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Post modern Retro FX-60 build Log

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Reply 81 of 135, by voodoo5_6k

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Jade Falcon wrote:

Who needs an ssd when you have 6 drives in raid 0 ?

Well, I hope you are doing backups? Since you now have no redundancy at all and at least seven (!) single points of failure (six drives and one controller/driver) you could loose a lot of time when only one of these fails and then inevitably everything goes to hell on that array 😉

Data loss is one of my biggest fears in regards to computing. And then factor in all the time you had invested setting up the system and installing all games etc. I can't even stand the risk of losing an individual drive (although I take it most of the time).

In my opinion, RAID 0 should just be called AID, there is no redundancy.

By the way, a very nice looking system (although I never was a fan of water cooling), very cool 😀 I thought about a QX CPU myself for my socket 775 retro system (Retro 4), but went with the Xeon X5470. It has the highest multiplier of all the socket 775/771 CPUs and so you don't even have to overclock the PSB to get it to 4GHz, you just need to use a motherboard supporting 1600MHz PSB. And this can usually be done on air cooling (large cooler) and stock voltage. Even on stock clock rate it is already faster than the QX9770/QX9775.

END OF LINE.

Reply 82 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Honestly I don't have much anything to lose. Im only going to have games on this system. I'll make a base system image and maybe use a flash drive to backup save files, but the only thing I don't want to lose is the time it takes to setup the system again.

Reply 84 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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OK, So I have my OS install just about down. I'll have to get a usb hdd or tape drive or something to image the system after that.

I did a cpu burn and furmark run at the same time, all stock the cpu hits mid upper 30's and the 6990 hit upper 60s. Not bad.

Also the stock VRM and NB heatsink will not cut it, but since I bolt modded the suckers I'd have to take the system apart to replace them.
This is not a supersize, the boards heatsink setup was meant for air cooling and I water cooled the system. I'm going to remove the DFI Lanparty plate on the NB heat sink, this will allow more air flow from the fan I put on it. With the pipe it should help cool the VRM's too.
The chipset running about mid 50s and the VRM's are in the upper 60s low 70's. Once I really get into overclocking it will get bad.

I'm also going to get 80mm fan to put up top in the case its not much, but it will help. I'll also replace the two front 500rpm fans with 800 rpm fans.

Reply 85 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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OK, So I now know for a fact the heat is what been crashing the system after longer use.
The VRM's are triggering a shut down. That's a simple fix. I'll put fans on them.

I found this out by running prime 95 wile logging system temps, the mosfets hit 75c ( the systems shut down temp) the high heat buzzer went off. Even with a bolt mod the VRM's run hot. That is what happens when you have 4 phases powering a 130w cpu whit a good OC

Reply 86 of 135, by agent_x007

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I own P5B ("vannila") with only three phases (without heatsinks), and I oc'ed Pentium Extreme Edition 965 to 4,5GHz on it 😀
I think it's not number of phases, but VRM area that's the problem.
Too much heat is generated in one spot and simple heatsinks can't handle that without proper airflow.

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Reply 87 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Indeed you are right.
get 8 mosfets crammed in a small spot and things will get hot once you start to push them without good air flow.

Looks like CCC does not like my motherboard ether, does not show the crossfire options. This is known to happen with a some x38/x48 boards, the abit IX48 had a bios patch to fix CF with the 4890 and 5xxx cards.

CCC will not start with older drivers like 11.8-12.x. I'll need to fix this. No point in having dual 6990's if I can't CF them. I may as well sell one to recoup funs if I can't get both to work.
Maybe I'll just byte the bullet and go with a pair of 1gb 4890's or 4870x2. with a 1600x1200 res I'd like to have a 2gb card, but I much rather have a CF setup, the only game I'll ever play that truly needs 2gb is fallout3. But having that extra bit of vram would be nice. More then anything I got the 6990's as they were a grate deal and 4 gpu's sounded like a lot of fun at 150$ with the blocks.

EDIT:
OK I'm going to sell the 6900's and get a set of 4890's. The 4890 will work a lot better with the system and are far more era correct. Not only that back less heat in the loop, so I will not need 800rpm fans on the front rad.
I'll move the two 40mm fans I put in between the 6990's on the VRM heatsinks.
So, now were do I list the two 6990's?

Reply 88 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Well now I feel stupid. All this time i been trying to find out why the system been running hoky, why ccc would not open and why ccc did not show cf options.
Yeah I never checked if the second 6990 worked. 😵 the second card is dead

Well....
yeah i feal dumb right now. Im off to ebay to find 2 4890s and water blocks, wish me luck

Reply 90 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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agent_x007 wrote:

Go for 5970 😁

Believe me I thought about it. 5970s sound even funner then 6990s.
But i want to keep it simple at this point, I've owned and worked with alot of 4890 and 4870s. Theyre the one ati card im rely experienced with and they should not cause any problem with my setup. And they are 100% era correct.

Reply 91 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Well it looks like reming the second dead 6990 fix most of the problems I been having!
Cant believe that didn't realize i have a dead video card in the system.

Anyway i found 2 blocks for the 4890, they're not the best, but they where new and cheap.

I also updated the op.

EDIT: I found two xfx 4890s

Reply 92 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Ok been doing some testing. Removing the second 6990 fixed maybe 95% of my problems.
4% is my sound card not playing well with battlefront 1 and republic commando. Not sure why but if I disable it the two games run fine. But with it enable bf1 likes to lock up the system and republic commando crashes after you load a level. Will have to troubleshoot that.

The other 1% is the hard drives are overheating. The front 240mm rad sucks in hot air so its no wonder. I put 800rpm (had 500rpm) fans on the rad witch helped a good bit but the hdds still run on the hot side. Ill need to think up something. Everything I can think of right now will mess with the intake air flow or require the ugly side fan to be used.

I also put 40mm fans on the vrm heatsinks. The vrms get around 45c under a load with the cpu at stock speeds. So thats far better then the 60 some degrees it was pushing. Im useing 500rpm case fans that push 20cfm so just about everything that not water cooled gets really hot.

Reply 93 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Should get the last of the cooling stuff tonight and the 4890's later this week.

After I get the 4890s installed I'll start tweaking the system and Overclocking, then I'll image the system. After that it's on to the benchmarking then I'll be painting stuff with clear UV paint.

EDIT:
I also updated the OP and bench post. I added the WEI and hdtune images to it.

Reply 94 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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OK so I got the 80mm fan, the 4890 blocks and a few more cables. I had to remove the upper hdd cage mount to fit the 80mm fan, after removing it I realized I can fit 2 80mm fans up there with abit of work.

Reply 95 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Took the blocks apart to see what they were like. Yep typical 2008 water cooling. At lest its a step up from old swiftech blocks. Swiftech blocks where just a flat cast sheets and empty tops. The vmr cooling is a cast aluminum chunk that buts up against the edge of the block. And before you go crazy. The aluminum does not come in contract with water.
I put cool labs liquid copper between the block and vrm cooling part.

EDIT: Yeah I found the edit button for once.
Anyway I should get one of the two 4890's today. I'll get another 80mm to put up top on the case when I get the Clear UV paint. I'll also take better photos once its all done too.

Reply 96 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Im not one get get angry or the slightest bit upset.
But the next F"in moron that sends me junk that was listed as fully working and tested is going to end up in a ditch or bottom of a river.
The idiot that sold me one of the 4890s send be a piece of junk 😒

Last edited by Jade Falcon on 2017-10-25, 22:42. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 98 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Frowny face is right. The nut even had a test sheet he sent me with the cards S/N on it, If I pay 60$ for a 40$ card that's had a full refurbishment I expect the card to attest work, but the heat sink was also full of dust. 😒 I'm hoping it was a mix up and that they sent me the wrong card some how.

I'll add a bad 4890 to the to the lest of dead parts I received recently. I just don't get it. I must have done something to get all this bad luck?

Reply 99 of 135, by x0zm_

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Cool projects are never allowed to run smoothly and all eBay sellers are total jerks, apparently.

Been my experience lately too.

Going to get your money back at least?