Upgrade i7: Asus P6T X58, Intel Core i7 920, G.Skill 6GB DDR3 1600, Fan & Heatsink

JakFrost

JakFrost

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 2, 2005
Messages
241
Previous Post: The Hidden Cost of an SSD Upgrade (Intel SSD + nForce4 Chipset = No RAID! -> Upgrade)

Reason for Upgrade

I am now looking at doing a computer upgrade to the Intel Core i7 architecture because of the problems with the nVidia nForce4 and the Intel SSD that I just purchased forcing me to choose between using the new SSD or RAID-1 mirror that I have been using for years on my system. The details of the problems are in the thread linked to above.

I've come to the conclusion that the only real solution is to upgrade my 3.5-year old system to rid if off the nForce4 chipset motherboard to solve the problem with SSD incompatibility with the nVidia RAID drivers and also to give my system a much needed upgrade.

I've had this upgrade already pretty much speced out for a few months in my Newegg Wishlist.

I'm looking for some feedback about this configuration and any issues or caveats that I might not be aware of.

I've actually setup a system exactly like this, except for a smaller 92mm heatsink just a few months ago for a friend of mine for his Ultimate HTPC as I described in that thread. Everything worked for the system install and setup but I haven't been able to use it again since then to test it or to find out any issues.

Intel Core i5 out on September 1, 2009

I know that the less expensive and dual-channel only memory architecture based Core i5 and i3 components are coming in only two months and two weeks. I've considered waiting until that time before I do the upgrade just in case there is a price drop on the existing parts, but I'm not sure that the wait is even worth it since the new offerings will be lower priced than the current parts so there is a chance of no, or very little price drop potential. Normally new releases come out as the more expensive and faster parts but in this case it is the reverse.

Any sense in waiting until September 1 to upgrade to a less powerful Core i5 or buy Core i7 parts if there is a price drop?



The Parts

Below are the parts that I picked out. I used all of them before and they all worked together well. Any issues that I should know about?

Processor: Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - Retail - $279.99


Motherboard: ASUS P6T LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - $249.99


Memory: G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL8TU-6GBPI - Retail - $99.99


Heatsink: XIGMATEK HDT-S1284EE 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - Retail - $39.99


Bracket: XIGMATEK ACK-I7363 CPU Cooler - Retail - $9.99


FrostyTech - Xigmatek HDT-S1284EE Heatsink Review

Alternatives

One alternative selection that I might consider is the heatsink and fan change but I used the 92mm model of the Xigmatek on the HPTC built and it worked very well and I liked the heatsink and the very sturdy bracket used for installation with the same P6T motherboard.

FrostyTech - Top Tested CPU Heatsinks At A Glance

Heatsink: Sunbeam CR-CCTF 120 mm Core-Contact Freezer CPU Cooler W/TX-2 - Retail - $39.99


Bracket: Sunbeam CR-LGA1366 LGA 1366 Core I7 Retention Bracket - Retail - $9.99




[size=-2]
CPU: AMD Opteron 175 Dual-Core 2.2 GHz 1 MB 90 nm 939 11x CCBWE 0543TPMW VID 1.350 V - 2,475 MHz (225x11x4), 1.55 V (1.55 V x 104.8 %)
FAN: Zalman CNPS9500 LED 92 mm Fan+Heatsink + Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste 99.9 % - 35 C Idle, 45 C Load
MOB: DFI LanParty UT SLI-DR Expert 939 nF4 PCI-e Rev.AA0 - BIOS: 2006-04-06 Modded, LDT 1.20 V, Chipset 1.52 V, 42 C Load
RAM: Mushkin 1 GB XP4000 Redline 991493 DDR500 3-3-2-8 2.6-2.9 V CE-6 - (4) DIMMs, 225 MHz (1:1) 2T 3-3-2-8, 2.80 V
VID: eVGA nVidia GTX 260 896 MB G92 192c 576/999 MHz PCI-e 2.0 16x 2xDVI 1xSVid 1xHDTV - 600/1100 MHz, DVI to LCD, HDMI 60' to 50" Plasma TV.
SAT: Silicon Image 3114 PCI SATA-I 150 MB/s RAID 0,1,5 Onboard Controller FW: 5.3.14 Modded, Only for eSATA since PCI bus problems with Sound Blaster X-Fi
SSD: Intel X25-M 80GB MLC SSD SATA II 3 GB/s - FW: 8820
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 500 GB WD5000AAKS 16 MB SATA-II - (2) in (2) 465 GB nVidia RAID1 (Mirror) Arrays
HDD: Western Digital Caviar GP Green 1 TB WD10EACS 16 MB SATA-II - (2) external Movies, (2) external for Backups
ENC: MacAlly G-S350SU External HDD Enclosure 3.5" eSATA USB 2.0 Aluminum, Universal 12V Adapter - (2) external WD GP 1TB for Movies
ENC: i-Rocks 9410 External HDD Enclosure 3.5" eSATA USB 2.0 Aluminum, Univeral 12V Adapter - (2) external WD GP 1TB for Backups
NIC: nVidia nForce4 Gigabit Onboard PCI NIC
NIC: Marvell Yukon 88E8001 Gigabit Onboard PCI NIC
SOU: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music 24-bit 128-Voice 109dB SNR - EAX 4.0 for games and music.
SOU: RealTek ALC850 AC'97 Rev 2.3 8-Channel Onboard Audio - S/PDIF out to vid card for HDMI Audio for TV.
BLU: LG GGW-H20L Blu-ray 6x BD-RE 16x DVD SL/DL 48x CDR SATA - FW: YL05
DVD: NEC ND-3550A 16x DVD+-RW SL/DL 48X CDR PATA - FW: 1.07
POW: OCZ PowerStream 520W SLI ADJ ATX2.0 EPS12, +3.3V 28A +5V 40A +12V 33A
CAS: Lian-Li PC-V1200 Plus Mid-ATX Aluminum 4x5.25 6x3.5 2x120mm - Best case to date in my opinion.
MON: HP LP2475w 24-inch LCD H-IPS Monitor Wide Gamut 102% NTSC 6-12ms Response - 1920x1200x32 60Hz, DVI, GIG122/GIG052, Bri 15, Con 80, 9300K
ROU: Linksys BEFSR81 EtherFast Cable/DSL Router 8-port Switch 100MBps FW: 2.51.3
JOY: CH Products Fighterstick USB 3 axes 24 buttons
THR: CH Products Pro Throttle USB 3 axes 24 buttons
PED: CH Products Pro Pedals USB 3 axes
KBD: Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro USB/PS2 Media Keys
MOU: Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 1.0 Optical USB/PS2 Scroll-Wheel 5-Button
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Umm, you'll probably save some cash if you wait for i5... Mostly because i5 mobos will be cheaper off the bat ($100-150), but that's about it. Could save a lil' bit more on top of that if you opt for the lowest end i5 part but that one lacks HT, FWIW. There'll definitely be some savings to be had if you wait tho, $100-180 to be precise... But it's not like you're not getting several tangible benefits with the i7, full-speed CF/SLI support (P55 will only do X8 x2), premium mobo features, etc.

I doubt the 920's gonna drop considerably when i5 comes out, but it can be found significantly cheaper right now if there's a Microcenter even remotely near ya. The DK heatsink will definitely save ya $10 right there, the rest all looks good if you wanna go ahead with buy right now and solve your SSD issues and upgrade that aging system... Personally I'd go for it, the savings in waiting aren't gonna be very substantial imo, considering what you're spending either way.
 
lt_shiro said:
Xigmatek Dark Knight has 1366 backet in the box.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233029
Click to expand...

I actually had the Xigmatek Dark Knight in my wishlist until last night when I noticed that it only had 3-heat pipes. I remember using the 92mm fan with 4-heat pipes. I decided to change it to the HDT-S1284EE for the extra heat pipe. I don't mind paying extra $10 for a bracket, because I saw and used that bracket and it works great with the Asus P6T.

Impulse said:
Umm, you'll probably save some cash if you wait for i5... Mostly because i5 mobos will be cheaper off the bat ($100-150), but that's about it. Could save a lil' bit more on top of that if you opt for the lowest end i5 part but that one lacks HT, FWIW. There'll definitely be some savings to be had if you wait tho, $100-180 to be precise... But it's not like you're not getting several tangible benefits with the i7, full-speed CF/SLI support (P55 will only do X8 x2), premium mobo features, etc.

I doubt the 920's gonna drop considerably when i5 comes out, but it can be found significantly cheaper right now if there's a Microcenter even remotely near ya. The DK heatsink will definitely save ya $10 right there, the rest all looks good if you wanna go ahead with buy right now and solve your SSD issues and upgrade that aging system... Personally I'd go for it, the savings in waiting aren't gonna be very substantial imo, considering what you're spending either way.
Click to expand...

My thinking is exactly that and I'm just going to go for the i7 now instead of waiting for some ephermeral discounts that might or might not happen. I really don't care about saving $100-150 for the Core i5 because I'd be giving up some nice features of the i7 and X58 chipset.
 
I received all the parts yesterday except for the motherboard which is arriving tomorrow from their California warehouse. The processor I received from Newegg is the new D0 stepping according to the box spec code SLBEJ.

I will try to run PCMark and SysMark benchmarks on my system to compare it to the new system after the upgrade. I will also overclock the new processor from the get go but keep it within a reasonable 70-75C range or lower depending on the amount of heat produced and the loudness of the fans in the system. I am not looking for records here and I rather take a fast quiet system than a faster loud one.

I stopped by my friend's house yesterday to mess with his system a little since I built his HTPC using the same parts that I will be getting. Didn't spend much time with is but he said that it is fast and stable running Vista 64-bit that I installed for him. I am happy to hear that everything is good but I believe that he hasn't been using it much or pushing it to its extremes.

We didn't oveclock his system at all and left everything on auto to test for stability. I mentioned to him that if he ever feels like he needs more speed that I will overclock it for him then. So far he is happy and content with it and is more focused on features than speed.

We never got around to using the AverMedia capture card except to load the drivers and to make Media Center work. I want to setup auto scheduled recordings for him for his shows. So far he gets his stuff from Torrents with Subscriptions.
 
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Wasting Time Imaging XP

Today I attempted to get my SSD working by imaging my OS using DriveImage XML to an aligned partition. I wasted about 4-hours wrestling with the imaged OS by trying to get it to boot up by doing various things like disabling the nVidia RAID and ATA drivers and enabling the OS native atapi and PCIIde drivers to get the system to enumerate the system disk again through PnP. I stopped and gave up when I couldn't do the fix by enabling and disabling drivers alone since I didn't have the time to muck around in the registry to figure out all the keys related to the disk subsystem and signatures to change them manually. I've had enough.

Upgrading the Upgrade

I ended up giving in and ordering Microsoft Vista Home Premium SP-1 for System Builders - OEM for only $99.99 and also an additional 6 GB of RAM to max out the motherboard's DIMM slots.

Memory Prudence

Regarding the memory I decided that it was a good idea to just buy all the memory my system can take right now and not have to deal with looking for the exact type of memory that I'm going to need in a year or two when I decide to upgrade. Last time I had to upgrade my system's memory after it was built cost me a premium when I tried to find the exact type of Mushkin Redline DDR memory that I needed. I think that for an additional $100 it is a small price to pay for not having to deal with the headache I had before. Plus, with a total of 12 GB and the 4 core processor I'll be able to run more Virtual Machines concurrently and I'll be ready for the next batch of memory hungry games.

Operating Away

The operating system upgrade is another issue. I was planning to wait until Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit comes out on October 22, 2009 but since it now looks like I can't just easily re-image my XP install onto the SSD and I'm looking at a brand new install I might as well go with a 64-bit OS to take advantage of the 12 GB of memory. I was trying to save the effort of having to reinstall all my apps and even more effort required to configure all the settings that I like, so I might as well do it right on a new 64-bit OS. When Windows 7 comes out I'll upgrade then or wait until Service Pack 1 is released and fixes the bugs that always exist in the initial release.
 
Eek, I would've installed the Win7 RC myself rather than plunking down $100 for Vista so close to Win7's release... Well, somewhat close, 4 months I think. You're definitely better off w/either than w/XP though, you would've wasted a good chunk of your memory running XP 32-bit (and AFAIK driver support for XP 64-bit was always very limited). Edit: A huge chunk of your memory (just now read that you went w/12GB).

Win7 looks far more stable in release candidate form (let alone before any SP) than any MS OS has looked at similar stages in the past... And it's not just a personal opinion but a popular one, not something people say lightly either. It'll probably be the first MS OS I upgrade to before waiting for a SP or a new system build, and I'm not particularly unhappy w/Vista either, I just like the usability improvements in Win7. Win7 does owe a lot of the smooth transition it seems like it's gonna enjoy to Vista though.
 
Impulse said:
Eek, I would've installed the Win7 RC myself rather than plunking down $100 for Vista so close to Win7's release... Well, somewhat close, 4 months I think. You're definitely better off w/either than w/XP though, you would've wasted a good chunk of your memory running XP 32-bit (and AFAIK driver support for XP 64-bit was always very limited). Edit: A huge chunk of your memory (just now read that you went w/12GB).
Click to expand...

Woke Up - XP -> Windows 7 = No Vista

(I actually wrote up a reply but it got deleted when my second Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 mouse started doing double-clicks instead of single-clicks on the left-mouse button. I clicked on another tab to copy the URL with the details about the new upgrade prices and when I went back to the tab with the post it double-clicked and reloaded it erasing all of my post. I broke that mouse finally yesterday and bought another one the same day of the same kind. This is my third mouse that is the same in the last few years and I've been happy with them, even though I know that their clickers fail. The other mice from Logitech like the G5 or MX518 suffer from other problems so I chose to stick with the devil that I know.)

The reply basically said that I refused delivery on the package with Vista in it and that it was going back for a full refund since I purchased it on the 24th and the new update price drops don't start until the 26th.

I've decided to go with Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate 64-bit (Build 7100) as my primary OS on this new Intel Core i7 build until the RTM version comes out on October 22, 2009 so I can upgrade to Home Preimum edition for only $49.99 if I purchase the upgrade from XP from June 26 to July 11, 2009.

Drivers Working

I just finished the basic install of Windows 7 on my system after wresting with a ton of issues on the new build and I'm happly able to type this up from that OS. I was able to load all the required drivers for my hardware except for my HP ScanJet 5300C that has no driver and it doesn't appear to be supported automatically like it did in Windows XP Image Acquision software. I was surprised to find that Creative Labs released drivers just today for Windows 7 for my real Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Music edition. I got most of the other Windows 7 drivers for on-board hardware from the Asus P6T download web site since the manufacturers themselves like RealTek (Network = No, HD Audio = Yes) and Intel aren't releasing the latest drivers for this OS to the users but instead to the OEMs like Asus.

Installation Problems

SanDisk Cruzer Mini USB Drive Halts Installer, Generic SD Card to USB Adapter Works Though

I've have had a hell of a time getting Windows 7 to install. Firstly, my SanDisk Cruzer Mini 1GB USB Drive formated for NTFS would cause the Windows 7 boot-up to freeze after the "Starting Windows" black screen until I pulled it out of my USB. I don't know if the issue is the USB drive or NTFS formatting but I was glad to move on after waiting for 30-minutes with nothing until my friend goes, pull the USB drive out let's see what happens, and bang the install moves forward the second I pull it out.

Intel ICH10R Drivers and RAID in BIOS

I had to use a SD Card to USB adapter to put a cheapo 16MB card to put the Intel ICH10R 64-bit F6 Text Mode floppy drivers on it to actually get Windows 7 to load up the drivers since I switched my motherboard's SATA ports to RAID mode to get the benefit of AHCI and RAID at the same time from the get go. I knew that if I leave the motherboard on IDE mode I would have problems switching later to AHCI or RAID, but I read earlier that Intel recommends RAID mode for the motherboard SATA ports since the RAID driver does AHCI internally. Good rememberance on that one, and the Windows 7 install was awesome at being able to just hit Browse for drivers, then navigate to the SD Card in the USB adapter and load the drivers easily.

X-Fi PCI Requires Removal/Reinstall To Be Recognized

I had to remove, reboot, reinstall, reboot to get Windows 7 to recognize my X-Fi PCI card since card didn't get detected at all after doing dozens of reboots during the install and driver installs. I had the exact same problem with this danged X-Fi PCI card and I'm tempted to sell it off on eBay and get the X-Fi Titanium that comes in PCI-E version, however strangely I could only find Windows 7 drivers for the PCI card but not the PCI-E card. Weird, I thought that PCI-E would get faster support. Oh well, it works so far.

Dual Monitors - Recognized Backwards

nVidia Drivers 186.18 are strange and so is Windows 7. I have my HP LP2475w LCD connected to the left DVI connector (away from the PCI-E slot) on the card and I also have a DVI->HDMI adapter connected to 60-foot HDMI cable going to my Pioneer A/V receiver that goes to my Samsung 50-inch plasma. When the OS first booted up after installation I only saw a black screen with "Windows 7, Evaluation copy, build 7100" in the corner and nothing else. I let my system wait like that for 20-minutes thinking that it's a normal part of the install process and that something is going to show up on the screen. Nothing happened until I moved the mouse around to see if the system is frozen and suddenly the cursor jumped on my screen from the left edge. I then realized that my LCD monitor in front of my is now the secondary monitor and my TV is primary.

I opened up nVidia Control Panel and had my friend talk me through moving the house from the living room to switch the LCD to primary. I had do that that again but then I remembered my Windows 3.11 trick of Alt+Space then M (for Move) and then use the arrow keys to move the window around. So I used that keystroke trick that I learned 15-years ago to bring the nVidia Control Panel to my secondary monitor and make the switch there.

I tried switching the plugs on my LCD and TV around on the back of the video card but it always seems that the HP LCD will be secondary and TV as primary. I'll just have to play with it more to get it right or remember my window moving trick the next time this happens after a video driver update. It's annoying since in BIOS the LCD always is primary.



More playing around tomorrow.
 
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Intel Storage - Matrix RAID

I setup a quick RAID-1 (Mirroring) array and volume yesterday from (2) 500 GB drives and I was very pleased with the very professional and server-like GUI and options available for creating the new array. It properly allowed me choose if I wanted to use the full size of the drives for the array and if I wanted to create a full size volume and even let me name the volume. Additionally this software has the option to properly toggle the usage of Write-Back Cache on the drives or not.

All of these options and the setup reminded me of professional server software such as SmartArray from HP (previously Compaq) that I have been so familiar with using for over 10-years as a System Admin. It certainly makes me feel right at home using the Intel Matrix software and it is light-years beyond the Mickey Mouse nVidia MediaShield that I had to deal with with my last motherboard from hell.

Overclocking Soon

Once I get this system setup, my drives mirrored, and the data coppied and arranged I should get a feel for its stability. Then I'm going to head out and start overclocking this baby because I'm looking at the stock 2.65 GHz timing and it is slow, my CPU hits about 55C right now on air cooling but I think that I can squeeze out a lot more out of it. Soon enough I'll be overclocking this baby and judging from other people's experiences there should be good results. Hopefully I'll get some extra power but still maintain stability, unlike my last motherboard that could go as far as 2.85 GHz but only be stable at 2.5 GHz.
 
Good choice on the OS, I pre-ordered Win7 too and I think for $50 it's a very very good deal... Even OEM copies never run quite so cheap (even a few years after release), and you can perform a clean install w/the 'Upgrade' discs anyway (a 64-bit install too, something you couldn't do with Vista's retail discs).

AFAIK you should be able to designate the primary display right in Window's Display Properties dialog box, maybe skipping ahead to NV's control panel is the issue? Dunno, never had that problem myself.
 
Yes, I've been using Windows for only two days now and a few hours during that time anyway and I like it very much over Windows XP. It really is nice and responsive with this SSD and Core i7. I'm still working through all the installations and issues with a new OS, so far it's good and driver support is good too. We shall see.

STALKER Clear Sky Works

I could play STALKER Clear Sky as a test without having to do a new install by just changing the fsgame.ltx file path, copying my old saved games to C:\Users\Public\Documents and importing the HKLM\SOFTWARE\GSC*\STALKER* game keys with new paths. The game played well and less choppy with this new powerful system.

Experience Score

I ran the user experience score test and got 7.6, 7.4, 7.3 but only 6.3 with nVidia GTX 260 192sp for video card. Might have to update my video card this coming Holiday season since this gimped 260 is getting slow. Don't want to bother with SLI since the next gen card always usually does better than 2x Last Gen card.

Primary/Secondary Display

I saw that you can right-click on the desktop and now select "Change Resolution" as the option then change the primary/secondary display and also drag-and-drop the display rectangles to re-arrange them in the proper order so that they match my Windows XP default setup. Just did that.

Still, the LCD is recognized as the second display regardless which DVI port it is plugged into and the TV is always recognized as the first display. I'll mess around with plugging and unplugging them in later to see if I can change that. However, during the original install both displays were plugged in the same way as with Windows XP but they were enumerated by the OS backwards and the screens were arranged backwards, LCD on the right as secondary, and TV on the left as primary.

Intel Matrix Storage - Very Good

One of my hard drives got disconnected from the RAID 1 mirror array today and I think that it was a loose power cable, since I have a molex to 2x SATA power splitters and they just suck in terms of quality. Molex connectors are just bad to begin with anyway. Intel recognized the disappeared drive and informed me with a pop-up about loss of redundancy but the OS did freeze for a few seconds while the drive disappeared and I jiggled the cables to get it reconnected again. I shutdown my computer later and rewired the power cables and rechecked them for loose connections. Booted up and Intel BIOS showed that the drive failed and that the Data array was "Rebuild" status. The Intel Matrix Storage GUI showed that the drive was rebuilding 1%, 3%... until 100% and I was back in business. The D: Data drive was accessible the whole time and with good speed and performance. My first RAID test due to a power cable passed with flying colors and no loss of data. That's the reason why I invest in RAID!

The same situation with nVidia nForce4 RAID would probably involve seeing duplicate Data array volumes and then having to delete one Data array volume then using the spare drive to rebuild the existing one. That happened so many times to me that I was sick of dealing with that kind of a crappy RAID implementation.
 
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Borked! Borked! Borked!

Last night after installing all the drivers and applications my computer froze during an app install and then it Blue Sceened. Upon bootup it wouldn't load Windows 7 anymore. After a soft reset it would get stuck in BIOS POST when scanning SATA Port 1 and wouldn't recognize the Intel SSD. Only a power cycle made it pass POST but it would not be seen in BIOS but Intel Matrix ROM saw it. I tried to boot to the OS but it would go nowhere, just a black screen and not loading messages. I also tried booting the install DVD but it would not see the SSD drive at all when doing Repair or new installation.

I thought that it was the power cable problem again so I changed the SSD to a dedicated SATA power cable from the power supply without any adapters. I was worried that jostling the Molex to SATA adapter is what caused the problems in the first place. After this was done I moved on to figuring out what went wrong that caused the SSD to crash in the first place and also to become non-responsive during BIOS POST after a soft reset.

I thought that the SSD failed but I decided to try and get the HDD Erase utility to work and see if a SECURE ERASE would clean it up and make it available for a fresh new OS install. This time I remembered correctly and I changed BIOS to SATA = IDE Compatible mode and HDD Erase 4.0 correctly recognized the drive right as connected to "P0" channel. However, on first try the utility said that the drive is "frozen" and "locked" by the BIOS so it needs to clear that up before doing the erase and a reboot will be required. I realized that when the hard drive originally froze and failed something must have enabled the drive's "locked" flag, such as the Intel Matrix Storage driver or BIOS, the OS, or something else. After the reboot the utility was able to proceed and offered me the choice of Secure Erase or Enhanced Secure Erase. I chose the first one since it seemed simpler for what I needed and it finished it in less than a minute. My guess is that the regular Secure Erase deletes the LBA or mapping table in the drive and the enhanced version does a full zeroing wipe of the entire drive. I chose Enhanced just to see what messages it would give me and it said that it was going to set a password for the drive "idrive" and then proceed to wipe it. I didn't need that, so I canceled it and the password was removed.

One thing that I didn't do was to try and boot the hard drive after it was "unlocked" since I completely forgot about trying that and I was more focused on doing a clean re-install since the OS freeze caused by the hard drive left me with a sour taste and I wanted a clean start.

OS Reinstall Complete

I finished the OS reinstall today and because I remembered not to plug in the USB key this time the installer didn't get stuck but went through the "Stating Windows..." screen to the Language choice window after a few minutes. I also noticed that the installer saw the SSD as a drive to install to and also correctly saw the two RAID-1 Mirror Arrays that I created, Data and Storage, as choices. This made me believe that the Windows 7 installer already comes with Intel Matrix Storage RAID drivers available so I did not have to use the USB key to load the F6 Text Mode drivers for the setup this time.

When the install finished in about ~15-minutes it went to the black screen with "evaluation copy, build 7100" message so I knew that I was finished with the installer. I unplugged my HDMI cable and got the window on my LCD to choose the Username and Computer name. I filled it out and got into the OS. I plugged the HDMI cable back it and lost the default desktop as expected, but this time I remembered to just do right-click on the desktop select "Screen Resolution" option and change the LCD to Primary display without having to go to the living room to do it.

Overall the whole OS install was ~20-minutes without the original issues. I let the Windows 7 Windows Update download drivers for most of my hardware also, except for the Creative Labs X-Fi PCI, and after that finished I manually installed my own versions of the drivers that were newer than all of the stuff that was auto-installed by Windows Update. I download my own versions and keep them in my Archive\Drivers folder for every version of every driver for all the hardware that I have. This way I have copies that I can roll-back to and also all the drivers available during the rare times that I do OS re-installs, which I only do once every few years unlike some of the crazy people who do it every few weeks.

I also finished installing the most important applications that I need and those didn't take too long since I of course keep all versions of those also in my Archive\Programs folder. The only thing left for me to do is to get my custom settings back from the programs either through manual reconfig or registry re-import for the specific config keys from my XP system's SOFTWARE registry hives. I'll tackle that tomorrow.

Memory Corruption - CRC Failures = All My Farking Fault

I left my ASUS P6T motherboard with the default settings of Auto for all the CPU and Memory settings but I decided to be foolish enough to try and set the memory timings to DDR3-1600 setting thinking that it would pick up the proper settings from my G.Skill memory's XMP memory table that is listed in CPU-Z SPD tab. That did not happen and instead I got CRC failure message when trying to install 3DMark06 600MB installer file even though I know for sure that the source file is not corrupted since I used the same file yesterday with the previous OS install.

Well it appears that the setting that I changed didn't have anything to do with XMP memory profiles but it was just a simple bus timing setting and since the voltage on the memory is still at the stock 1.5 V this caused memory corruption. I quickly turned that setting back to Auto and this time 3DMark06 installed just fine from the same file. I hope that I didn't fark up this installation of Windows since I don't quite remember but I think that I made this setting change late last night or early this morning before I reinstalled this OS so there's a chance that this installation might have corruption in it from the memory setting. I didn't experience any weird behavior today but I can't discount that the corruption didn't happen somewhere along the way. Right now I'm tired from all the reinstall work and the system works fine so I might let things slide, although to be prudent I should do a complete third reinstall of this OS to make sure that some kind of hidden corruption didn't happen in my system that now exists inside the registry or file system that will rear its ugly head sometime later as unexplainable crashes or bugs in software.

Fark me for trying to be quick and stupid about changing memory timing settings for the hell of it thinking that everything will be fine without even running a simple memory test single pass. As punishment I should do the reinstall clean the third time to make myself remember the pain through the waste of time. Will sleep on it.

Also, I realized to get XMP memory profile support I have to change a different setting in the BIOS and this setting should change the memory voltage to 1.6 V from the stock 1.5 V as required by the XMP DDR3-1600 profile. Will do that later when I get a cleanly installed system that is imaged before I start doing overclocking and stability testing.
 
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Windows 7 Memory Diagnostic - Did Not Detect Bad Memory Settings

I ran the Windows 7 Memory Diagnostic today that is available if you choose F8 on boot-up and select Repair or if you boot the installation DVD and select Repair there. I had the memory set manually to DDR3-1600 at the low 1.5 V, and ran the test that did two cycles and it did not find any memory corruption.

It is possible that my installation is not corrupt after all so I decided to keep it and not reinstall from scratch after doing so much work last night till 4:30 am installing drivers and programs. Judging from the fact that the memory test didn't find anything and I wasn't putting any load on the system at all when it was installing it probably didn't stress the memory enough to cause any problems.

I did experience the 3DMark06 CRC error when installing with that setting through but it is possible that since the installation file is ~600 MB it loaded it quickly into the memory and that stressed it enough to trigger the corruption. I tried the install three times and same error every time until I rebooted and set the memory back to Auto and then it installed just fine.

I'm going to run MemTest86+ 2.11 on this system to determine if it is memory stable and also the usual slew of 2D stress tests like Prime95, Stress Prime, 3DMark06, etc. but I think that the system is stable on stock since I used good quality brand name parts on this build. I specifically got parts rated for popularity and stability and not sheer overclockedness to avoid problems that I had before with my DFI motherboard.

Couple Day of Windows 7 Experience

I've been using Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate Ultimate Build 7100 for a few days and I have to say that I am very happy with the OS. It is compatible with all of my hardware except for my HP ScanJet 5300C scanner, that is not very old either but for some reason has no drivers. My HP DeskJet 6127 uses the HP DeskJet 990C drivers, as recommended by HP on their driver download page as a substitute driver, and it worked when I did a test page.

The operating system is very quick and responsive with all the graphical options enabled and I like the new interface changes including the Aero style interface graphics. I'll know more about it as I use the operating system.

Running as User not Administrator

I tried this back in Windows 2000, and XP with bad results requiring me to do a lot of manual RunAs executions and everything just turned out to be more hassle than it was worth.

This time around I'm going to try once again to run my primary account as a regular User and not Administrator. I like that windows detects when I try to do something advanced requiring higher credentials than my account and it prompts me for the password of the Administrator account and I just type it in. Back in the other operating systems you had to know ahead of time if you were going to do something with higher credential requirements and then do a manual RunAs and even then when you only had one Administrative account you had to manually select it from the pull-down and tab down to type in the password. A lot of clicking and moving just to type in the password. This new way of just asking for it directly is so much better.

So far the only crappy coded applications that don't work are of course the Asus utilities such as PC Probe that were coded by idiots in Asia back in the Windows 95 days of full hardware access to all processes. These utilities of course don't follow Microsoft's recommended account separation requirements that have been in effect for 15-years since Windows NT 3.5 days for processes that access to the hardware. They haven't changed the way that this utilities are designed to run in all this time through all of these operating system since Asus is just a crappy second rate motherboard manufacturer. I had to buy their P6T motherboard since it was the only sane choice at the time but I knew that I'm stepping into the cesspool that is Asus software and support. I've been down this route and this time I held my nose closed as I went through with the purchase. I would have bought an Intel motherboard for the X58 chipset but with their history of disallowing overclocking and the mind numbingly weird 4-DIMM slot, and weird PCIe slot design this motherboard just doesn't appeal.

I'll continue running as regular User and I just won't use PC Probe II for now until I get my hands on another fan and CPU monitor utility such as SpeedFan or something else that works without requiring Admin credentials.
 
enginurd said:
/subbed for when I have time to read jak's novel-like posts. :p
Click to expand...

I'm keeping this thread up like a blog for my upgrade experience with Intel Core i7 and also Windows 7 RC to vent a little and maybe give some folks a little background and resolutions for common problems with this upgrade.
 
Speed and Responsiveness

I'm really amazed at the combined speed of the Intel X25-M SSD and Windows 7 RC. Everything is absolutely blazingly fast to the point of being practically instantaneous.

I open up Outlook 2007 for the first time with a full Inbox and the window just shows up on the screen ready for me to read all of my e-mails right then and there. My Outlook.pst file is ~65 MB with Archive.pst at 634MB. I do not have to wait for Outlook to load for a few seconds, grinding out my hard disk, just to check something in an e-mail anymore. It is just immediate. Frankly, the time it takes the GUI to do that window resizing animation takes longer than to actually load the full application and the pst file.

The situation with speed is also the same when I started using Firefox to browse. Previously I would notice that it would take actual time to draw the web pages, even ones that had most of the pictures already stored in the cache, but with this new SSD everything just paints on the screen all at once, the whole web page shows up at the same time. This makes web browsing a lot faster and most enjoyable, even though my Internet connection is still the same one over cable modem.

Media Player Classic Home Cinema

I installed FFDShow 64-bit codec and Media Player Classic Home Cinema 64-bit to do my video playback. I'm using FFDShow's ffmpeg-mt (multi-threaded) to do the software video decoding of AVC (H.264) video and the CPU utilization is in the single digits. I have to mess around more to get the MPC AVC DXVA internal filter to do the decoding since if I disable FFDShow the Microsoft's codec tries to grab AVC streams for decoding and that codec just like CyberLink's doesn't decide DXVA streams if they are being played back on a different monitor than the primary.

I use the second monitor as my Plasma TV in the living room to do my full screen watching so I've become quickly aware of CyberLink PowerDVD codec deficiencies and I dumped that player the first day I tried it with AVC video streams.
 
65MB? 634MB archive? wow... so small. My pst is 1GB, hehe. with other 1GB archive psts, lol.
 
enginurd said:
65MB? 634MB archive? wow... so small. My pst is 1GB, hehe. with other 1GB archive psts, lol.
Click to expand...

Yes, I prune and delete attachments from my e-mails, that's roughly 9-years of e-mails in my archive.
 
Little Attempt at Overclocking

Today I decided to take a stab at overclocking this system. Since it has the Asus P6T, Intel i7 920, G.Skill DDR3-1600 C8 2T memory, and a good Xigmatek 1284 air cooler I wanted to bump it up from the default 2.66 GHz to something more acceptable.

I didn't read any of the threads with details regarding other people's specific numbers but I did jump quickly through two review threads to see what they were able to get on their air cooled rigs. I read the X-Bit Labs review of the C0 revision chip and they had to hit it with 1.35 V to get 3.8 GHz stable. I also saw the the overclocking database thread from Xtreme Systems forum but the results on the first page were mostly for folks running on water cooling. Still, with just these two pieces of information I decided to give it a shot.

My purpose was to make the most minimal changes to the config and my focus was for stability and also to keep the CPU within good thermal numbers. I didn't know what "good" was so I just decided to keep it somewhere sane and see how much it heated up while pushing it up.

My first attempt was a completely failure and embarassment since I was going on the path of minimal changes. I decided to leave most of the settings in the BIOS on Auto, including the CPU multiplier setting. It seems that this setting caused my system to be artifically low capped at BCLK 155 MHz setting and 160 MHz caused instant blue screen. I didn't understand why this would be since I saw CPU-Z report 21x multiplier during heavy load but that was still the case. Not happy with the result I decided that a little more manual changes were required.

I decided to take the path of least resistance with the memory and set Ai Tweaker mode to XMP to get my memory timings from the XMP profile on the G.Skill memory chips and then decided to keep the memory speed below the DDR3-1600 rating to keep the memory stable. I read the article from AnandTech that just came out this week comparing memory speeds and I understood that the difference between the fastest and slowest DDR3 memory timings and bandwidths is only 4-5% with the majority of difference being 2-3%. No point for me to go crazy trying to max out my memory speeds if the gain is so small that it makes the time and effort nearly worthless. I fell for that crap with DDR1 Mushkin Redlines that I used in my old system but this time I went for the middle of the pack cheap DDR3-1600 6GB for $99 memory and decided not to waste any money on the $150-200-300 6GB sets.

I got Prime95 25.8 (x64) and did Large FFT test to max out the thermals on the system and at the same time to quickly expose instabilities since it seemed to me like this test would fail right away without waiting if my numbers were off. I also got RealTemp 3.0 to monitor my temps since I didn't trust Asus Probe II to be anywhere near accurate.

I decided to turn off Turbo as in the article and set the multi to 20x. I set my voltage to 1.35 V like in the article and pushed the system to BLCK 180 MHz. It worked like a charm and I pushed the system to 185, 190 before the thermals hit 90C and I decided that it was a bit too much. I started backing the voltage down from 1.35 V to 1.25 V and I also settled on BLCK 180 MHz. The system was stable at this speed for a few hours of Prime95 and the thermals kept at 85C on Core0 and lower by a few degrees on other cores.

I ran out of time then and I didn't get a chance to go lower with the voltage or higher with the BLCK. So for my first attempt I got 3.6 GHz (180x20) at 85C with air pretty easily. I'm going to attempt to do 3.8 GHz (190x20) at ~85C if possible tomorrow. If I can't hit it with 2D and 3D stability then I'll be happy with 3.6 GHz since it is after all 1,000 MHz faster than 2.66 GHz.
 
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