want to pull the sticks out, and then flip them, put the one from slot 1 into slot 3 and vice versa.

If that doesn't work, you can alway use the other 2 slots, as the BIOS may have the opposite Channel enabled.

This link I posted previously is to the exact model of ram I have.
http://www.gskill.com/en/f2-6400cl5d-nq.html

Deity wrote:

You mean the audio cable? That shouldn't affect the performance (unless you've shorted something to ground, which could screw the drive or the sound system.

Quote:

It looks like DDR2. My guess is the motherboard correctly detects DDR2 but the BIOS is reporting DDR3. Could be something to do with memory clocking, I suppose. Or it could just be a wonky motherboard.

Quote:

It might be worth checking memory timings in the BIOS (mine misdetected my PC2-8500 as 6400 and needed to be upclocked manually). 54.25% bandwidth efficiency sounds quite bad, though. Also, I'd expect the FSB to be a bit faster. 1066 or 1333 would be more typical. Furthermore, it says 1 memory channel, which should not be the case. Either Sandra is screwed or the motherboard implements something badly.

I'd also recommend googling for this particular chipset & see if anyone else has had memory configuration problems. There's something here about it:
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/12373