http://www.driverheaven.net/ A haven for all you hardware Gurus who want to push it all to the MAX. en Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:22:31 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.driverheaven.net/styles/razer_november/misc/rss.jpg http://www.driverheaven.net/ http://www.driverheaven.net/overclocking-modding/192431-floored-volts-my-nb-1-85v.html Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:59:01 GMT well....... in my quest for the most performance outta my system....... i successfully floored the volts of my NB on the Asus Maximus Formula to the... well....... in my quest for the most performance outta my system....... i successfully floored the volts of my NB on the Asus Maximus Formula to the max setting of 1.85v....... i have been able to finally boot into windows with my CPU at 3.8GHz+

im really expecting this thing to explode now but my NB temps are actually really low! (40C) probably because i have a high CFM fan going on top of it...... even feeling the heatsink is barely warm to the touch

now...... for my question.... who thinks im crazy? and why? :p

also, for the more experienced OCers, are there any other risks other than overheating that i have to be wary of with volts this high? :D ]]> Overclocking and Modding kris23 http://www.driverheaven.net/overclocking-modding/192431-floored-volts-my-nb-1-85v.html http://www.driverheaven.net/overclocking-modding/192410-coolermaster-v10-failed-less-then-8-months.html Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:59:28 GMT So as some may know or have noticed, back when AMD and DH sent me out the Excellent Dragon Platform AMD expert kit to fool with, i went with what... So as some may know or have noticed, back when AMD and DH sent me out the Excellent Dragon Platform AMD expert kit to fool with, i went with what appeared to be a pretty over the top CPU cooler for the system, with my plan to hit 4ghz+ on it with very low temps.

Well while i was never able to hit a stable overclock OVER 4ghz let alone over 3.75ghz, my temperatures seemed to be VERY low reguardless of the insane amount of voltage i pumped to the cpu (breaking 1.65v and not climbing above 54*C under load).

The coolermaster V10 seemed to be running exceptionally well i thought..

However over the last 4 months, i'ved noticed some strange vibrations that seemed to be orginating from the cooler, chcking it over things seem to be well, Audiable noises picked up, temperatures remained still great...

Now within the last month, Asus's fan detection is picking up a fan failure on bootup, the fans for no apparent (and without really being noticeable) have completely failed to fire up and spin. Luckily with the combination of the number of ironically coolermaster fans that are in the case (and to NOTE, have never given a hint of an issue for the long running life of a number of years since the coolermaster cosmos 1000 FIRST came out).

I'm not sure if the TEC is doing it's job, but the heatsink is basically acting as passive right now, as i type, i'm on this very macine writing this up with utterly no cpu fans working, the cpu temperature running stock voltage/cpu speed and so forth is registering @ 27.4*C

So while i'm not so impressed that BOTH of the fans inside the v10 have failed, i am however pleased with the passive capabilities of the heatsink.

Noisiest thing in the machine is the ATI HD5770/Nvidia 9600GT at the moment. the 5 other 120mm fans are whisper quiet running about 1800 rpm.

My plan is to when things get moving along a lot more here, i'm going to finally take big rig back down to the shop, strip it down, yank the cpu heatsink off and pull the corsair 1000HX PSU out that is also "faulty" and get them RMAed ASAP...

Figured i'd post this for interests sake. ]]> Overclocking and Modding Judas http://www.driverheaven.net/overclocking-modding/192410-coolermaster-v10-failed-less-then-8-months.html http://www.driverheaven.net/overclocking-modding/192156-e5200-oc.html Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:57:53 GMT Just got an E5200 real cheap.

I'm overclocking with a G31M-ES2L and it's great :D

CPU-Z Validator 3.1

3,75 GHz stable 8)


Do you guys also have a budget CPU that clocks great?




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I just want some more activity over here :P ]]> Overclocking and Modding Bolletje http://www.driverheaven.net/overclocking-modding/192156-e5200-oc.html http://www.driverheaven.net/overclocking-modding/191708-rv02-review.html Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:22:08 GMT I decided that as I recently got a Raven RV02 I'd share my experience with you, as it's been so highly recommended.
The box is freaking huge. There is not really another way to describe it; it's freaking huge. Lots of padding, perhaps? Nope, I opened it up, tipped it upside down to get the contents out and it must've been 3" shorter than the box. Did I mention that it was freaking huge? There was a bits box as well but that was indented in the polystyrene so that didn't actually add to the size...
I popped off the top, all eager-like and unscrewed the front side panel which, was, actually, on the other side. Never mind, it doesn't affect the situation of the PC anyway. I took my time looking over it, assessing how I'd try and put everything in and wondering how I was going to put 4 hard drives in a 3 hard drive caddy. The adapters, I could use an adapter! Problem solved. Little did I know that I'd have more to face.
I disconnected my PC and popped open both sides of the case and took off the front (Coolermaster Mystique by the way) and gaped in horror as I'd actually had to take everything out.
I dreaded doing anything major to my PC - the cables were a git to get situated the way I had them and I could never be bothered to take the motherboard the whole way out to do anything with it. You should've seen it when I replaced the CPU fan... Don't get me started on the SATA cables - the ports were about 1" away from the case because some bright spark in ASUS decided that it was a great idea to put the SATA ports facing the side of the case where you'd have the least room.
Right, onto disassembly. I popped out all of the hard drivers. They were the easiest to do so they came first. The graphics card, sound card and wireless card were next (I'm still not sure why I still have a wireless card but it may still come in handy - I used to be in range of a wireless router then we moved it into another room).
I breathed in deeply - "I will be brave" - (breathed out) then began work on disconnecting all of the power cables and LCD from the motherboard. Without stopping to think of how PO'ed I would be if I had to re-do it all, I unscrewed the motherboard, popped off the front panel, lifted the motherboard out of the case, realised I still had the SATA cables all plugged in then took those out too. Crap, hadn't actually thought this far ahead - the case isn't actually ready to have the motherboard screwed in yet. Luckily, I have a wooden floor so I put the motherboard upside down on the floor (the other components were on the floor anyway as you wouldn't stand a chance in hell of getting anything on my desk). I disconnected all of the modular cables that I could then took the PSU out. My case hadn't looked so bare in ages.
I screwed in the motherboard, got to the fourth screw then realised that there were less risers than I had initially believed. So, be wary of this as Silverstone has only fitted half of the screws! I then proceeded to fit the sound card. However, when I lined up the soundcard to the screw hole it didn’t reach the PCI-E slot. Come on guys, rather than creating a case that works for the majority, make an RV02 that’s specifically designed for the ASUS Maximus Formula so that I don’t have to bend the bracket slightly to get the sound card able to plug into the motherboard as well as screw it in. I had fun trying to get it to fit in though because a couple of times I came close without bending the bracket, the wireless card popped out. Eventually I got them both screwed in, along with the graphics card. The graphics card didn’t line up with the case but that’s because the bracket was too far away from the screw hole. After a bit of jiggering about I managed to get the bottom part of the bracket screwed in. That was all mildly annoying.
I looked down at the SATA ports on the motherboard after I had fitted it and thought “freaking heck, there’s room!” – there was actually room for me to plug SATA cables into the motherboard without having to struggle with it for half an hour. That was most impressive.
The power supply was next, which was pretty easy to fit. I screwed it into the case (only three of the four holes were visible, though?) and stood the case upright – it was ready to have the other parts plugged in. Note that the power supply holes are designed to make PSUs fully-reversible so that you can face downwards-pointing fans to the rear of the case. I got the hard drives ready, looked at the caddy and I realised – “how the heck am I supposed to get the hard drives in and out of there without removing the motherboard again?” Getting the hard drives into the caddy was going to be the easy part, getting them screwed in would not be so easy. So, I started inserting them into the case. After the first one went in it dawned on me; I had read on one of the reviews online that you could remove the front plates of the case to gain access to the hard drive caddy. Out they came, one by one and the metal brackets that came with it. People that have said there is no sharp metal in the case didn’t take into consideration that the metal that you have to remove for the front of the case does become sharp if when you snap it off! I didn’t scratch myself but it’s something that these reviewers need to take into consideration; someone could get a minor injury from something like that.
I got the caddy out of the case after losing one of the thumb screws to the deep oblivion that is the bottom of the case (do you know how hard it is to get a screw out of the bottom of the case once it’s fallen in? With most cases it’s easy but this case has three dirty great huge fans in the way) and screwed in the hard drives. It was quite odd screwing in hard drives because the last two cases I had used screw-less hard drive clips. Thinking about it, though, the RV02 uses rubber, which may benefit the vibrations of the hard drive whilst it’s in use but I’m not sure; I would’ve assumed that a hard drive that doesn’t move at all would be more beneficial. They went in and I placed them back slightly for that extra little bit of room. There was only about huge gap between the hard drives and the graphics card so I thought it could benefit from a few more millimetres.
The other hard drive on its tod was next in line; I attached the adapter (after looking up to see which parts they were) to the hard drive - more screws - and slid that in from the front just above the other hard drives after removing another front panel. That screwed in to the case (I'm seeing a lot of screws here) quite happily. I suddenly realised; the SATA power cables I have only have three points per cable - three for the hard drives, three would be for the two optical drives plus the other hard drive and there wasn't enough slack between each point to plug in the other hard drive from where I put it. Bugger. Off came the next front panel and the hard drive swapped places, after losing one of the screws to the oblivion that was the bottom of the case.
The two optical drives had to go in next. That was pretty easy; pop off the front panels, slide them in, use the SCREW-LESS clips and that was it. It was so good this paragraph was only two lines.
At the very top went the card reader/fan controller. Little did I know the fun was yet to begin. After much, much fiddling I got the three thermometers, three fan controlling cables, power cable and data cable stuck down the back of the case: data cable plugged into the "front" USB port on the motherboard, one thermometer & fan controlling cable to each bottom fan and the power cable leading down at the back of the case. These all hid rather well thanks to the conveniently-positioned malleable parts at the back of the case; one bent bit of metal and all of the cables are hidden. These were later tidied up away from the holes using the re-usable cable ties with the strategically-positioned tie slot things.
The SATA cables all plugged in quite effortlessly thanks to the gaping huge space between the motherboard and fans, all tucked nicely down the back of the case and most of the power cables went in through the back hole, round the back and into their corresponding components. Not the drive cables though, they were all too short to go round the back of the case and had to go along the bottom instead. It was surprising as the cables don't look short.
To cut a long story short (wait, what?), the case was ready at this point; everything was plugged in and ready to go. I fired it up... to not a lot. After some trial-and-error I found it was my DVD-ROM drive at fault and that stayed unplugged (probably a faulty SATA cable - haven't tried getting it working as yet) and after a lot of buggering about, unplugging and plugging in, unscrewing and re-screwing I decided to omit the fan controlling aspect of the memory card reader - it didn't work properly with the fans (kept saying that the fan speed was flickering between around 450 RPM and 780-800RPM, even though my motherboard reported stable speeds around 1000RPM) and the alarm was bugging the heck out of me, even though it was set to alarm at the lowest setting, 500RPM.
It took me practically the whole evening to get my PC back up and running because I also had to keep assisting my mum with her Windows 7 install. Add that to the cable tidying it took a good few hours.
I am pleased with the case; it gives lots of room, I can push it a lot closer to my wall and everything's conveniently at the top of the case, pretty level with my chair (the case is under my desk on the floor). However, the light is a lot brighter than people say and there is no visible hard drive activity LED, even though there's a cable for it. ]]> Overclocking and Modding Takaharu http://www.driverheaven.net/overclocking-modding/191708-rv02-review.html http://www.driverheaven.net/overclocking-modding/191362-920-i7-overclocking.html Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:13:33 GMT Id love to hear from anyone on DH who has pushed their 920 i7. How far have you managed to get it. what voltage, cooling, temperatures? Id love to hear from anyone on DH who has pushed their 920 i7. How far have you managed to get it. what voltage, cooling, temperatures? ]]> Overclocking and Modding Zardon http://www.driverheaven.net/overclocking-modding/191362-920-i7-overclocking.html