[taiyeungjai]

I finally got my rig up and running... Took a total of 12 hours including assembly and software installation/setup. I ran into so many problems that it took a full 8-9 hours to troubleshoot everything. I will think very carefully next time whether or not setting up the latest and greatest on a semi-supported chipset is worth it! I went through memory, countless combinations of drivers/tweaks and punishing lockups and issues. Since this was an upgrade from another CPU/Mobo combo which was from another CPU/Mobo combo, I did a repair install and that was cause for some major headaches.. but alas... I have finally come out victorious..

Here is my gloat list... :D :D :D

Intel Pentium D 3.0Ghz Dual Core CPU

Intel P5ND2-SLI nFORCE 4 Motherboard (Had to use a beta bios release to fix up some nagging issues with the Pentium D CPU)

Corsair 512MBx2 Matched Pair DD2-667MHZ 4-4-4-12-15-2T (I went through 3 pairs of ddr2 memory to find a compatible pair for this setup!! The timings and voltage were still not being detected properly so I had to enter these in manually and force it!!)

Enermax 465Watt Power Supply

Antec Performance ONE P180 Advanced Mid-Tower (4x120mm Fans w/ Air Filters)

LG 16X DVD Multi-Format RW

LG 52X CD-RW

Mitsumi 1.44 Floppy w/ Integrated 11-in-1 Card Reader

eVGA Nvidia 6800GT 256MB Video PCI-E (SLI Primary)
eVGA Nvidia 6800GT 256MB Video PCI-E (SLI Secondary)

Adaptec 29160N SCSI Ultra 160 Controller connected to a Seagate Cheetah 36GB 10K U160 (my gaming drive.. almost 0% cpu utilization)

WD SATA 250GB 7200RPM 8MB (boot drive)

3 x WD SATA 80GB 7200RPM 8MB (setup as a hot-swap RAID-5 array)

Hauppauge 250 TV Tuner (hacked drivers for MCE-XP)

Microsoft MCE eHOME iR remote+receiver and blaster connected to Roger's digital cable box

Logitech DiNovo Bluetooth Cordless Keyboard and Mouse (I use the bluetooth hub for connecting my cell-phone and pda)

MX1000 Laser Mouse (I hated the DiNovo bluetooth mouse, so I got Logitech's laser mouse to use in addition to the bluetooth mouse :D )

Smart-UPS 750VA UPS w/ COM Monitoring

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

Apple Cinema 20" Widescreen DVI (w/ Hacked Monitor Controller Driver)

Bose 2.1 Speaker system

Windows XP Media Centre Edition (TiVO! but much better.. It even syncs my pda so I can schedule tv recordings on-the-fly and watch them on a 2.5" screen :lol: )

Plus I have a whole bunch of USB accessories, ipod/webcam/rf gamepad/external hd/printer-scanner/smartphone that all run USB that have had issues in the past working together on certain motherboards that didn't like my usb hub. Luckily since this new motherboard has 10USB ports, I no longer need my problematic usb hub..

The system is finally stable (as of right now) and I burnt the system in overnight without any more lockups or problems.

:lol: :D :lol: :D