A8N-SLI question

[TheNiceGuy]

Hi all!
I hope to bring back some memories with this question!
I have the system in my sig. I was looking to upgrade it for fun, cheaply. I'm going to get another identical GPU and try out SLI.
And for the RAM, is it best to buy 2 more identical sticks of Samsung (to minimize conflicts)? Or can I put anything in?
Thanks a lot!

 

[Kid Vicious]

check my sig. just rolled up a similar system. I grabbed an opty 180 of newegg for $139 and two 8600gt's upgrading from my dual EN6600GT's. Get yourself a Geil 2GB kit to go with that and you should be all set. Kingston KVR is also a cheap and super stable alternative.

I picked the 8600's cos of their midrange pricepoint and the fact that they don't require external power connections. If you go any larger you'll need a new PSU to go with 'em.

All in all, this setup roars nicely through the orange box and eve online's premium graphics.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

Sounds like a nice system!

I know the RAM pairs should match to avoid conflicts. But what about the second pair? Must all 4 ram be the same brand/size? Or could I drop in a different pair next to my current RAM?

 

[Kid Vicious]

Dunno to be honest, never tried a setup with two different pairs. The manual advises being brand consistent, tho I'm not really sure how important that is given the maturity of the board and pc3200. Page 2-12 of the mobo manual gives the details:

DIMM Support:

Option C - support for four modules inserted into the blue and black slots as two pairs of dual-channel memory configuration.

I think you can use matching pair of 512 sticks and a third 512 stick. You just have to pay attention to slot order (Slots A1 and B1 for the pair). But you would not have a configuration that would take advantage of Dual-channel memory. Page 2-11 provides some greater detail.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

Thanks a lot!
Your system looks good.
I really like this, its so much fun to shop for stuff that was once so expensive!

 

[Kid Vicious]

Only thing bad about my setup is that I can't seem to keep the 4x512 stable at ddr400, and on auto settings it defaults to ddr333 at 2T command timings. Quite annoying, but only a minor issue that could be cured by some high branded pc3200. A 2x1GB config would be much better tho for performance; 4x512 was a cheaper upgrade path at the time.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

I know what you mean; I'm also happy I chose the cheaper option originaly.

I just got the second 66oo card. I set the 3 BIOS SLI options to "auto". How do I know if my system is running in SLI?

 

[Jakeisbest]

I am running the same A8n-sli same as you. I have two totally different pairs of Ram in my board 2x 512mb Kingston and 2x 1gb Corsair. Both are PC3200 of course. But they register and work great for me.

 

[dajeepster]

I had 2 6800gt's and an AMD64 3000+ in my board... swapped out the 3000+ for a dual core opteron 175 and then swapped out the video cards for a single 8800gt

 

[TheNiceGuy]

I had to disconnect the second card, as I was getting no monitor at startup, not even BIOS. Any ideas whats up?
I switched the 3 SLI options in BIOS to auto.

 

[TheNiceGuy]

Never mind... just discovered the 2nd card is faulty!

 

[Creideik]

I just wanted to be sure even if it is obvious. When you get your second card make sure you flip the SLI selector card/switch to the SLI setting and make sure you plug in the auxiliary 4 pin power connector on the MB. This was a great MB. I had mine for 3 years without one problem.