Frank's 2011 Upgrade

dtischerd said:
i also noticed that MW3 single player and multiplayer does not support SLI...i don't have that graph/bar on the left side of my screen while playing..kinda suxx.

I also noticed that the new Beta drivers doesn't do anything for MW3..grrr.
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New BETA Driver does nothing for MW3 - but MW3 does support and use SLI. Go get MSI Afterburner and set it up. Its free. If you have looked at many of my screenshots I have GPU info in the top left corner, this is MSI Afterburner info showing temps, GPU usage, GPU Mem Usage, as well as FPS. I can see when only one card is being used fully or if the VRAM is being used fully, etc.
 
i have used MSI Afterburner and EVGA Precision for quite some time now..in all your screen shots i dont see the SLI bar on the left side of the screen...just as i don't see it while i play singleplayer or multiplayer..it was definitly there when i played Black Ops Singleplayer and Multiplayer.

i think i'm going to try the new Beta drivers and see what happens.
 
dtischerd said:
ok now the SLI bar is there after i installed the new Beta drivers:D
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Really? Is it that green bar thingy? I have not seen one of those indicators since my 9800GX2's I had. I knew there was a setting somewhere to turn it on/off - cannot seem to find it. I never see that green SLI bar thing, I thought Nvidia did away with it.
 
nahh its in the Nvidia control panel under 3D settings (top of the page)..just check it to enable it.
 
..cough cough uncle cav.. cough cough quit working and record videos of frank gaming cough cough or help me with my C++ coug cough lol

:D
 
Aus10 said:
..cough cough uncle cav.. cough cough quit working and record videos of frank gaming cough cough or help me with my C++ coug cough lol
:D
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Record Videos of Frank gaming - Check! Posted!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzMGYBmSHew&feature=channel_video_title

OK, so StatutoryApe is to blame here, he got me addicted to online MW3, now all other "projects" are on hold while I feed this addiction completely and tone down this insatiable desire to just do nothing but game, game, game. The fact that Frank can produce like he can just makes it so easy to slip into the online world of MW3 and become immersed in the action and game play.

I just posted a video of some of my online play, however this was last Saturday morning, I was still very much a noob online, though I still am very much one now, we are talking wet behind the ears, maybe 2 hours of online game play which is VERY different than campaign's. I have not done online really since Halo PC - so this was an "awakening" back into the online style of run and gun. Now I am totally addicted.

Now only if I could play as well as Frank produces............
 
dtischerd said:
nahh its in the Nvidia control panel under 3D settings (top of the page)..just check it to enable it.
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Hey I think that applies to SLI - this may be why I have not seen it since the 9800GX2's was because they were seen as dual cards even though they were dual GPU cards each I think. Because since then I have either gone three way or quad SLI and that option does not appear for three way or quad set-ups, so that is why I wasn't findiing it. Thanks anyway................now back to MW3 :eek: :D
 
WANT TO TRADE/SELL

HEATWARE: The1stCav @ http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=63019

HAVE:LSi SAS 9212414e HBA - SATA 6GB RAID card - Lowest price found was $248.99
WANT:ButtKicker Gamer2 @ $129.99
http://www.htmarket.com/bk-gr2.html?source=CashbackShopping
http://www.tonsofdeal.com/Reviews/ButtKicker-BK-GR-Gamer.html
+$45 sent to my PayPal


THE DEAL:

TRADE (PREFERRED) -> The $45 to PP covers shipping of LSi card to you (est $6-10) as well as evens out the deal a tad for me. What I am proposing is you purchase the Butt Kicker and have it shipped to me. I send you the LSi card once shipping is verified and the $50 is in PayPal so I can use that to ship this card to you as well as have the rest. I prefer to trade as opposed to "Sell". If I were to accept $205 in PayPal, they would take a percentage. This way, you get the card you want, I get what I will be ultimately buying with it anyway, and I do not have to lose money on the deal - so for this arrangement I am willing to make the LSi card a good deal to any takers that need it and make it an even better deal in trade as opposed to sell.

SELL-> $205 to PayPal, covers shipping of LSi card to you CONUS ONLY! No overseas, no out of country - Continental US only.


MORE DETAILS:

LSi SAS 9212414e HBA

NOTE: I took off the PCI slot piece, painted it red, then re-attached it to the card. This card works great in an an Asus MB, but did not like the BIOS in my EVGA X58 Classified board where I wanted to use it. This card is barely used at all as I was troubleshooting for a week in my Classified board before I pulled it out. Then I installed it in the Asus board and it worked great, so I de-installed it and here it sits looking for a good home.

  • Low-profile, four internal and four external port 6Gb/s SATA+ SAS PCIe HBA with Integrated RAID
  • Provides high-speed throughput to internal drives and scalability to external storage arrays
  • Designed to support critical business activities like email, file sharing and database applications
  • 6Gb/s data transfer rate per port
  • Four x1 SATA internal connectors
  • One x4 Mini-SAS external connector (SFF8088)
  • x8 lane PCI Express 2.0 host interface
  • MD2 low-profile form-factor design
  • Typical power usage of 9W
  • Integrated RAID 0, 1, 1E and 10E
  • Support for up to 256 end devices
  • LSI SAS2008 IO Controller’s Fusion-MPT™ 2.0 architecture provides more than 320,000 I/Os per second
  • Supports major operating systems
  • MD2 form factor ideal for 1U and 2U servers
  • Scales externally for high capacity and tiered storage applications
  • Environmentally friendly due to low-power consumption
  • Integrated RAID avoids additional host CPU overhead
  • 6Gb/s SAS connectivity eases integration and broadens application by supporting legacy speeds and the SATA protocol

IMAGES:
047bm.jpg

048sq.jpg
 
RMA'd the Motherboard and the 990X CPU - both are in and now its time to rebuild Frank - AGAIN. Hopefully this time I have a solid MB and CPU and this fixes all the black screen issues I have been facing lately.
 
The1stCAV said:
RMA'd the Motherboard and the 990X CPU - both are in and now its time to rebuild Frank - AGAIN. Hopefully this time I have a solid MB and CPU and this fixes all the black screen issues I have been facing lately.
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Holy crap!!! Again?? Damn!
 
yeah and I think I have found the problem with my Black Screens - slot 3 GPU may be the culprit. Still testing but no black screens so far on the first two cards only - so we shall see. I also may just use that RAID card as it appears there are not any immediate responses or questions for it. Considering it uses x8 and all my GTX 580's use x8 when all slots are populated, there is no reason this card should not work, x8 is enough to push 600MB speeds to the SSD's, so I will drop them in a RAID 10 this time for speed and redundency. Probably going to do al this over the weekend as I expect the hardware part to take me about 5 hours to do it all wioth bleeding the system, etc.
 
I am totally getting one of those ButtKickers when I move into my new home. Maybe 2.
 
So thats the surprise you were talking about huh? lol I didnt know about this..

Thank you uncle cav, I would have never guessed that in a million years but that is awsome, I will hang it up next to Victor once he gets rebuilt. Victors big bro will be up on the wall.

Just went through the pictures honestly? That is BADASS can u make one every year?
 
Ok so since UNCLE CAV has decided to get me a gift i want to give him something back. But as he already has almost everything...

Any ideas on what i should get him? lol im clueless here...
Pm with ideas and not something that is exensive broke over here lol plz and ty you guys
 
I will make it easy - NOTHING. Save your time, effort and cash, and get your GF something nice.

2012 Frank N Stein Calendar:
http://www.zazzle.com/computer_calendar_frank_n_stein_pc-158332694438512345
frankcalendar.jpg


Just to let you all know I am not making much if anything on these, but seeing many here followed this build its a nostalgic thing that you can get to see if you feel Frank is worthy enough to hang on your wall for a year. Thanks so much for being a part of the build for the MANY MANY Months we conversed through the trials and successes and failures that occured.

CPU MAGAZINE COVER
Just to let you all know - CPU magazine replied, Frank was selected as a "Mad Reader Mod" and will have a place on one of their issues. However I do not know what month it will be yet and have no clue to the content etc. When I get final verification I will post here and let you all know. But in closing, Frank made it to CPU Mag! I am so excited to have my pride and joy on my favorite magazine - as you all know this was a goal I had during the build of Frank and I was waiting for the moment I said "he is done" to submit.
 
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Are those the Asus VW246H monitors? If so, did you adjust your colors through Nvidia control panel and would you mind sharing...:)
 
TechSoldier said:
Are those the Asus VW246H monitors? If so, did you adjust your colors through Nvidia control panel and would you mind sharing...:)
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Yes they are Asus VW246H Monitors and I use the Nvidia CP to eyeball the calibration which works out for me as most pictures I take and images I create seem to print or view correctly based on what I see on screen. Games are much more vibrant and detailed once I set this in the CP - but again its just my opinion and how I view the colors I guess. Nothing like a professional calibration tool or anything that measures pixels and the whole gambit of tools - I just set to use Nvidias color settings and these values are what seems to work for me.

calibration.jpg
 
I decided to buy/build a scrapbook and put pictures of the computer familey for him

Frank Vampi and a small section for Victor since there all famileyish lol
 
Well then, congrats on making the magazine. I'll pick up my complimentary copy at Microcenter when I get home from the Caribbean. Don't hate.lol
 
lmao Wra18th - enjoy the crystal clear blue waters - no hating here.

@ Silasbear - wow thanks for showing me. I thought this guy was going to tell me and let me proof the article. Many typo's in that article and I think that is the first CPU Magazine I can remmeber that a PC wasn't on the front cover, like the Mad Reader Mod PC isn't the front and center image. Instead Frank got top right corner. The article was good, but he had some serious typo's in there and didn't even get the "sewing" part right - oh well, Frank made it finally, so I am still very happy with it over all. CPU is still my fav geek mag.

If you have Microcenters or CompUSA's by you, they always have a rack in front with CPU Magazine in it. They are free magazines.
 
Lol, they don't know how to use spellcheck? Slackers! (back to my Mojito)[/].
 
Congratulations, Cav! I'll definitely have to go pick one of these up in honor of all of your hard work and dedication!
 
Damn I dont have a Microcenter or CompUSA any where close too me. I guess i will have to find some other way to get a copy.
 
Thanks CAV, Just got my two VW246H monitors two days ago and so far I love em. Great color, size and price! Can't beat it!
 
Mr_Wrong said:
Damn I dont have a Microcenter or CompUSA any where close too me. I guess i will have to find some other way to get a copy.
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I'm willing to send you one if you pm me your address. Postage should be cheap.
 
This weekend was another "rebuild" of Frank. That motherboard issue that has plagued me the past few months was finally resolved. I got the EVGA Advanced Replacement and finally got it installed along with the Intel 990X RMA replacement - so Frank is back better than ever. Why? Well remember all the issues I had with the LSi RAID Card that I decided I was selling because it wouldn’t work right for me? Well that was because of the Motherboard - I am certain of it now. Because this new board took that RAID card like a champ. The LSi RAID card went in like it was meant to be in Frank and everything fell into place as it should.

Here is the benchmark using the LSI RAID card in the last 8x slot on the board. Disabling the Marvell and using this one instead I am finding great speed with the four 60GB OCZ Vertex 3's in RAID 0. Though during boot and going through the BIOS and POST its not the fastest solution, once Windows begins to fire up its pure speed from there. Notice the "sweet spot" files sizes where the drives peak. these are the most common files sizes being read/wrote to the disks. At almost 9MB speeds - Frank is flat out smoking read/writes with these four drives in RAID 0 on that LSi RAID card.

atto4x60gbraid0.jpg


Initially results were not what I expect from Frank in the temp department. Things loaded beautifully, temps were slightly high but not bad so I kept going thinking that I had air bubbles somewhere and I would get to figuring that out once I got everything going. SO then I fire up MW3 - within a minute I had the ERM unit screaming at 55C water temps. Keep in mind that was the water temp - blocks were MUCH hotter - WTF Frank? Oh nice, CPU water block was clogged again - shit. I had to then take him down again, drain him and find the clog - which turned out to be the CPU. Once I flushed and cleaned the loop including breaking the CPU block apart and cleaning out the clog - Frank was put back together, bled, air bubble free as the water now ran through at an amazing fast rate and bubbles didn't stand a chance. So then I got Frank back online and checked the temps - wow, MASSIVE improvement. So I fired up some MW3 - now I know this is not an intensive game and does not push these GTX 580's hard or anything, but it still uses them and the temps were just amazing IMO for 3 hours of gaming. All fans were set at "Auto" onboard an in the ERM unit and Frank simply kept his cool!

tempsmw33hrs.jpg


I of course had to make some changes somewhere - lol - its just the way it goes each time I break Frank down. Replacing the motherboard is a pretty substantial effort, especially within the confines of Frank and that 800D. So while I had everything out one thing I had to change was the Pump position inside the case. Where it sat was in the way of both the 800D's back plate for the SSD's/drive bays as well as the motherboard SATA connector placements. This made for troubleshooting and cleaning of the SATA and SATA power cables a bit more difficult. So I had to move th pump up in the case, meaning the top tube coming from the BlackIce RAD had to be shortened considerably, then the feed going to the bottom GPU replaced with a much longer tube. Initially the 90 I put on the pump was leaking, I found it was missing a rubber O-ring seal, so I had to replace it with the only thing I had that would work - an OLD Enzotech rotary 90 that Frank used in his first few iterations a couple years ago on the GPU's when I had those crazy GPU loops going. Because it is so high up and out of sight, so it works fine. Functionally it was the best option, aesthetically, it doesn't glare "out of place" but its not the same 90's as used elsewhere, so it’s not aesthetically the "same". Still looks good though IMO. This opened up the area between the motherboard and the HDD cage where I will be able to put the SATA III backplane back on there and clean up some of those cables. Four SATA cables from the HDD area to the RAID Controller card are now visible basically. You can now see the work done to sleeve the SATA cables and then now loop up and curve into the RAID card under the last GTX 580 and are now visible. I am just now trying to figure out how to clean up the cables a tad more then I'll take some pictures.
 
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