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Post modern Retro FX-60 build Log

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Reply 120 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Well its been 10 days since the tracking went dead on the p5e64 and the seller will not respond to emails or phone calls. 😵 So I opened a paypal case.

I have the worst of luck with buying things this year. Out of about 500 or so items I bought via paypal I have to open 26 cases. That's like 5.2%.
The 26'th being for the p5e64 I bought last month.
Well I guess 25 is the max cases you can open on paypal. They sent me a email stating that they will be going over every case I have ever opened with a fine tooth comb and if they find anything that looks funny they will be reversing the outcome of the case, and if I file any new cases they will be automatically closed in the sellers favor from this point on.

Wow talk about rude. I get screwed over a few times and I'm the bad guy?
Good luck getting the money from me if you reverse any of the cases. I foresee me closing my PayPal case soon.

Anyway long rant over, if the p5e64 is truly lost in the mail I will stick with the dfi dk-x38 and sleeve all the cables in the system and custom wire everything.
Ether way the system is just about done! but I still have yet to do some hard overclocking and still have a few small case mods to do.

I also have a lot of good photos to take and may make a video of the system.

Reply 121 of 135, by ynari

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Seriously? That's disgraceful behaviour from ebay.

Fortunately I've never had to open a case, although I've had my fair share of returns, and a couple of low value items I just couldn't be arsed bothering with. Also stuff like 'the item you have is out of stock, can we give you an 'equivalent' but actually nowhere near as good one?'. That'll be a no..

Reply 123 of 135, by Almoststew1990

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I had XFire 4890s for a while. Bloody hell what a loud, power hungry system but damn it could be very damn fast! I had an 8600GT and upgraded to a single 4890 when the 5850 was just out (bringing down the price of the 4 series). This was a fantastic upgrade I could play games at 720p at playable framerates for a change! After about a year I got a second 4890 for about £50 and XFired them.

I remember some games not increasing in performance at all, and some (Just Cause 2 in particular sticks out in my memory) were getting 70% to 80% performance increase, at 720p, with JC2 maxed getting well over 100fps in the city benchmark. The noise, heat and power draw got tiring so I switched to a 7870 after a year or so.

The 4 series drivers were probably pretty mature at the time, so might not be any better now, but the XFire element might have been improved since then.

Ryzen 3700X | 16GB 3600MHz RAM | AMD 6800XT | 2Tb NVME SSD | Windows 10
AMD DX2-80 | 16MB RAM | STB LIghtspeed 128 | AWE32 CT3910
I have a vacancy for a main Windows 98 PC

Reply 124 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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I have yet to find a single game that fails to use both 4890s
Infact from what im seeing the 4890s are doing better then the 6990s I had in the system.

If I recall the last drivers for the cards are from late 2013.

Anyway I cut out the honeycomb grills on the case. All I need now is some molding to put around the holes. I did not take the system completely apart to cut out the holes and just used a set of snips. It looks abit ruff.
Will post photos when the mods are done.
Cutting out tge stock grills is a small mod. But it can make a good difference in both sound and air flow.

Reply 125 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Still no update on the tracking for the p5e64 WS. 😵

the seller oddly uploaded tracking to the PayPal case shortly after I opened it. But 3 days of trying to get ahold on him via eBay messages, phone and email and not one word from him. Its not looking good.

Anyway I have a online shopping cart at the ready with everything I need to rewire the system and sleeve the cables.
Will go full blown UV green if the p5e64 never arrives. IF it does I'll hold off and do the sleeving latter on. Maybe after new years. I'll give it until the end of the mouth for the p5e64 to show up. If it does not I'll go forward with the sleeving and overclocking of the cpu.

Reply 126 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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As I expected one if the two 4890s has died.
This is what happens when you buy a card from someone that thinks its a good idea to put conducive paste between thermal pads and vram/mosfets.

Trying a oven bake at 300f just in the off chance it something solder related.
But ill be on the look out for a another one.

Edit:
The bake did not fix it.
I got a msi 4890 for 25$. Its just one set back after another 😠

Reply 127 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Good news everyone!

I received the replacement 4890! Not only tgat but the simple cooling mods I did have made a big difference.

To recap.
I replaced the koolance thermal pads with thermal grizzly pads.
Replace the cool labs coper compound with cool labs liqud ultra, put sick on heats sinks on the mosfet/vrm cooler, put pads on the sould state chocks and scuffed up the inside of the blocks. Now both cards only hit about 49/50c under furmark with a light OC at stock volts. Vs 60/63c before the mods.
The cards should run cooler once the liqud ultra sets up.

Reply 128 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Still no word on the p5e64 WS evolution I ordered. Its been about 20 days since the last tracking update.
If paypal dose things right I sould have my money back on Monday. Not that I have much hope for them, i have a INR case thats been open since July and paypal will not even lift a finger.

Reply 129 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Might have to put this build on hold.
Its up and running and what not. But PayPal seems to not care about the p5e64 WS evolution going missing in the mail and with holidays coming and real life stuff I'm a little short on extra spending cash.
Right now all that's left is custom wire the system, over clock it, take some nice photos and maybe putting a X48 ddr3 board in the system. But the latter will be held off until ether the p5e64 somehow shows up or I find a DFI UT ddr3 board for cheap.

Reply 130 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Good News everyone !!!
The Asus P5E64 showed up.
Not only was the tracking bar code removed form the box, but the package somehow was miss routed to England 😕
Well I will be dong the bolt mod to it and will be backing up the raid 0 setup tonight.

Reply 131 of 135, by Ozzuneoj

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Glad to hear it showed up. Its really aggravating when things got lost in shipping. Last year some guy on eBay shipped a huge box of PC parts to the wrong person in the wrong state (and somehow had no idea how this could have happened) and it was a big fiasco for weeks. Eventually I just had to demand a refund and finally got my money back. The stuff never showed up, which really stinks. There were 30+ cards, mostly video cards and some sound cards. A couple of Voodoo 3s, a Banshee, a couple Vortex 2s... and it was a super low price. I hate to think what happened to them when they got to some random person's doorstep. Probably ended up going to goodwill or straight to the curb on garbage night. 🙁

Anyway, have fun with the build. 😀

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 132 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Yep it can get rather upsetting. Even more so when it goes to the wrong country 😵
working on getting the raid setup imaged.I'm betting I don't need to image it . But I rather just to be safe. I been using he system off and on with the dfi dk-x38 board. As of now I'm just backing up the files I need.

Reply 133 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Well the p5e64 is busted. Shuts off seconds after hitting the power button.
Can't seem to to find out whats wrong. I just cant have anything work out right

Well ill stick with the dfi and return the p5e64...

wile I have the DFI board out of the system I did some cooling mods to it.
I but butter tim on the mosfets and made a back pate for the VRM's I also did a few things to the cpu water block mount and removed the little plate on the NB heatsink for better air flow. Sorry but I forgot to take photos. 😵

Now (in the bios) the VRM mosfet's are about 5-8c cooler and the cpu is now at 24c in the bios. talk about cold. I will see how the load temps are tonight. 😀

Reply 134 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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Ok its been awhile since I updating you guys.
Sadly I pushed the system too far with overclocking.
I was going for 5ghz on the cpu, yeah 5ghz with a qx9650 on a DFI DK board, bad idea. I had a fan on both VRM sinks and the NB. I had the best thermal compound on the board too, but it just did not cut it. I over heated the VRM and NB really bad, so bad that the system shut off with all thermal management turned off.
I was running prime 95 and went to use the bathroom, came back and the system was off. The temps, witch I was logging showed the NB hit 93c and the VRM's well into the 100's 😲
yeah 490fsb, 8gb of ram running at 1066mhz and really high volts with a cpu the pulls 130w at stock speed. Not the best idea.

The system still runs grate. The cpu is pulling strong and so is the board VRM. But the NB is toasted. I can't even get 375mhz stable on it now.
So it all stock for now.

But I got a DFI dk-x48-t2rsb plus, with any luck, and less overclocking the system will be a lot better. 😀

Reply 135 of 135, by Jade Falcon

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I got the dk-x48 today, its a nice board. I did not know this but the dk plus modles had better VRMs. Its 6 phase digital vs 4 phase analogue.

That aside I know I sead this before. But now I mean it.
I just spent my last dollar on the system. I just bought everything I need to custom wire the system. Some better thermal pads for the vrm's and gaskets for all the fans. The gaskets will quiet down the system abit and prevent any airflow loss between the case/rads and the fans. I also got a 50mm fan for the NB.
Unfortunately I cant use thermal compund on the VRM heatsinks like I could on the dk-x38. The mosfets are abit shorter and dont contact the heatsink all to well with compound.

A mini update.

I have the system up and running with the DK x48 board. Its a nice board. But the NB is running a tick hot mid 60s under a load with a 40mm fan, it should be a lot cooler with the 50mm fan I ordered.
I also have not tried to much, but I can't get all 8gb stable a 5-5-5-15 1066mhz. So far all I tried was upping the VTT and ram volts. I'll mess around with it some more. I'm sure I can get all 8gb stable at 1066mhz. If not I'll stick with 800mhz is lower the timings as much as I can.

Also if your wondering what I mean by custom wire the system. I'm going to make my own wires for the system. Sleeve them all and put UV green ends on them. I'll make a custom PCIe cables, CPU P4 power cable, sata cable, fan cables and maybe an ATX cable.
Not sure on the ATX cable, that's a lot of work and if I fug it up, its not like I can get a second one for my psu.