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mmmm, just got my box-o-cooling wonder in from Sidewinder Computers and all I have to say is DAMN! I am soo excited to get this put together! And I also have to add that Sidewinder is by far the fastest shipper I have ever dealt with. I placed 3 orders from 3 different online vendors and my Sidewinder order arrived days before the others are even scheduled to be delivered!! I guess it probably helps that they are in Indiana and I am in Michigan though
Anyway, here's what I got so far...
Oh yeah, that little delta fan on the swiftech chipset cooler is SO quiet it's almost silent and the base is very smooth/flat and it feels really hefty for such a little cooler; I am really very impressed with it so far!!!
Ok, I don't even have it put together yet and I've already hit my first problem!!!
It appears as though the XP-90 does NOT fit on the VNF4 Ultra.
One of thse 4 large capacitors in a line next to the socket are blocking the retention clip on the XP-90 to be clipped into the bracket! Do I have something installed wrong or is this thing just plain not going to work?
I am really disappointed because I will not be able to get this off the ground now because I ordered an OEM cpu so I can't fall back on the stock HS/F
I did touch on that in my review of the Chaintech board, but have you tried reversing it? Just a thought...... I'm trying to think of a good cooling solution, but if you need a stock cooler, I think i have one around here somewhere.
capper5016 wrote:I did touch on that in my review of the Chaintech board, but have you tried reversing it? Just a thought...... I'm trying to think of a good cooling solution, but if you need a stock cooler, I think i have one around here somewhere.
No good reversing it, it is totally symmetrical...
Well, I think I may have solved the problem thanks to someone with a similar problem over at OCForums. I ended up having to attach all 4 clips of the XP-90 to the retention bracket and then screwing the whole thing down to the motherboard (retention bracket with the XP-90 already attached) and it seems to work!
Well, I am feeling MUCH better. My only other worry about a compatabilty issue was with that Swiftech chipset cooler and my PCI-Express 6600GT but it looks like I'm good to go here too!!
(even if it is only by a hair!)
Now I've just got to get this fired up and if I will POST so I can flash the BIOS I will be the happiest man alive!!!!
Ok, well, I put everything in and hooked 'er all up and switched the thing on and IT BOOTED!!! I got into the BIOS and everything! I was really excited. But anyway, I couldn't see what BIOS version was on it (whatever it was it was enough to POST with a rev. E Athlon 64) so I was going to flash to the newest BIOS anyway but when I boot from floppy and run awdflash and type in the name of the file, it just says "Source File Not Found!" and exits the program. What am I doing wrong? I double and triple checked the filename and even re-downloaded the file and put it back on the floppy but it doesn't work! A little help would be much appreciated as always
I have a feeling I could probably boot into windows if I reformat and reinstall and all that good stuff, but I don't want to corrupt anything by having a cpu that is newer than the BIOS...
sounds like you are entering the name wrong.
Download a boot program from somewhere like DR DOD, format and make a bootable disk.....download the BIOS file and name it something short and simple like Chain.
When you boot to the diskyou'll type whatever the boot program is, like awdflash.exe, it should start the flash program, then when it asks you for the file name, you type "chain.BIN"" should be as simple as that.
But it definitely looks like you are typing in the BIOS name wrongf
OOOHHH, do you have to type the .BIN extension after the filename? (because I definately did not) lol
I'll try that when I get back, I'm sure it will work then!
Well, I tried flashing with awdflash from the floppy and I typed the ".BIN" after the filename and that was apparently my problem. But although it found the file, it said that it wasn't an Award BIOS file so I dunno what is up. So I just reformatted and installed windows anyway and all seems fine so far. Haven't tried any overclocking of anykind yet but with the XP-90 and stock settings, the nvMonitor thingy says the cpu is idleing at about 19-20 degrees C!!!! HAHAHA, I guess I either got it installed correctly or this BIOS is WAAAYYYYY off
I'm definately super happy with it. And I can already tell that the A64 architechture is MUCH better than A-XP. Even with P95 running, all other programs I used had almost no lag, and I only have 512MB of RAM!!! With my Athlon XP even at 2500mhz, it was SUPER s l o w when I was trying to run prime95 and do everything else; almost unuseable. Venice is no doubt MUCH better than Barton, even a stock Venice against an overclocked barton!!!
RAM is 2x256MB PC-3200 Kingston HyperX most likely with Winbond CH-5 chips. Memory speed is also 220mhz and timings are 10-2-3-2 with 2.7v. Not sure how much higher it will go though...
Three questions:
1) How do I know the PCI-Express bus is locked?
2) How do I get Memtest 86+ on to a floppy, I can't seem to get it to work. I can do the old version, but it won't work and I can't get 86+ to go onto a floppy
3) What can I use to flash a Pheonix BIOS?
Ok, Question #2 was answered by me. I just burned the .iso to a CD and booted from that and it worked on the first try
Temps are still idleing in the low 20's and load is around 30 or under! I think those temps may actually be close to accurate because the 80mm exhaust fan in the back is blowing out cold (room temperature) air and so is the PSU!
LOL, ok, I've answered all my previous questions. The PCI-Express bus does indeed run at 100mhz and it seems to be locked at that speed. And I ended up flashing to the most 4/27/2005 BIOS with WinFlash and it worked fine.
BUT, my current problem is the motherboard won't even get past the POST screen with HTT higher than like 257mhz. What's the deal with that?!?! Do I have to use ClockGen to get those speeds?
