A8N Sli-Deluxe (using e with Amd 64 fx-55) New To Overclocking!

[Panorama]

Hello Everyone, as i have went through some topics over here and someone came up with this issue of Maxtor Diamond 10 creating problems running on such configuration, i thought i was the only one! Well i am running stable windows xp on it but its been horrible. I have intsalled windows atleast 15 times literally 15 times in the past 5 days and i have been very unsuccessful overclocking this chip. Here is my system configuration:
AMD 64 FX-55
Asus A8N Sli-deluxe
Asus EN6600 GT 128 DDR X 1
512 DDr 333mhz , 256 DDR 266mhz
Antec true power 550 watts
Maxtor Diamond 10 HDD X 1

First of all i am new to overclocking and iam unable to understand computer hardware relation with each other and how does it works togther. But so far i am completely overwhelmed, overclocking through BIOS has been tedious job because BIOS sometimes doesnt even load and then i have to clear the CMOS mem. Being on windows environment i was able to overclock my comp to 2.8 ghz using AI booster. I have not overclocked RAMS or GPU just the CPU using AI booster and Increasing HT to max x5. thats all...i need to further overclock need help....
(do i have to replace HD cause i think maxtor causing lot of problems?)

 

[Ballistyx]

Ummm.... get rid of that 256MB DDR266 DIMM. THAT'S what's causing your problem!

 

[Panorama]

yes the DIMMS i am going to change after a month but what do you say about the Hard drive it sometimes cause randomn problems and what do u personally recommend for mem dimms, Cosair, kingston or OCZ!

 

[Ballistyx]

Explain what you mean by "random problems". The only things in your config that I can see causing a problem is that you are not only running mis-matched capacities of DIMMs, but you're also running different (lower end) speed grades of RAM.

Any HD corruption you're likely experiencing is because you're using your old RAM. Not to sound like a prick, but if you could shell out the cash for an FX-55, there's no reason why you should be running with this RAM in the first place. You're not just only asking for trouble, you're waving a red flag while playing around in a California freeway during rush hour by trying to overclock with it too.

I've had good experiences with Corsair, Kingston, and (Genuine) Samsung DIMMs. Whatever you do, GET AT LEAST TWO MATCHED CAPACITY DDR400 DIMMS (i.e.: 2x 512MB DDR400 DIMMs)!!

 

[Panorama]

Randomn meaning i had problems formatting Hard disk system stating that it s corrupted, sometimes while loading windows it states "ntldr missing press ctrl+alt+del to restart" and when i first installed the hard drive it was showing me the capacity of 120 GB though it was 300 GB.
Definetly i'll get the rams just saving up.

 

[Ballistyx]

I take it you installed WinXP on your system, correct? Is your installation CD already patched with SP1? If not, it will not create a partition larger than 132GB. If you look around the 'net (Google it), you can find out how to slipstream your CD with SP1 (or SP2).

Anyways, what you're describing ISN'T hard drive related. Oddly enough, it's usually RAM related. You *MIGHT* be able to get away with running that single 512MB DDR333 stick you have, but it's (obviously) only going to work in single-channel mode. If you check out this thread (http://forums.anandtech.com/me...918&enterthread=y), you'll find some other people who had the same problem, and it was RAM related. The Athlon64 is VERY PICKY about RAM in general.

 

[Ballistyx]

Oh yeah, here's something else I found in a thread here:

Originally posted by: AlexBmur
********Do not enable command queing if you have a SATA Maxtor DiamondMax 10**********

I thought I would warn everyone because I just had to reformat my hard drive and reinstall windows because I tried to enable command queing on my DiamondMax10. Aftern enabling it and rebooting, I was never able to get back into Windows. I kept getting the same error "lsass.exe not found". I have my DiamondMax connected to the Nvidia SATA controller, and even if I switched connectors or even tried to use the Silicon SATA controller, I still got the same error.

I don't know what causes this problem, but according to the other A8N-SLI thread, I am not the only one who has had problems enabling command queing with a DiamondMax 10. Hopefully a bios update will fix this problem.

 

[Panorama]

i guess you are right...gotta change rams. Maybe thats why i am not able to do overclock in BIOS. By the way who has done max clock speed with asus a8n sli using athlon 64 fx55