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wibeasley
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H67 and 2600 Build

Sat May 21, 2011 9:35 am

This will be my primary computer. Other than the typical daily tasks, it will be used mostly for stats, graphing, programming and computational work. I use a bunch of threads, and I'll never overclock or game, so I think the i7-2600 (w/ hyperthreading, but not unlocked) and an H67 board is the best fit. But I'm flexible about this. I have three monitors(between 20" and 24"), so I'm leaning towards the cheapest/coolest Eyefinity card with two DVIs and one DisplayPort.

CPU: i7 2600 $249 + tax (I'll be in Dallas soon, so I might take advantage of Microcenter for some of these products)
Motherboard: Asus P8H67-M EVO-R3 $139 + tax (I'd like to have eSata)
RAM some 2x4GB DDR3 kit for around $80(Maybe G-Skill 1333).
GPU: GIGABYTE Radeon HD 5750 $118 + $8sh (I'm very flexible here; this was chosen almost arbitrarily after meeting the connection requirements.)
Case: Lian Li PC-K59 $59 (This is a great sale, and I wanted to try something other than Antec)
OS & some programs Drive: Crucial C300 128GB $199 (I bought this two weeks ago on sale)
Data & remaining programs Drive: Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM $54 (I bought this a week ago on sale)
Backup Drive: Spinpoint F4 2TB 5400 RPM $69 (In addition to WHS, I backup the bare metal image nightly on a local drive)
PSU: Seasonic 600W 80Plus (It's three years old, from another build)

Thanks for looking and commenting.
 
mmmmmdonuts21
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Sat May 21, 2011 12:26 pm

Looks like a very nice build.

I found a cheaper eyefinity card (5670) since you don't need the GPU horsepower here:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102920 $85 ($100) after rebate. Should run quieter and cooler than the 5750.

Other than that if your waiting a while to pick up the processor you, newegg will probably have a G-Skill set around $80 (or less) on sale again. I would opt for the 1600 if at all possible for future proofing a little more.

One other question that I don't know the answer to is can you use the integrated GPU along with another smaller GPU to have a triple monitor setup? Then you could get a $25 GPU with dual outputs and use the integrated for another.

Nice build otherwise.

Edit: Wrong link posted originally. This one has eyefinity support.
Last edited by mmmmmdonuts21 on Sat May 21, 2011 3:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Kamisaki
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Sat May 21, 2011 12:27 pm

Looks like a good build, I think the CPU and mobo you chose will be a great fit for your needs.

As for the graphics card, here is a 5750 that's slightly cheaper than the one you listed, and if you don't mind mail-in rebates, here is a 5770 that ends up cheaper if you ever get the rebate back. It does look like that's about the lowest end you can get with Eyefinity support and the connections you need, the newer 6570 and 6670 won't cut it.

Edit: mmmdonuts, the 5670 doesn't have dual DVI outputs, it has one DVI and one VGA.
 
wibeasley
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Sat May 21, 2011 1:56 pm

mmmmmdonuts21 wrote:
One other question that I don't know the answer to is can you use the integrated GPU along with another smaller GPU to have a triple monitor setup? Then you could get a $25 GPU with dual outputs and use the integrated for another.
Thanks, both of you. I had thought the integrated GPU only as a backup, not for real. That's a great suggestion; I'd love to reuse my existing 8600GT (with a passive Accelero heatsink). It has two DVIs and doesn't require extra power from the PSU. I'll see if the integrated + 8600GT works with three monitors well. If not, I'll buy an Eyefinity card, and won't have lost any money.

And you're right Kamisaki, the 5670/6570/6670 cards I've seen don't have the native connections I need. I wondered about using some HDMI-to-DVI adapter for a card like this 5670. But that fan & heatsink look really puny, and I'm concerned it will be noisy, even at idle. I should have plenty of unused expansion slots, so the double-wide form isn't a concern. And those adapters seem to cost ~$15, and I'd rather put that money into the card itself.
 
ozymandias
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Sat May 21, 2011 1:57 pm

Alternatively, you could use a z68 board, get a smaller SSD and a bigger (and faster) hdd. As the reviews show, you will not exactly get the performance of SSD + HDD, but it will come close and you'll get a much bigger main drive.

For eyefinity with one card; at least one screen should have displayport capability (and the card you buy should have a dp out), as 3 screens require you to connect one of them to the dp output. You can get passive dp > vga adapters, or cheap dp > dvi adapters. Should you require >1900*1200 resolutions, you'd need an active adapter (on the screen you attach to dp, if it does not have a dp connection).
 
Airmantharp
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Sat May 21, 2011 2:12 pm

I'm not sure why you keep mentioning Eyefinity- you're not going to be stitching your monitors together, from the sound of your usage, you just want the outputs. If you're just using the outputs, then the 8600GT would be a fine secondary card to the GPU on the 2600, if you use a Z68 board. There's no need to get anything else, really. Intel's onboard video is top-notch outside of real gaming (I'm using one in my laptop right now, a 2630 I think, and it also games).
 
wibeasley
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Sat May 21, 2011 3:20 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
I'm not sure why you keep mentioning Eyefinity- you're not going to be stitching your monitors together, from the sound of your usage, you just want the outputs. If you're just using the outputs, then the 8600GT would be a fine secondary card to the GPU on the 2600, if you use a Z68 board.
You're right, I just want to have an IDE in my main monitor, and documentation and graphs and other stuff in the secondary monitors. Is this simpler than stitching? I'm getting confusing with the capabilities. Is this possible with a 8600GT + H67, or do I need a Z68 instead? If a Z68 is required, which board would you recommend for this? I'd like a second x16 slot, because there's a realistic chance I get back into gpgpu during the machine's lifetime.

ozymandias wrote:
Alternatively, you could use a z68 board, get a smaller SSD and a bigger (and faster) hdd.
Yeah, I probably shouldn't have dismissed that option so quickly. What hdd is substantially faster than the 7200 Spinpoint? I already bought the 128GB sdd; I currently have 120GB of OS & programs, and it's unlikely to shrink.
 
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Sat May 21, 2011 3:46 pm

If you're not overclocking then it is very difficult to recommend more than the bare minimum for a motherboard; if it doesn't work, you have issues, but overclocking and extra features are why we spend more than the minimum.

Since you already own a 128GB SSD, there's no reason to go any other way. Either HD will be fine, one's bigger and the other faster, and that's about it. You are going to have to ration what you put on the SSD and ensure that you don't use that space for something unnecessary, but you knew that going in, so unless you want to pony up for another, smaller SSD to use a cache, then just be careful with your space.

Z68 simply exposes the 2600s GPU. On a P67, that GPU doesn't exist (though it's still physically there of course). Since the Intel GPU can do up to two ~1080P outputs over digital quite well I don't really see the need for anything else, and since you're not intending to game across all three screens- at the same time, with the same game- I don't see the need for Eyefinity. Eyefinity 'stitches' all of your outputs into one large, single output, and then presents that to the operating system and to games. It works exceptionally well for games but isn't otherwise of much use.

So just get a Z68 board, use it's outputs for at least your primary monitor, then use your silent 8600GT for everything else and you will be golden.
 
insulin_junkie72
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Sat May 21, 2011 4:40 pm

wibeasley wrote:
You're right, I just want to have an IDE in my main monitor, and documentation and graphs and other stuff in the secondary monitors. Is this simpler than stitching? I'm getting confusing with the capabilities. Is this possible with a 8600GT + H67, or do I need a Z68 instead?


H67 will work.
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Airmantharp
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Sat May 21, 2011 5:07 pm

insulin_junkie72 wrote:
wibeasley wrote:
You're right, I just want to have an IDE in my main monitor, and documentation and graphs and other stuff in the secondary monitors. Is this simpler than stitching? I'm getting confusing with the capabilities. Is this possible with a 8600GT + H67, or do I need a Z68 instead?


H67 will work.


I was almost annoyed by your comment, but having had thought through it based on what I've read, I think you're right. I was thinking that Z68 does more for you concerning the IGPU, but that's only if you're doing something like Crossfire/Eyefinity and also trying to overclock; if your're using a locked 2600 and just need the display outputs, H67 will more than work, I think. My only verification would be to make sure that the onboard GPU wouldn't be disabled when a discrete GPU is plugged in but I don't think that will be the case either.
 
wibeasley
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 12:31 am

Airmantharp wrote:
My only verification would be to make sure that the onboard GPU wouldn't be disabled when a discrete GPU is plugged in but I don't think that will be the case either.
The salesman at Microcenter checked (with someone in the back) and reported that the H67 doesn't let you combine integrated and discrete GPUs; he said the Z68 does. Since he didn't have any Z68s to sell, I don't think they were lying (at least intentionally).

I've searched for two hours, and haven't found anything convincing either way. (Non-TR) forum posts are split, and reviews don't seem to cover this aspect. I've looked through manuals, and they rarely seem to address it. In fact, the only place I've seen it explicit in is a Z68 manual by ASRock (see "Surround Display Feature" on p.23).

Am I missing something obvious? I feel like playing it safe and getting a Z68, like this ASRock.

(And Newegg ran out of that discounted case.)
 
Airmantharp
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 1:02 am

wibeasley wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
My only verification would be to make sure that the onboard GPU wouldn't be disabled when a discrete GPU is plugged in but I don't think that will be the case either.
The salesman at Microcenter checked (with someone in the back) and reported that the H67 doesn't let you combine integrated and discrete GPUs; he said the Z68 does. Since he didn't have any Z68s to sell, I don't think they were lying (at least intentionally).

I've searched for two hours, and haven't found anything convincing either way. (Non-TR) forum posts are split, and reviews don't seem to cover this aspect. I've looked through manuals, and they rarely seem to address it. In fact, the only place I've seen it explicit in is a Z68 manual by ASRock (see "Surround Display Feature" on p.23).

Am I missing something obvious? I feel like playing it safe and getting a Z68, like this ASRock.

(And Newegg ran out of that discounted case.)


I wish I had a concrete answer for you, but at that price I wouldn't pass up that ASRock board. I really like my P67 Extreme4, and I'm hoping that a Z68 Extreme6 comes around (if not I'll grab an Extreme4) so that I can make use of the IGPU. I have a fourth and fifth monitor for it to power :). So at $115, go for it, and enjoy life.
 
insulin_junkie72
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 1:03 am

wibeasley wrote:
The salesman at Microcenter checked (with someone in the back) and reported that the H67 doesn't let you combine integrated and discrete GPUs; he said the Z68 does.


I've got an H67, and I've done it. I must have a magic board!

I better put that puppy on Ebay (or offer it to Apple for a large sum, since it's magical)! :lol:

EDIT: My ASRock board manual has the same thing about "Surround Display Feature", as well; I just checked).

My ASRock manual, page 19 wrote:
This motherboard supports surround display upgrade. With the internal VGA output support (DVD-D, D-Sub and HDMI) and external add-on PCI Express VGA cards, you can easily enjoy the benefits of surround display feature.
Last edited by insulin_junkie72 on Mon May 23, 2011 1:14 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Airmantharp
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 1:06 am

See, I was pretty sure it could be done, thanks!

Still, with the price of Z68 boards (it is the same frakking chipset, if you don't mind the BSG reference), it's hard to recommend otherwise.
 
wibeasley
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 1:22 am

insulin_junkie72 wrote:
I've got an H67, and I've done it. I must have a magic board!
That's pretty helpful. The manual for your board (p.23) has the exact same page as that Z68 linked above. But the only ASRock H67 with display currently costs more than the Z68 version. So that makes that comparison easy.

I wonder if the salesmen were completely wrong, or just that none of their stock of H67 boards could do use both GPUs. It would be weird if the ASRock boards could use both, but not the Asus boards, right?

Thanks both of you for the information and your help. I'll pull the trigger after I sleep on it.
 
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 2:23 am

Pretty sure retail people are clueless. At best, I hope they have a cursory understanding of the marketing materials, and I regularly confound them with my decisions :).
 
eperez
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 6:01 pm

For the record, I did not check with somebody else. I checked online for a definite answer, which I couldn't find either. Every forum I've checked is split just as Will said, I even found a post on this forum contradicts what you guys are saying (viewtopic.php?f=29&t=74986). We don’t carry ASRock, but considering someone actually has the scenario working on H67. I see no reason why it would not work on other boards.
 
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 6:18 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
Pretty sure retail people are clueless. At best, I hope they have a cursory understanding of the marketing materials, and I regularly confound them with my decisions :).


Yo Airmantharp, not all retail people are clueless. :roll: I certainly am not the type to be clueless, I graduated high school early and I've earned a few IT certs before I turned 18. I am currently a Comp. Eng. major, just working retail to get some spending money. Finding a part-time IT job that works with my schedule is near impossible right now, not to mention the economy is in the toilet. We also have a few soon-to-be CS major grads on my team, to say retail people are clueless is an inaccurate generalization (at least at my store). Try to get the same help from BBY or Fry’s, and your generalization would be probably right. MC hires based on knowledge and the ability to find solutions not just sales skills. Also, I'm interning at a huge networking company whose name rhymes with "crisco" during the summer, maybe you have heard of them. I wouldn’t think they want clueless people working for them.

Should of I known a definite answer? Yeah, but I'm not omniscient. Did I try to get an answer that would work for Will's situation? I did my best with what I could find. Did I lie to him so he could buy more stuff? Nope. Do I have a load of cash to try different setups? I wish.

BTW, the marketing material is useless as it really doesn’t drill down into the technicals of the chipsets.
 
Airmantharp
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 6:40 pm

I did a year at CompUSA (over 10 years ago), so I know what you mean, but we are by far the exception. If you intend to make an informed decision, do not rely on a retail salesman to inform you, do your own research.
 
wibeasley
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 8:52 pm

Hey E, welcome to TR. Responding to this thread certainly goes beyond the expected customer service.
eperez wrote:
I certainly am not the type to be clueless, I graduated high school early and I've earned a few IT certs... Should of I known a definite answer? Yeah, but I'm not omniscient. Did I try to get an answer that would work for Will's situation? I did my best with what I could find. Did I lie to him so he could buy more stuff? Nope. Do I have a load of cash to try different setups? I wish.
I didn't realize any MicroCenter people would be reading this, but since apparently some are, I want to state that I was very happy with the visit and your knowledge and advice (and you were pretty tolerant of my daughter's energy too). This H67 integrated-discrete combination seems to be a obscure and tricky issue that's stumped a lot of people who had a lot more time to research it than we had in the store. And as I said in the online survey, I'd much rather be underpromised than overpromised about the H67's capabilities.
eperez wrote:
BTW, the marketing material is useless as it really doesn’t drill down into the technicals of the chipsets.
Yea, the stuff I searched through on company websites didn't help with this.
eperez wrote:
We don’t carry ASRock, but considering someone actually has the scenario working on H67. I see no reason why it would not work on other boards.
I don't know what to think. I looked through the manuals for several companies' boards, especially Asus. I never saw something that addressed the issue clearly. Some bios options had "iGPU" and "dGPU" in their names, but the one sentence description didn't make things clearer, and I couldn't find any longer explanations.

There's so much hyper over stupid features, that I'd be surprised if those boards had the capabilities, but just didn't document it. But maybe this issue is obscure enough that it doesn't justify the space.

And now that the Z68 does it and is priced comparably, I'm not sure the H67 issue matters. You weren't pushy about the case even though you knew I had my heart set on a model you didn't carry. So (even if we had had perfect knowledge ofthe H67) I wouldn't have been surprised if you still encouraged me to buy the Z68 board somewhere else since MC was waiting for a new shipment. I think the purchasing outcome would have been the same.
 
Airmantharp
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 9:19 pm

Well, I bit the bullet and did my exchange stuff with Newegg for the P67 -> Z68 ASRock Extreme4. Should have my Z68 board by Thursday, and I'll be able to confirm/deny the following:

That I can put two DVI displays and one DisplayPort display on my primary HD6950 2GB, while running two monitors off of the Z68's DVI and HDMI outputs each. I'll be putting the three monitors on the HD6850 2GB into an Eyefinity group for gaming, and using the other two monitors for 'monitoring,' such as CPU-Z, GPU-Z per GPU, Speedfan, Taskmon, and Prime95 and Furmark while load testing.

The fourth and fifth monitors will also be serving as primary and secondary for my server, and the larger one will serve as secondary for my laptop. I will take pictures! (I have so many that need a workstation to process...)
 
JustAnEngineer
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 11:03 pm

You know that you could put a Multi-Stream hub on the DisplayPort 1.2 output of your graphics card and drive up to 4 DisplayPort monitors from that single output, don't you?
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wibeasley
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Mon May 23, 2011 11:51 pm

Sounds like I should have waited a week to get the urge to build again, Airman. The report & pictures from your build would have saved a lot of wasted time seraching other forums and documentation.
JustAnEngineer wrote:
You know that you could put a Multi-Stream hub on the DisplayPort 1.2 output of your graphics card and drive up to 4 DisplayPort monitors from that single output, don't you?
If you're talking to me, I knew something like that was possible, but I've never had more than one DisplayPort monitor, so I haven't paid attention to the specifics.
 
Airmantharp
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Tue May 24, 2011 6:16 am

JustAnEngineer wrote:
You know that you could put a Multi-Stream hub on the DisplayPort 1.2 output of your graphics card and drive up to 4 DisplayPort monitors from that single output, don't you?


You know that I have only one DisplayPort capable monitor, and that your idea would necessitate the purchase of active adaptors that cost what the monitors are now worth to begin with, don't you?

:) Having the actual digitial outputs is far and above easier, now that Z68 allows SB to work the way it should work.
 
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Thu May 26, 2011 12:24 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
Well, I bit the bullet and did my exchange stuff with Newegg for the P67 -> Z68 ASRock Extreme4. Should have my Z68 board by Thursday, and I'll be able to confirm/deny the following:



Hey, while you're messing around with the setup, do you mind letting me know how low the DRAM voltage will go on that board? Do you remember how low the P67 board went?

I'm looking to hit 1.25v if I can, of course. But not all motherboards support going that low, from what I've been able to tell.
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Airmantharp
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Thu May 26, 2011 9:51 pm

gbcrush wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
Well, I bit the bullet and did my exchange stuff with Newegg for the P67 -> Z68 ASRock Extreme4. Should have my Z68 board by Thursday, and I'll be able to confirm/deny the following:



Hey, while you're messing around with the setup, do you mind letting me know how low the DRAM voltage will go on that board? Do you remember how low the P67 board went?

I'm looking to hit 1.25v if I can, of course. But not all motherboards support going that low, from what I've been able to tell.


I may look at them both tomorrow if I get the chance. I've had a long two weeks...
 
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Fri May 27, 2011 12:28 am

I'm not going to tow-the-line here. You're aware of this website and as such you should be aware of how over-clocker friendly these chips are and it'd be pretty stupid for the informed not to simply not change a single number in the bios to gain a huge performance boost. There is no way to justify saving a handful of dollars when you can easily and simply double the hardwares performance.
 
wibeasley
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Fri May 27, 2011 12:49 am

zzz wrote:
I'm not going to tow-the-line here. You're aware of this website and as such you should be aware of how over-clocker friendly these chips are and it'd be pretty stupid for the informed not to simply not change a single number in the bios to gain a huge performance boost. There is no way to justify saving a handful of dollars when you can easily and simply double the hardwares performance.
Is this rage because I bought a CPU with a locked multiplier? That choice wasn't motivated by $15. I use the machine for modeling and simulations. I don't want any of my results to be questioned by a reviewer that's concerned that I used unstable, overclocked systems. There would actually be a little value in having a machine that can't be overclocked at all. But it's fine with me if you make a different purchase.

And considering I'm having trouble running MemTest on it tonight, any threats to stability are even less appreciated than they were this afternoon.
 
wibeasley
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Fri May 27, 2011 9:11 am

I'm having real trouble with running ram tests. I have an ASRock Z68 (the manual is here) and two sticks of Corsair DDR3-1600, 9-9-9-24, 1.65V

I've tried
-single and double sticks in the different DIMM slots
-1.65V and the auto DRAM voltage
-the most recent BIOS version

I've tried three MemTest+ versions, including the one that comes with Ubuntu 11.04. I've tried the diagnostic that comes with Win7 SP1 (and then with the version with Win7 SP0). The MemTest doesn't even fully load its screen. The extended Windows test fails in a variety of ways (which I can describe if someone thinks it's relevant). I used USB and CD versions of MemTest, and CD and HDD versions of the Windows test.

I don't understand how MemTest is failing before it loads, but I can still boot and run Win7 from an SSD without a problem (it was installed using a P45 build). The standard Windows test passes fine, but the extended test fails at the same spot (21%), regardless of which stick(s) are used. This predictability makes me wonder if it's due to a configuration mistake (as opposed to bad RAM).

Any ideas what's wrong? I don't feel I'm quite as stupid as zzz claims, but it's likely I'm neglecting some configuration detail. I'd like suggestions if you have them.
 
Airmantharp
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Re: H67 and 2600 Build

Fri May 27, 2011 9:29 am

While more RAM voltage is usually recommended as an initial memory troubleshooting tool, you're already at the max with those sticks (that Intel recommends). Try less voltage to the RAM, and possibly more voltage to the CPU, without straying more than 10% from stock in either direction. You're looking for changes in behavior, not necessarily fixes, in order to identify which part may be on the edge.

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