Help with new K8WE System - Sir Fragalot??

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Casper42

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So I was running a XP 2500 Barton with a GF3 Original for years and was sad it wouldnt support BF2. So I decided to go all out with my next machine and have built the following:

Tyan K8WE (non SCSI) with Dual Opteron 252s
4 x 1GB 3200 Chips for Dual Channel for Each Processor
2 x 74GB Raptors in RAID 0
1 x BFG 7800GTX OC
Thermaltake: Xaser Case, Silent PurePower 680W Power Supply and 2 x Hyper 6+ Cooling towers.
Onboard sound for now (when Creative releases their next card, I will upgrade to that)


The problems I am having now are:

1) Drivers
I upgraded to the latest nForce drivers and Video Drivers and the machine started Blue Screening, but only during certain actions (Launcxhing BF2, Pressing WIN+F for search screen, etc)
I backed down to the drivers that were on the CDs for the Mobo and VidCard and everything is running smooth now.

2) Have 4GB but XP Pro 32bit only seeing 2.5.
I read your post about this Fragalot, but I couldnt figure out where in the BIOS you found those options. I also dont know what version of the BIOS I'm running, so if you can tell me an easy way to figure that out, I would appreciate it.

3) LAN Issues during Gameplay (Most Important Issue right now)
When I play BF2, I constantly get "Problem with your Connection" errors and its seriously affecting the gameplay. When riding with other players in vehicles, its often really jerky/choppy too. I thought it might just be BF2, but I loaded up Call of Duty, applied the latest patches, and I am getting the same type of error in that game as well.
I tried both onboard GB NICs ad they both have the problem, I tried hooking straight to my Cable Modem (bypassing router) and still had the problem. I didnt install the nForce Firewall Software and I have the Windows Firewall disabled as well.
I am going to grab a crappy 10/100 Intel PCI Nic from work on Monday and try usign that to see if it aleviates the problem.

Any Help on these issues?

Also, any reccomendations on settings I should change to optimize the machine?

I partitioned the 140GB array into a 100 and a 40 and will be installing XP64 on the 40GB just to play around with it.

Thanks in advance for any advice/help you guys can give.
 
I am using the NForce 6.66 drivers. I am using nVidia Forceware 7.77 drivers. I'd suggest updating to the beta BIOS found on Tyan's site. It's version 1.01 Beta. It does alot of good. It does correct a NIC issue (not necessarily yours) and does do some other things. So that's a worthwhile download.

As far as the ram thing goes you need to set your memory hole size for 64mb or whatever the lowest setting is. Then you need to set memory to software mapping. Unfortunately I don't go into my BIOS alot and I am currently using that computer right now. So I would need to restart my machine and take a look.

What drivers did you use to get the RAID going in XP 64? I had alot of trouble getting mine to do it and finally gave up on RAID mode for XP X64 Edition for the time being.
 
actually, since you're running at 252s(assuming CG or above stepping)...your memory hole could probably be set to "hardware".

Software is something we have to do with our c0s from the AMD Tech Tour.
 
Yes, I loaded the 8131 Drivers from the CD also.

I'll try the new BIOS when I have a sec later tonight.
For the Memory Hole question you guys seem to be in disagreement. What was the name of that program again, WCPUID? I'll try and get that and post my steppings tonight to see if that changes anything.
For XP64, I havent installed it yet, but I was just going to use the driver floppy I had to make for the 32bit install. didnt dawn on me until you said that, that i need 64bit drivers. But I think they had those on the Driver CD as well, so I will prolly try to make a floppy from that.

I will also try to get the same versions of the drivers your on and test them out.

As for reloading everything, I wouldnt mind doing so since there is hardly anything on the machine, but since I just built it last weekend, I dont really see how reloading could get me any better?

Thanks for the help guys, I'll post again tonight or tomorrow night once I tried some of these suggestions and got my CPU info.

Any other reccomendations in general on BIOS tweaks I should set, or anything else?

What Temperature Monitor do you guys use for the K8WE?

Thanks Again.

PS: Just after XMas I plan to build another K8WE machine to be my in house server. I put together a wish list and am hoping to defray some of my costs by asking for parts as gifts. Everything else I will just buy on my own. I already have 2 more 252s and another 4GB (at least) of memory.
I plan to run 2003 Server on the bare metal, that will do 2 things. 1) Run VMWare GSX for hosting VMs like an AD Controller, IIS Web Server, Linux VM with Redhat, etc. 2) File Serving from a seperate array. (currently 4 x 100GB in 0+1 but eventually will be 4 or 6 disks with a hardware R5 SATA controller).
I plan to boot 2003 from a 74GB raptor, and then dedicate another 74GB raptor to hosting the DSK/VMDK files. Then the 4 or 6 drive array will be for the file serving and for backups of the VMs (and backups of the desktop I built already, over the network)
I was considering using a Asus K8N-DL for this machine instead, but no PCIX for the future RAID controller.
 
We are not in disagreement. Marduk may be right. I've only ever run with C0's on the K8WE. Your 252's may not have that problem.
 
Also...if you want more info than what Sir-Fragalot and I can come up with off the tops of our heads...www.k8we.com There's an entire site dedicated to the uberness that is this board. (it's also where I found out about C0 steppings not working quite as well as one would hope)
 
Marduk said:
Also...if you want more info than what Sir-Fragalot and I can come up with off the tops of our heads...www.k8we.com There's an entire site dedicated to the uberness that is this board. (it's also where I found out about C0 steppings not working quite as well as one would hope)
Click to expand...

That's a damn good site. I should have thought of it first. :cool:
 
Actually with the latest BIOS all I had to do was set the OS on the first page to XP64 as the installed OS. After that all my memory showed without having to configure the memory hole options.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
Actually with the latest BIOS all I had to do was set the OS on the first page to XP64 as the installed OS. After that all my memory showed without having to configure the memory hole options.
Click to expand...


he's using XP 32bit though...
 
Well I didn't realize that. The previous fix should do the trick there as well. Plus theres setting the /PAE variable and other possible fixes. A little research should help resolve the problem.
 
XteriorMotive said:
dude your pc shits all over mine even though you are having problems how much did it cost
Click to expand...

A dual Opteron system isn't cheap when the K8WE is used and you give it high end processors, video cards and the like. You're looking at 3 or 4 thousand dollars before you know it.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
A dual Opteron system isn't cheap when the K8WE is used and you give it high end processors, video cards and the like. You're looking at 3 or 4 thousand dollars before you know it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's amazing how fast it all adds up. I only "planned" on spending about two grand and before I knew it, it just kind of ballooned above that.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
A dual Opteron system isn't cheap when the K8WE is used and you give it high end processors, video cards and the like. You're looking at 3 or 4 thousand dollars before you know it.
Click to expand...

yep.

AMD Tech Tour bundle for $500.

ok, sell the gimpy mobo they give you, so - $250 on ebay if you're lucky.

buy the K8WE...+ $430

Heatsinks? Well...you're looking at 2. So, in my case...$50 x2

RAM? If a uniprocessor system is getting a reccomendation of 2gb for BF2...4gb should be good enough for a dual processor, right? Oh wait...you need ECC Registered. Can't reuse that old PC3200 of yours...Now you're looking at $140 per gig instead of $80 per gig. $600 for RAM.

PSU? Well...you can't just use a run of the mill Antec...you need an 8 pin 12V. And you're certainly not going to trust this system to any off the shelf PSU from a mom & pop...better go PC Power & Cooling! + $240 ($260 in my case, as I had mine custom built...)

Chassis...well...it won't fit in that Coolermaster Praetorian...better get a bigger case. Chenbro SR107? $175.

Now, isntead of spending maybe $700-ish on a dualcore Athlon X2 & mobo that you can reuse your old chassis and PSU(if high enough quality and the mobo supports a 20pin), and standard PC3200...you've spent $1800+ and you've not even bought a videocard, soundcard, hdds, etc!


(Technically the above is true of the original build. I've since ordered the V2000B+ and am in the process of getting one of the first 1KW models from PC Power & Cooling...also custom built to fill my needs. + $800. If I'm lucky and someone takes the SR107 & Custom PSU off my hands, -$350 if I don't get raped by shipping)
 
Ughhhhhh, I'm getting so pissed off.

OK, I upgraded to 1.01T and didnt have to redo my RAID.

I updated the driver suite to 6.66 as reccomended, but left my video drivers for now on the old version. I was able to get the 77.77 ones off the nvidia site by just changing the file and folder name for the 78.01 ones.

So I try all that, and no joy. Same exact frickin error.

So I brought home a Compaq cheapo PCI NIC and put it in the bottom PCIX slot and XP detected it just fine. I moved the cable and disabled the other onboard nic. Went online, everything seemd to be working fine. Launched BF2 and not even kidding within the frist 10 seconds of gameplay I got that god damn error.

So right now based on one of your reccomendations, i'm installing a second copy of XP Pro 32 onto the D: I left open for XP64. I'm thinking if this one works, then I will backup the files on C: I downloaded and then blow C: away and start it all from scratch using the same drivers and install routine.



As for Cost....

429.99 - K8WE
_73.99 - Thermaltake XaserV WinGo V7000C Blue
159.00 - Thermaltake Silent Pure Power W0049 RUD ATX12V/ EPS12V 680W Power Supply
109.98 - 2 x COOLER MASTER Hyper 6+ (54.99 ea)
362.00 - 2 x WD Raptor 74GB (181 ea)
525.00 - BFG 7800GTX OC
------------------------------------------
1659.96 + 120.35 (Tax) + 54.93 (Shipping)

Grant Total for these components was 1835.24

now keep in mind, this doesnt include the 252s or my RAM. Both of those, uhhhh, fell off a truck.
 
XteriorMotive said:
dude your pc shits all over mine even though you are having problems how much did it cost
Click to expand...

Mine was:
K8WE - $429
2x - 246s - $480
7800GT - $409
2x 1GB DIMMs - $240
PSU - $~80
HSF - $40
74GB Raptor - $169
Lian-Li v1200 - $~200 when I bought it last year

And that's not counting my old dual Opty that I turned into a server:

Iwill DK8X / 242s / 2x 512 DIMMs / 500w PSU / 36GB Raptor / Several large capacity drives / 4U Rackmount case / Radeon 9800Pro

EDIT: All told, I've probably spent well over 6k on hardware alone over the past year (not counting parts I've bought as gifts for my family and fiancee) and probably 2k in the last month or so.
 
By the way, anyone getting really slow gigabit speeds with their K8WEs? When I try to transfer something from my server I get at max 3MB/s. Both the server and my workstation have gigabit NICs and are on a seperate network using a gigabit switch. Uploads are much better although nowhere near gigabit speeds (ie around 160 megabits per second).

And for some reason I can't enable jumbo frames on both computers when I try, neither can connect to the other, but other computers outside the network (like my 2k Pro machine connecting seperately through a wireless router or the mac I use at work) can connect just fine with remote desktop or network drives or whatever other kinds of connections.
 
Broadcoms don't do GigE correctly. No jumbo frame sounds like the other end's a Broadcom. You may as well use 10b2 as any Broadcom card; not only is it faster, it's a hell of a lot more stable. And doesn't catch fire on a regular basis.
 
Well this officially blows monkey nuts.

I did the alternate OS on D: and used nothing but the latest nForce drivers from the very beginning. Used the 77.77 video drivers and yet again got lockups in game.

Anyone ever called Tyan before? Are they any help?

2GB of PC3200 DDR ECC REG (2 x 1GB sticks) to the person who figures out how to fix this $1800 paperweight.

Or else I may just sell my other opterons and RAM and use that to buy a single cpu 939 rig and then turn this into my server.
 
AreEss said:
Broadcoms don't do GigE correctly. No jumbo frame sounds like the other end's a Broadcom. You may as well use 10b2 as any Broadcom card; not only is it faster, it's a hell of a lot more stable. And doesn't catch fire on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

The other NIC is a Marvell chipset.
 
Moog said:
The other NIC is a Marvell chipset.
Click to expand...

Negative. Both cards show up in Device Manager as nVidia nForce built in network controllers. They are both identical. Also, these are built into the 2200 and 2200 nForce Professional chipsets.

The one that has the Marvell controller chip is the Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe/Premium among others.

AreEss said:
Broadcoms don't do GigE correctly. No jumbo frame sounds like the other end's a Broadcom. You may as well use 10b2 as any Broadcom card; not only is it faster, it's a hell of a lot more stable. And doesn't catch fire on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

I've got over 72 machines at work with Broadcomm controllers in them. They suck in many ways, horrible negotiation times and other driver related issues. However they've always done Gigabit speeds just fine. I've also never had one catch fire.

Casper42 said:
Well this officially blows monkey nuts.

I did the alternate OS on D: and used nothing but the latest nForce drivers from the very beginning. Used the 77.77 video drivers and yet again got lockups in game.

Anyone ever called Tyan before? Are they any help?

2GB of PC3200 DDR ECC REG (2 x 1GB sticks) to the person who figures out how to fix this $1800 paperweight.

Or else I may just sell my other opterons and RAM and use that to buy a single cpu 939 rig and then turn this into my server.
Click to expand...

Relax man, a BIOS issue is at fault. You can fix it so most of that ram will show up. You will still likely only get about 3.5GB though. Still, it will work pretty good. Also a leap to Windows XP x64 Edition would work also. I've had no driver issues, and only two games ever gave me problems, and that's only during installation. I was able to solve the issues in both cases. Just informing you of another possible option.

Don't give up seriously. You can get that problem taken care of. I could do it if I was sitting in front of your machine, or I had a digital camera to take pics of my BIOS settings.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
Negative. Both cards show up in Device Manager as nVidia nForce built in network controllers. They are both identical. Also, these are built into the 2200 and 2200 nForce Professional chipsets.

The one that has the Marvell controller chip is the Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe/Premium among others.
Click to expand...
I was talking about the one in my server, not the K8WE in my workstation.
 
Moog said:
I was talking about the one in my server, not the K8WE in my workstation.
Click to expand...

Ok, I was wondering where that statement came from. Didn't know you were talking about a different board.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
Ok, I was wondering where that statement came from. Didn't know you were talking about a different board.
Click to expand...

No prob. I'm getting all kinds of weird networking issues with the K8WE. When I try to save something to a network drive from the K8WE (ie. download a patch from the web and save it to the server) the file is usually corrupted, but if I transfer a previously saved file from the server to my workstation it works just fine. Now I'm getting some kind of weird encryption error when I try to connect to the workstation remotely to try to connect as a client using the workstation. It seems to only appear when using XP Pro x64.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
You can fix it so most of that ram will show up. You will still likely only get about 3.5GB though. Still, it will work pretty good. Also a leap to Windows XP x64 Edition would work also.
Click to expand...

Is there a reason he shouldn't use the /pae switch?
Should allow him to use all his memory.

My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery > Edit > add /pae to the end of your OS string.
 
v3rt1g0 said:
Is there a reason he shouldn't use the /pae switch?
Should allow him to use all his memory.

My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery > Edit > add /pae to the end of your OS string.
Click to expand...

No reason that I know of, at least not on a 64bit processor. I know on a 32bit processor you can't make all 4GB available. Something about the memory addresses if I recall the article correctly.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
Relax man, a BIOS issue is at fault. You can fix it so most of that ram will show up. You will still likely only get about 3.5GB though. Still, it will work pretty good. Also a leap to Windows XP x64 Edition would work also. I've had no driver issues, and only two games ever gave me problems, and that's only during installation. I was able to solve the issues in both cases. Just informing you of another possible option.

Don't give up seriously. You can get that problem taken care of. I could do it if I was sitting in front of your machine, or I had a digital camera to take pics of my BIOS settings.
Click to expand...


I think your missing the point Fragalot. Right now I dont care if I EVER see the full 4GB in XP32.

The Network Connection Issues I am seeing in online games are the problem that I am trying to troubleshoot and are pissing me off to no end.

All that stuff about the PCI NIC and Loading a new OS was to try and fix the networking issue. As it stands right now, I cant play BF2 online for more than a minute or so without getting a connection issue that totally disrupts gameplay.

THAT is what I am so pissed off about. And since I added a PCI NIC and did all this other testing, the only things left that could be an issue are the mobo or my Cable ISP. But since I never saw issues in CoD on my old machine, with that same ISP, and now on a machine thats easily 2x as fast I do get connection problems, I can only surmise this is coming from my machine and not the ISP.


As I said before, if anyone can find the solution to this problem, I got some Extra RAM that is all yours. 2 x 1GB PC3200 ECC REG.

I think I'm going to drag my machine over to a friend's house this weekend and see if I get connection errors there. Since he plays BF2 on his machine alot, it should be a good test to use his same ISP and rule mine out.
 
Casper42 said:
I think your missing the point Fragalot. Right now I dont care if I EVER see the full 4GB in XP32.

The Network Connection Issues I am seeing in online games are the problem that I am trying to troubleshoot and are pissing me off to no end.

All that stuff about the PCI NIC and Loading a new OS was to try and fix the networking issue. As it stands right now, I cant play BF2 online for more than a minute or so without getting a connection issue that totally disrupts gameplay.

THAT is what I am so pissed off about. And since I added a PCI NIC and did all this other testing, the only things left that could be an issue are the mobo or my Cable ISP. But since I never saw issues in CoD on my old machine, with that same ISP, and now on a machine thats easily 2x as fast I do get connection problems, I can only surmise this is coming from my machine and not the ISP.


As I said before, if anyone can find the solution to this problem, I got some Extra RAM that is all yours. 2 x 1GB PC3200 ECC REG.

I think I'm going to drag my machine over to a friend's house this weekend and see if I get connection errors there. Since he plays BF2 on his machine alot, it should be a good test to use his same ISP and rule mine out.
Click to expand...

Ok, what BIOS are you using? I had a network issue with BIOS 1.01 something. Going to BIOS 1.01T fixed my issues. Your issues aren't the same as mine were, but obviously there was some kind of network issues with the board that necessitated a BIOS update. That's the next thing I'd do.

Second, you mentioned that you were going to try a PCI NIC? Did that work for you?

When I was having network issues, I disabled one of the network ports physically in BIOS and that worked for me. You might try that and see if that helps.
 
I also have 4 gigs in my K8WE from the the Tech Tour. I have dual boot Win 32 and 64 bit and they both only see 2.5. I haven't looked at my BIOS in a while but when I brought this issue up to Tyan, they said to update the bios which I did.

I don't know if a new version of the bios has come out. I think I am runing 1.01T.

Crucial told me to test the memory, and I am waiting to do that. I am also having video card issues which a new powersupply has not resolved.

Anyhow, just wanted to bitch a little. Hopefully I will get all of this fixed soon.
 
set the memory hole to software, OS to WinXP x64 in the BIOS. that should take care of it, at least it did for me.
 
SpicyMcHaggis said:
set the memory hole to software, OS to WinXP x64 in the BIOS. that should take care of it, at least it did for me.
Click to expand...

Did the trick for me as well. If he's running Windows XP 32bit though, he probably also needs to set the memory hole mapping to software.
 
As I said before....

I upgraded to 1.01T already.
I am running the Latest 8131 Drivers and 6.66 nForce Drivers, and I even installed the OS fresh straight to that version. (Copied RAID/SATA Drivers to a Floppy for F6 during setup)
I tried both onboard NICs AND Added a PCI Compaq Generic 10/100 and none of those worked.
I bypassed my router and went straight to my Cable Modem and that didnt help either.

I also read on K8WE.com that BF2 doest like Dual Procs and you have to set the Processor Afinity to CPU0 or 1 but not both. I tried that and it seemed to cut down the frequency of the issues, but did NOT fix anything.

So right now other than dragging my rig to a friend's house to make sure its not my Crappy Adelphia connection, I'm out of ideas.

There is nothing else on the box besides Drivers and 3 games, BF2 being one of them.


PS: I currently show 2.75GB in XP32 because I left the Mem Hole at Auto, and it chose a PCI Memory hole of 1280MB. I left the bottom option there you can choose DISABLED, SOFTWARE or HARDWARE at Disabled. Would changing this to HW or SW possibly fix the gaming issues, or is that just for the ability to see more ram in 32bit OSes?
 
Moog said:
I was talking about the one in my server, not the K8WE in my workstation.
Click to expand...

I know of zero server boards that are Marvell. That includes the K8S and it's ilk. Those are all Broadcom. Arima/Rioworks is Broadcom or Intel. Iwill is Intel or Broadcom. Supermicro is Broadcom. In other words, there isn't a dual board out there with Marvell, because the Marvells are crap. I know their internals intimately, and they are pure shit. Realtek is better. They're a very poorly done clone of an old SysKonnect MAC that dates back to when GigE was fiber only.

Anyways, back to the K8WE here..

The symptoms are not typical of any one problem, but they are indicative of a board problem. At this point, everyone else is barking up the wrong tree. This is hardware, not software. It's also not bad memory. The problem is that the symptoms make it impossible to properly narrow down. Since you used the bottom PCI-X slot, can't rule out bad PCI signal (usually due to crystal being defective.) You can mostly rule out memory, but not much else. Can't rule out CPU yet. Can't rule out chipset. Can't rule out video cards themselves.

At first, I was thinking it was symptomatic of a bad PHY; remember, the nForce is MAC ONLY. There are two parts to a NIC; MAC and PHY. However, with the EtherExpress/Pro doing the same, it's clearly not a bad PHY. A bad PHY would not followback that far typically, except in cases where HAL's gone and fucked itself in the head again. To rule that out, best thing to do is to disable the onboard NICs in BIOS if you haven't already. However, like I said, the symptoms are pointing to hardware.

At this point, I really want to rule out the WDCs. Is there another SATA drive you can throw on there, or a different controller? Preferably an earlier SATA or a PATA with an SATA adapter, or basic card. This actually seems to be behaving not unlike a VT8237 when fed SATA-II drives. I'm wondering if the WDC's aren't at fault. I have not tested or verified compatibility with the onboard chipset and any SATA drives; my SATA builds use LSI 150-6's and 300-8X's.
 
Casper42 said:
As I said before....

I upgraded to 1.01T already.
I am running the Latest 8131 Drivers and 6.66 nForce Drivers, and I even installed the OS fresh straight to that version. (Copied RAID/SATA Drivers to a Floppy for F6 during setup)
I tried both onboard NICs AND Added a PCI Compaq Generic 10/100 and none of those worked.
I bypassed my router and went straight to my Cable Modem and that didnt help either.

I also read on K8WE.com that BF2 doest like Dual Procs and you have to set the Processor Afinity to CPU0 or 1 but not both. I tried that and it seemed to cut down the frequency of the issues, but did NOT fix anything.

So right now other than dragging my rig to a friend's house to make sure its not my Crappy Adelphia connection, I'm out of ideas.

There is nothing else on the box besides Drivers and 3 games, BF2 being one of them.


PS: I currently show 2.75GB in XP32 because I left the Mem Hole at Auto, and it chose a PCI Memory hole of 1280MB. I left the bottom option there you can choose DISABLED, SOFTWARE or HARDWARE at Disabled. Would changing this to HW or SW possibly fix the gaming issues, or is that just for the ability to see more ram in 32bit OSes?
Click to expand...

You need to set the memory hole lower. Set to software mapping and you should be ok. Simply give those settings a try. Also, I've never had issues with BF2 and the K8WE or dual CPU's in general.
 
I am running the latest bios.

I made the changes to set memory hole to software mapping.

The default is 1.5 gig on the size. What should I lower it to?

As of yet Win 32 reports 2 gig instead of 2.5 and I blue screen when I try to boot into Win 64.
 
Sheff said:
I am running the latest bios.

I made the changes to set memory hole to software mapping.

The default is 1.5 gig on the size. What should I lower it to?

As of yet Win 32 reports 2 gig instead of 2.5 and I blue screen when I try to boot into Win 64.
Click to expand...

64MB is what I set mine to. I'll know in a couple days what settings need to be for non C0 stepping Opterons. I ordered a pair of Opteron 254's. I couldn't resist. I got a pretty good deal on them. As Marduk pointed out, it may be that all the settings I had to set were due to my use of unsupported processors.

Also, on the main BIOS screen, you'll want to set the installed OS to WinXP64.
 
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