E6400 + DS3 + Scythe Infinity

[Mogadon]

Finished putting together my conroe build, major componenets listed here:

E6400 - B2
Gigabyte DS3 - F4 BIOS
2*1GB G SKILL PC2 6400 HZ
Scythe Infinity
Antec 550W TP Trio
Seagate 7200.10 250GB
7900GT

Overclocking at the moment, presently at 2527MHz stock volts on everything, except the RAM but that's because it needs 2.0V.

So far the board's been pretty solid, turned off everything I don't need etc ... and had no problems, although like everyone says the NB and SB get damned hot.

A word about the Infinity. This HS is awesome, i'm using it with the included 1200RPM fan and it's basically silent at 1200RPM, well you know what I mean.

So far my temps at 2527MHz:
idle - 27C
load - 36C (highest)

So you can tell this thing's pretty awesome. As far as mounting it goes, I mounted it with the mobo out of the case and it was probably the easiest heatsink i've ever mounted, just push the pins through the holes and ... that's it. I imagine the thing's probably harder to get off than on. That said I can see how it would be a little harder if you were mounting in with the mobo installed.

I'll get some pics up later and let y'all know how the overclock continues.

 

[aggressor]

Any fears of that heatsink warping your motherboard due to the weight? That sucker is so heavy

 

[Mogadon]

Well, i'm reckoning it'll be fine but it wouldn't surprise me if it did. Alot of it's weight is in the base so it's not top heavy like some heatsinks so the strain on the mobo isn't huge ... but yeh, it's big and relatively heavy.

 

[Mogadon]

This board is definitely finicky, like i'd heard. Couldn't get it stable at 2.5GHz (316*8) with any amount of voltage on the VCore or MCH or by playing in the BIOS. Booted at 3.2GHz (400*8) with no BIOS changes from trying to get it stable at 2.5GHz and now it's been happily priming away for 20mins, before it would fail at anything between 30s and 10mins. Load temp maxing out at about 53C.

 

[aggressor]

As weird as it might sound, people have been recommending skipping over the 300 range FSBs because they have weird issues. I had similar problems on my P5B-D (7x375 wouldn't work, but 7x425 would).

Also I've heard the DS3 doesn't overclock as well with USB devices (even mice and keyboards) attached, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

 

[Mogadon]

Yeh, i'd read that too. I actually bought a ps/2 keyboard to overclock with and thought i had a ps/2 mouse adapter but don't know where it's gone. So i'm using a USB mouse but haven't had any problems with it, I have the USB mouse option off in the BIOS and am just letting windows load the drivers.

I'm totally digging this infinity, it seems i'm getting lower load temps than some people are getting at idle with stock settings and the stock cooler.

 

[aggressor]

The quirks of the DS3 is one of the reason I spent a little more for the P5B-Deluxe. That and Asus seems to have a better motherboard track record.

 

[Mogadon]

Yeh, I just couldn't justify the extra $100, I figure a few months or so down the line when we have a better choice of tried and tessted enthusiast boards i'll probably just get another proven one, depends how this board works out though, other than the instability in the 300 range FSB it's been running rock solid. I did plenty of research on the board though so I knew what to do and expect, I can see someone who hasn't done any research having problems with a board like this.

 

[banzaiMonkey]

hey i had built a computer with the ds3 for a mate and it wouldnt clock at all untill i put on the latest bios. worth a try unless you did already went from 266 to 400 with no problems at all everything on stock part from memory using the 6300

 

[Mogadon]

already using the latest BIOS , first thing I did ... been priming now for an hour at 3.44GHz with 53C load ... .

Thanks for the input man, i appreciate it.

 

[tastykellogg]

To OP, can you mount an extran fan to HSF?

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: tastykellogg
To OP, can you mount an extran fan to HSF?

You can mount any 120mm fan on it.

 

[Baked]

Originally posted by: tastykellogg
To OP, can you mount an extran fan to HSF?

Yes you can. But the HSF only comes w/ 1 set of wires for fan mount.

 

[tastykellogg]

So which e-tailer provides with the sets? I heard there's one or two that sell mounting kits and stuff.

 

[zodiak]

You can contact the company in which you're ordering from. I've heard most places will charge about $2 for an extra mounting kit.

 

[intelcore2duogrid]

I've got the exact same setup for mobo/hsf/proc/ram and am running completely stable at 3.55GHz. Dual P95 gave an error at 3.6GHz though. Not sure why as the CPU temp (as reported by EasyTune) didn't go over 42c.

 

[Mudokon]

darn it, so jealous of you guys, i got a asus p5b with e6400 and Zalman 9500 AT, no OCing and i idle at 40C, 55C on load.

ugh, only reason i got the Zalman was cuz the stock HSF for the intel was giving me 60C on load way too easily.

funny thing, way back when i had my AMD xp 2600+, i once downloaded the "temp" reading proggie AMD provided, and instantly got a "too hot temp" ignored it, ignorant of what it meant, uninstalled the temp reading software and continued to use the AMD for 4 years, no problems.

 

[gramboh]

To the OP, nice setup, assuming you have the system stable at 3.2GHz or whatever OC you are running, what are your MB/CPU idle/load temps like now? Is the video card overclocked?

Thanks

 

[Mogadon]

Stable at 3.44GHz 1.45V, idle - 33C load - 53C(max), the 7900GT is o/c'd @ 700/1650 with the zalman VF900.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Mudokon
darn it, so jealous of you guys, i got a asus p5b with e6400 and Zalman 9500 AT, no OCing and i idle at 40C, 55C on load.

ugh, only reason i got the Zalman was cuz the stock HSF for the intel was giving me 60C on load way too easily.

funny thing, way back when i had my AMD xp 2600+, i once downloaded the "temp" reading proggie AMD provided, and instantly got a "too hot temp" ignored it, ignorant of what it meant, uninstalled the temp reading software and continued to use the AMD for 4 years, no problems.

funny i ran prime95 on my P4 2.6 @ 3.4 and it errored in 30sec. I ignored it but ran 24/7 for years with no crashes (occationally I'd restart)

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Mogadon
Stable at 3.44GHz 1.45V, idle - 33C load - 53C(max), the 7900GT is o/c'd @ 700/1650 with the zalman VF900.

What are you using to read the temperatures?

 

[Mogadon]

easytune. reads the same as temps in BIOS. I get higher temps in everest but thinking the easytune temps as being correct'ish. I have a thermal diode around here somewhere so may try and get some readings with that when i have the time.

edit - just checked with speedfan also and idle temps are identical to easytune and BIOS, i'll check load tomorrow to make sure ... speedfan also shows my +12V as being 1.15V, hopefully that's not true ... .