You are all a good bunch of people!

[Handruin]

Once again Mercutio has sprung a fast one on me with a simple parts purchase. A month ago I posted for some help in fixing a problem with my system (which was generously donated 2 and half years ago). He came through to offer me a replacement motherboard that I purchased fair and square. Fast forward to yesterday as I'm ready to head out the door for my weekend travels...the package arrived via overnight postal in this large box that either proved Mercutio was losing his mind by shipping with a box that large, or he pulled a fast one on me.

I begin digging through the box to find a plethora of peanuts along with many components I wasn't expecting. It was a fast one alright...another unexpected set of parts are now in my possession. (All I wanted to do was buy a new MB!)

I'd like to send a large thanks to every one of you who has participated in this contribution and in this forum. I'm happy to be a part of this community of fine folks, and also happy to host the site. For those of you who came together to send me this gift, I'm very thankful for your generosity. This is truly awesome and unexpected. You took time out of your busy schedules to send some type of contribution, be it money, parts, and advice to generously send me a gift. You sent me more than just a box full of computer parts, you’ve made me smile, which doesn’t come easy these days. I truly thank you for that.

With or without your fine generosity, I'm happy to be here to host and manage this site for everyone. I thank you all for your support and for all the advice and help you've given me through the years. I've learned so many new things from such a wide diversity of people. Hopefully I can return the generosity by continuing to host and improve the site for everyone as the years go by.

I apologize for the late reply to the gift that was sent. I was out of town this weekend and haven't even had a chance to really take-in everything that was sent and reply with my appreciation. So here I am now, saying thanks to everyone who took a piece of their time to give me such a nice gift. I really do appreciate what you've given me, and what you continue to give to this site.


Thank you very much for everything.

Sincerely,

Doug

 

[e_dawg]

Thank you for providing us with a place to play... a home away from home.

I'm not always around SF, but I always come back. Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came... SF is my Cheers.

 

[Mercutio]

On the other hand, I'm still stunned at how well and how easily this all came together. A month ago, I sent out PMs and Emails to everyone I could track down. The generosity and the leap of faith everyone took to get cash or donated hardware so that this project could move forward was simply unbelievable.

The full list of hardware, in case anyone missed it in all the correspondence:
Venice-core Athlon64 3200
Gigabyte K8NSC-939 nforce3 motherboard
Abit NF-7S modded with non-sucky northbridge fan
4x PC3200 512MB Corsair DIMMs
LiteOn 16x DVDRW retail kit
Asus 256MB X800Pro AGP
A half-dozen premium quality fans of various sizes
Antec 400W PSU
A case full of CDs and DVDs; some games and some useful discs
... all in all, a pretty smoking new rig.

Still to come: RedHill case badges (they're in the mail, I'm told) and a little art project based on a design Buck made.

I need to say thanks to everyone as well. We couldn't do this amazing and generous thing without everyone contributing. So thank you from me as well.

 

[Santilli]

Doug:
I want to thank you so much for hosting such a site, and the community for putting up with novices like myself. :mrgrn:

Mercutio, thank you for giving us a chance to help.

Doug, by the way, I offered a very noisy sparkle 550 Watt power supply, if for some reason, you want the computer, and your house, to sound like the Harpies of Hell. :wink:

Also, if you want, I'll be happy to include a SBS pci extension box, if you pay the shipping.

Thanks to all here, I put together a rig very similar to what you have, though slightly slower, and, with a 15k Cheetah for a boot drive, and an LSI card, it simply flies.

If you don't have a 15k, 15.2 Cheetah, 18 gigs, I'll be happy to send you one, but, I don't have the cabling, or the terminator.

Thanks again for supporting us all, and not 'loosing' 3 years of postings...


:wink:

GS

 

[CougTek]

I don't feel I give much to this site anymore. I let you down with the news posting on the front page a while ago and I don't invest a lot of time like I used to to find interesting or helpful stuff for others. And this isn't your fault at all, I've simply haven't been in internet-mood for some time.

My small contribution to this gift was half-way to show my appreciation for all the efforts you've done for our community and another half to compensate for my lack of involvement during the last year or so.

I'm very glad you like it and congrats to Mercutio for managing this project.

 

[Bozo]

Thank you, Doug!! For giving us all a place to come and learn. It was a pleasure to help out.

And Thank You Mercutio for putting it all together!

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[The JoJo]

A BIG round of applause to Doug! Thank you for this site!

And an equally BIG round of applause to Merc! Thanks for organizing this!

 

[Mercutio]

The full list of hardware, in case anyone missed it in all the correspondence:

... also a huge and very nice Thermalright Heatsink that somehow didn't make my list before.

 

[Buck]

"You are all a good bunch of people!' . . . and sock puppets .

Thanks for your hard work and devotion Handy.

Merc, thanks for organizing and coordinating our gift.

 

[Handruin]

The full list of hardware, in case anyone missed it in all the correspondence:

... also a huge and very nice Thermalright Heatsink that somehow didn't make my list before.

Speaking of that XP90C...I'm a bit perplexed how I attach it to the MB? I looked at Thermalright's website for the install instructions and they claim it needs to be bolted to a backplate. There isn't a backplate on the Gigabyte board, is there another way to do this? Do those mounting screws require a nut on the end to stay fastened? I've never mounted one of these things before, so I don't know if the board should already have a backplate. Or, which one I need to buy.

 

[sechs]

Someone didn't read the compatibility notes.... You have to buy a backplate for Gigabyte boards because Gigabyte expects you to get one with your heatsink. They're available on the Thermalright site.

 

[Handruin]

You're right, thanks sechs.

 

[Handruin]

Ordered one from Jab Tech. Was about $7 shipped for the little thing via priorty mail. I almost fell out my chair when I looked at one plaace online. They wanted $3.95 for the part, and $21 shipping via fedex ship saver.

 

[Santilli]

I had the same problem with Swifttech, but it was like 4 bucks total for the plate, and shipping was free, or just about...

GS

 

[Handruin]

The backplate still hasn't shipped, but I have a tracking number. I also bought from newegg last night:
Antec P180
2 x HITACHI T7K250 250GB SATA 3.0Gb HD's (2 platter design)
LITEON DVD-ROM Drive Model SOHD-16P9SBLK
Logitech G5 Laser mouse (was on sale so i bought it)
Saitek Eclipse keyboard (individually illuminated keys)


Oddly, it was cheaper for me to ship everything overnight by FedEx than it was for 2nd day or super ship saver...wtf is up with that?

 

[Handruin]

Two questions:

1.) Is it worth buying a SATA 3.0Gb card for these drives so that I can make use of NCQ? I don't mind paying $40-$50 if it's a decent investment.

2.) If so, what non-raid card is a good buy? I've been looking all through newegg and I didn't find many SATA 3.0 with NCQ that's I'd trust.

 

[Bozo]

The card would still be useful a year or two from now when all SATA drives have NCQ. That is, if your still using the same motherboard without NCQ.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Handruin]

I just noticed, the 3200+ is a Winchester, not a Venice (according to CPU-Z). Yet, the temps are still really good.

 

[Mercutio]

It was sold to me as a Venice. I *ordered* a Venice.

grumble grumble grumble

 

[Handruin]

Any way I can confirm/deny CPU-Z is right/wrong without pulling that gigantic heatsink off? Honestly, I don't want to cause you stress, I'm very happy with it regardless. I was just surprised at the low temps and yet it's not a Venice.

 

[CityK]

I don't believe the temp difference between the V & W cores is very appreciable -- IIRC, lostcircuits and xbit both showed some good numbers regarding this.

Re: ID'ing core
Other then making sure you have a up-to-date CPU-Z version, perhaps Belarc advisor ... or maybe that website Fushigi posted ages ago...but I guess you would need the OPN for that (not certain if you have the boxes).

 

[Mercutio]

I kinda tore the retail box it came in to pieces when I first got the chip. I didn't have anything to get it open, so I just tore at the cardboard.
The box I sent everything in was the retail box for an x2 4200 with all the "x2s" crossed out.

 

[Handruin]

My findings were with the latest CPU-Z as of last night. If nothing more to make a point to the place you bought from, I could certainly take the heatsink off to verify. Either way it runs great, so I have no complaints.

 

[CityK]

Okay that Fushigi post was in this thread, but it won't help (I do note that they changed that page since I last saw it (it use to be blue)).

Then I thought, what about Linux --> in Suse, K menu > System > Monitior > Processor ... which should give you enough info to fill in the blanks from the quick reference link contained here. It worked for me.

 

[Groltz]

Any way I can confirm/deny CPU-Z is right/wrong without pulling that gigantic heatsink off?

Try this ID utility: http://cbid.amdclub.ru/files/cbid77b.zip

What does it tell you?

 

[LunarMist]

"You are all a good bunch of people!' . . . and sock puppets .

Thanks for your hard work and devotion Handy.

Merc, thanks for organizing and coordinating our gift.

What Buck said. I'm glad you like it.

 

[Handruin]

Looks like it shows the same thing:

 

[Groltz]

Looks like it shows the same thing

 

[Handruin]

On my end, I'm still up on the deal with this nice rig. I'm not upset that I didn't get a Venice, please don't mistake my posts as such. I'm just sorry that the CPU was mislabled and sold as a Venice to Mercutio.

 

[Mercutio]

It pisses me off. I'm the one with an invoice that says "Venice".

 

[Handruin]

Want me to send it back so you can chew the person out?

 

[Mercutio]

Don't think it would help. That chip was purchased several weeks before your other stuff. I don't think they'd care at this point.

 

[Bozo]

Have you tried this:

http://www.ocinside.de/go_e.html?/html/workshop/amd_a64_product_id.html


Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[CougTek]

To fill this form, Doug would have to remove the heatsink and clean the paste. It would be a hassle.

 

[CityK]

Then I thought, what about Linux ...

cat /proc/cpuinfo