Advice on my first real CustoMac

[Ice]

Hey guys,

this is going to be my first real CustoMac and I would really appreciate your thoughts about the components:

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R, Intel X58, LGA1366, SLI, CFX
Intel Core i7 960 BOX, 3.20GHz, LGA 1366, 4C/8T
Kingston HyperX, 3x4GB, DDR3-1600, [email protected]
Noctua CPU-Cooler NH-D14
Sapphire HD 5850 1GB, PCI-E x16 2.0, DP, HDMI
Lian Li PC-8NB Midi-Tower - black
be quiet! STRAIGHT POWER, E8 CM 680W 80plus
I'm gonna add a Spinpoint HDD as Datadisk and a Sony Optiarc DVD-Writer.

What you think?
Thx.

Ice

 

[ijhu]

YES, should work OOB.

Follow notshy's guide here. VGA card is slightly different, but it is supported.
viewtopic.php?f=81&t=11465

Good luck.

 

[notshy]

I'm not 100% sure on that graphics card. I'd stick to a dual slot 5770 or 5870 card if I was you. Why have you picked the 5850?

 

[Ice]

I already had the GA. I'm currently in the process of installing the system already.
GA seems to be fine so far on the first DVI port. Had some problems before with the second one though. Will see how it goes this time.
But I have one major issue and since you have the same board
GA-X58A-UD3R (Rev2), maybe you could help me out here:
It seems that the chipset on my board gets extremely hot. With 3 system fans I still have MCH temperature way above 60 degrees while CPU is under 40. I don't think that's normal.
Could you share the readings on your system?
I suspect I might have received a preowned board and am thinking about bringing it back tomorrow.
I posted this problem under installation support also:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16601

Thx in advance.

Ice

 

[Going Bald]

I already had the GA. I'm currently in the process of installing the system already.
GA seems to be fine so far on the first DVI port. Had some problems before with the second one though. Will see how it goes this time.
But I have one major issue and since you have the same board
GA-X58A-UD3R (Rev2), maybe you could help me out here:
It seems that the chipset on my board gets extremely hot. With 3 system fans I still have MCH temperature way above 60 degrees while CPU is under 40. I don't think that's normal.
Could you share the readings on your system?
I suspect I might have received a preowned board and am thinking about bringing it back tomorrow.
I posted this problem under installation support also:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16601

Thx in advance.

Ice

What are you using to report your temps?

 

[Ice]

BIOS "Health Status" and my fingers...
Gonna install iStat now.
I also noticed that the system dwells about
"Verifying DMI Pool Data"
for quite some time. I'd say about 15-20 seconds. Seems oddly long to me.

Ice

 

[notshy]

BIOS "Health Status" and my fingers...
Gonna install iStat now.
I also noticed that the system dwells about
"Verifying DMI Pool Data"
for quite some time. I'd say about 15-20 seconds. Seems oddly long to me.

Ice

Change the boot priority in your BIOS to remove CD as first and put HD as first .

My northbridge is hotter than the rest but that's because I've got a fan with front to back airflow and only side case fan blows down directly onto the mobo unlike the Intel stock fan

 

[Ice]

Change the boot priority in your BIOS to remove CD as first and put HD as first .

Hehehehe, if only it had been that easy. Unfortunately I had changed the boot order already. When CDROM is the first boot device you can see those dots progressing and it takes even longer (25sec).
Here, with only HDD as boot device it still sits there for 15-20 sec and you can't see any progress. I think there's definitely something wrong.

My northbridge is hotter than the rest but that's because I've got a fan with front to back airflow and only side case fan blows down directly onto the mobo unlike the Intel stock fan

But it's not over 60 degrees when the system's idle, is it?

I just found prove that this mainboard was definitely reowned. There are pen written notes on one page in the manual.... UNBELIEVABLE! I am sooo damn angry right now.
Guess I'll have to give someone a piece of my mind...
I'll let you know what things are like with the replacement board later.

Thanks everyone for your support.
Cheers,

Ice

 

[notshy]

We'll still be here !

 

[Ice]

I was finally able to replace the mainboard and now my system seems to run like a charm so far.
Temperature is a lot lower:
CPU: 38
MCH: 50
and no more waiting time at DMI.
Sleep and wakeup work absolutely fine (still need to test if Bluetooth wakeup works, too).
Had a flickering on the second DVI port. After installing the ATI drivers and setting Graphics_Enabler=no the flickering's gone.
The applause goes to notshy for his guides I used:
- viewtopic.php?f=81&t=11465
- viewtopic.php?f=15&t=15798
THANKS mate, you really helped a lot!
I 'll test a little more and then add my build to the forum.
Thanks guys for all your help and thx Tony for this awesome forum+.

Cheers,

Ice