Patrick Vervoorn wrote:

In article <4736d9ef@news2.actrix.gen.nz>,
~misfit~ <misfitnz@yahoot.com.au> wrote:

Sorry about the delay in replying, I've had trouble with my new
machine, as I've detailed in alt.comp.hardware.overclocking.

No idea what these problems were, hopefully you solved 'em (I gather
from some text below you did).

I did indeed. My new motherboard, an Asus P5K-E WiFi-AP, with the P35/ICH9 
chipset, doesn't give enough vcore. Even with the BIOS defaults set my 
machine kept random rebooting or blue-screening. After much gnashing of 
teeth and rending of garments (also using of monitoring apps) I discovered 
that, if I increase what the BIOS tells me the vcore is by 0.15v then it's 
fine. It's delivering 0.15v too little. Took a while to work it out as, with 
any new build, any number of things could cause the symptoms I experienced. 
It's the first time I've struck that particular problem.

Now I'm ticking along nicely with my E4500 (Stock 2.2GHz) running at 3.2GHz 
at what is actually default vcore. I'm using a Thermaltake Mini Typhoon CPU 
cooler that works very well so my temperatures are well within acceptable 
limits. Lower in fact than I got at stock speed with the stock heatsink.

I could underclock it, yes. I've underclocked machines before.
However, then it would be slower at everything I use it for, which
defeats the purpose of buying this CPU. I could have got a cheaper
one that would use less power and do less work.

It's either this, or try to find out what exactly the BOINC folks had
in mind when they implemented the xx% CPU usage option.

Yeah. Or give up SETI altogether, in which case I'd have to immediately stop 
reading or posting in this newsgroup. <g>

Well, I'm told that Crysis can use four cores. (I'm waiting for the
demo to show on a magazine cover, I can't be bothered downloading
1.8GB.) Yes, SeiBOINC certainly prefers your CPU to a higher-clocked
dual core.

I got the demo the minute it came out (well, minus some download time
of course ;). I haven't really monitored CPU usage during the demo,
but it in any case detects a quad core CPU without any problems. Very
impressive game BTW, the Demo is well worth the 1.9G download.

So I'm told. It's on my download list, if I can't find it on a cover DVD in 
the next few weeks.

Understood. I'm not a code-monkey. <g> I couldn't write a script to
save myself. I'm mainly hardware, I can do amazing things with
hardware and am good at trouble-shooting and/or repairing and
building PCs. I leave the code to the guys that know it. I've never
been in a situation where it would benefit me to learn it.

You are now. ;)

Ahh, but is the reward worth the work? Something I have to ask myself often. 
;-)

I have a couple of "live" CDs and play with them now and then.

And?

And I think that I'm not yet ready to leave my Microsoft security blanket.

I'm still limited, although it's daily, then it re-sets at 2am.
After I hit my limit I'm rate-limited to 64/64kbps, just above
dial-up speed until 2am rolls around. I can "buy" whatever amount of
daily data I like by changing my "plan". Anything from 70MB to 2GB
with my ISP. I'm on a 1GB/day plan.

I'm actually dumbfounded ADSL subscriptions are around in this day and
age. Overhere in The Netherlands, you can get a 20Mbps ADSL2+ line for
about 20 EUROs a month. 'No limits' is what they're advertising with,
although underneath is usually some kind of 'fair use' policy.

Your ISP doesn't have an unlimited plan?

Yes, however it's expensive and it's through a different, ummmm, 'pipeline'? 
You're de-priotitised, throughput decreases.

What speed are you on before
you're rate-limited?

256/128kbps. Pathetic huh? I've just decide to pay another $10/month and am 
getting upgraded to 2M/128 tomorrow.

All my experince points to well-cooled CPUs being able to heat up or
cool down at least 10�C a second. Maybe more. The folks on
a.c.h.overclocking agree.

Well, if they say so, it should be true. ;)

Ahh, the guys I'm talking about are the ones whom I know aren't blowing 
smoke. I've been part of that group since last century and have learned who 
knows what they're talking about and who doesn't.

[Crysis]

Ah, you have the demo. It was designed to run different things (A.I.
etc.) on different cores (or so I read in an interview with one of
the creators).

Yep, very nice. A playable first level, and two benchmarks, one
stressing the GPU (fly-over of the Island), another stressing the CPU
(lots of explosions, buildings blowing up, physics, etc).

I'm looking forward to trying it.

Yes, thanks. I'm really happy with it. However, Battle.net server
lag still reduces it to 3 or 4 fps sometimes, especially with my
skellimancer. In SP it's very fast.

Amazingly enough, the Shenk death animation still manages to bring the
8800GTX, using a Glide Wrapper, to it's knees. ;)

I'm a bit curious if/when we'll ever see a GPU capable of running the
Shenk death animation without any hickups. That should be the day!

Amazing how such an old game can do that. It has to come down to 
badly-written code IMO. There doesn't seem to be any other reason why a game 
over 5 years old can bring a graphics card 100 times as powerful as those 
available in it's time to a grinding halt.

No problem. Some always needs to be snipped, although I tend to err
on the side of caution.

I snipped liberally. ;)

Thank you, you saved me the job. <g>

I'm so happy my new machine is finally running as it should. :-) Got
a new case with a 24cm fan in the side running at around 500rpm. It
cools the NB, SB and RAM quite nicely. There's also a 12cm fan in
the front to cool the HDDs. Lots of vents in the back, a strong
breeze blowing through them.

Nice. Enjoy the system, hopefully it can be put to some good use for
SetiBOINC. ;)

We shall see....

Cheers,
-- 
Shaun.