When to Build New System

[LunarMist]

Maybe it was lost a few pages back. The GA...UD5.

 

[Handruin]

I am confused about the PCIe lots and lanes on this board. I have one video card and the LSI 8x controller in another slot. Can I use both of the other long slots at 8X or maybe one at 8x and one at 4x?

Yes, both at 8X or one at 8x and the other can be used at 4x if desired. It will connect at the correct speed, but no more than 8x.

This is the info for your board:
2 x PCI Express x16

(Note: For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16_1 slot; if you are installing two PCI Express graphics cards, it is recommended that you install them in the PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2 slots)

1 x PCI Express x8

(Note: The PCIEX8_1 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16_2 slot. When PCIEX8_1 is populated with a PCI Express graphics card, the PCIEX16_2 slot will operate at up to x8 mode)

General info:
X58 has 40 lanes (I think 36 are usable)
16 - graphics
16 - graphics 2 optional, or divide in half when using 8x slot
else:
8 - LSI
8 - whatever you want
4 - remaining

 

[LunarMist]

Thanks. The lanes are interesting. Ideally I don't want to waste more than 8 lanes on the video card. So the four long slots could all be 8x or less then.

 

[LunarMist]

Gahhh! I must have damaged the old PS. It is working but whistling.

 

[Handruin]

Thanks. The lanes are interesting. Ideally I don't want to waste more than 8 lanes on the video card. So the four long slots could all be 8x or less then.

I must have looked up the wrong motherboard from what you have. I only found one with UD5 which had 2x16, 1x8, and 1x4.

 

[LunarMist]

No problem. I appreciate everyone's help.

If I understand rightly, there are no physically different 8x sockets, its just that some of the conectors are not in use or carrying signals. The board has the four 8/16x, two 1x and one old PCI. I'll have to dispense with the Fireware card, since I need the PCI slot for the 4-port external RAID card.

I can't figure out the SATA ports yet. I only see two onboard SCSI and RAID devices in Windows (GB36x), which are the pair of internal and external J-Microns controls. There should be a Marvell 6GBps controller in there too. I don't really need it with the 9211-8i though.

 

[LunarMist]

The rebuild is essentially finished for now. The power draw at idle is 150W for the computer only with 6 hard drives running. The total is about 180W altogether. That is about 21W higher than the previous system.

I'm undecided on the case fans. There are some installed and other places to add more. I'm not so concerned about cooling on the CPU, but overall interior temperature. If I add a fan on the side of the case should it blow in or out? Alternatively I was considering getting a faster fan for the rear exhaust, which would be less annoying than increasing the speed of the top exhaust fan.

 

[CougTek]

Unless you have a powerful graphic card, a side case fan makes little sense IMO. Put one very low-speed fan pushing air on the hard drives. Elsewhere, a rear and top fans are more than you should need. I don't think the temperature inside your enclosure should climb over 40C. But even at 50C, there wouldn't be much danger for your components.

Scythe and Nexus make very good case fans with low noise nuisance. Visit silentpcreview.com for more information about this.

 

[Handruin]

As CougTek mentioned, I've also used these Scythe fans inside my case. They are very quiet, but don't move a lot of air. They do enough to keep the drives cool enough.

 

[LunarMist]

The temperatures reach about ambient +11 or 12 °C. I guess that is OK.

 

[LunarMist]

As CougTek mentioned, I've also used these Scythe fans inside my case. They are very quiet, but don't move a lot of air. They do enough to keep the drives cool enough.

I bought the wrong Sycthe fan. It is 1600 and makes a weird humming/buzzing sound.

 

[Handruin]

I linked you right to the 800 RPM fans, what happened?

 

[LunarMist]

I was not planning to drive north, but I saw the fan in the store. I did not recall the details of your link other than the motor technology. Since the curent fan is 1200 RPM and not too loud, I thought that maybe 1600 would be OK with the fancy motor. It is out in the open now and may not be a problem in the backup computer in the corner.

I have several problems with the older system now, although it is simply in a new case with only a few drives. Damned thing will not print. :cursin:

 

[LunarMist]

I did not notice the the hollow enclosure sound in the Antec Soldana II system because the main system was so much louder before the replacement. Now it is a bit annoying that the case is louder when closed than open. I know there are some types of mats or acoustic dumping material that should help, but they are mainly sold at some odd shops online. Are there any decent substitute products available at places like the Home Depot? I want to reduce the droning at least 3 dB if possible.

 

[Stereodude]

Lowes used to sell Peel & Seal. They still may.

Local car audio shops should sell Dynamat as well. Heck Best Buy might even sell Dynamat.

 

[LunarMist]

Dynamat? Best Buy does carry it, but for $130 and not in the stores.

 

[Stereodude]

I would think they would have small sheets of it in the stores for a lot less than that, but I haven't been in a best buy in ages.

 

[ddrueding]

Best Buy used to sell pieces of Dynamat designed to go behind license plates. That should be enough to control the vibes of any panels.

 

[LunarMist]

Thanks. It appears to be impossible at this time.

 

[Howell]

All you need to do is add some weight to change the harmonic. Duct tape some metal washers on there.

 

[LunarMist]

I had a small disaster today and lost interest in the noise. End result was one good drive burned, 2 cables burned and one ICH port burned. :shaking:

 

[ddrueding]

Wow. Burned? Are you soldering in your system?

 

[Stereodude]

Probably shorted something out.

 

[LunarMist]

The power went from the SATA power to the drive, through the SATA cable and to the motherboard. The drive was one of my favorites and has data on it so it cannot simply be throw out. :eekers:

 

[LunarMist]

It really stinks. :blue:

 

[ddrueding]

You blew some caps as well? The fluid inside does stink...

 

[paugie]

I hope you will find a way to recover the data

 

[LunarMist]

I don't want to recover the data as it is not unique. I lamented the dead drive and now I need to figure out how to efficiently destroy the data.

 

[ddrueding]

If it is a standard drive. A hammer to the casing should crack the platters. Or a drill through the top plate and the platters will work fine. Simply throwing the drives onto concrete repeatedly should be effective as well.

 

[MaxBurn]

What happened?

 

[LunarMist]

I used the wrong cable. OH:

 

[CougTek]

Yeah...a 4-pin molex power connector is a bitch to insert on a SATA drive.

 

[time]

Thanks CougTek, I think that exquisitely sums up what we're all thinking. oke:

 

[Mercutio]

Hitachi is kind enough to provide both connectors. I appreciate that they do that.

 

[Pradeep]

I used the wrong cable. OH:

Is this one of those deals where if you plug in both the 4 pin Molex and sata power at once the magic smoke escapes?

 

[Pradeep]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4023/the-brazos-performance-preview-amd-e350-benchmarked

Targeting netbooks/laptops from $300-$500

 

[Stereodude]

I read that earlier today and left with myself pondering "why?" It seems like it pairs an underpowered CPU to a decent embedded GPU.

 

[Pradeep]

I read that earlier today and left with myself pondering "why?" It seems like it pairs an underpowered CPU to a decent embedded GPU.

"In most of our benchmarks the performance advantage over Atom isn't huge, yet using Brazos is much better than using an Atom based machine. It all boils down to one thing: single threaded performance. Atom can make up for its deficiencies by executing a lot of threads in parallel, but when you're bound by the performance of a single thread the E-350 shines. The E-350 is 65% faster than the Atom D510 in the single threaded Cinebench R10 test. It's this performance advantage that makes the E-350 feel so much quicker than Atom."

I'm looking to upgrade from my aging Dell Inspiron 8200 with Pentium M 1.6GHz, something like this with a more blanced CPU/GPU would be ideal for me, and still plenty fast. Dual core Pentium is much faster and also sucks down battery life. Encoding H.264 won't be a priority. General snappiness is. Though I need something by mid December.

 

[LunarMist]

Is this one of those deals where if you plug in both the 4 pin Molex and sata power at once the magic smoke escapes?

No. I grabbed the wrong power supply cable. It was so stupid like something I would have done in the 70s.

 

[time]

Ah, I see, the 20,000 volt cable. This is what happens when you give your Igor the afternoon off.