the new chip....sloooow?

[daz_uk]

Lol, it's my own fault for not looking deeper online before i spent hours and hours playing with hardware and software but thanks for the reply - very helpful.

I have recieved the 1gb of 3200 Crucial stuff today (which WAS for me to use) and I will put it in my brotehrs rig instead (if its compatible!). the part number is : CT6464Z40B which is listed as ok i think but because i want to run it dual channel i dunno what success i'll have.
I'll let u know.

I I recieved my Sapphire Radeon 9800xt today too, so that'll be nice to test!
I'll post my benches later.

Cheers

I am sorry I did not get here sooner, the first thing I thought as soon as I started reading was the K7N2 Delta mem compatibility problem.
I, like you, had atleast one all nighter trying to root out the problem until i finally came ot the Nvidia compatibility chart.
The stick I had were corsair and they would only boot 40% of the time.
Anyway, I replaced them with 2 sticks of Samsung original 512 PC2700, which was on the compatibility list, and no probs, i have now replaced those with 2 sticks of 512Mb Twinmoss w/winbond PC3200, which is on the compatibility list, and no probs.
I have just built a second system for a friend with the K7N2G-L (i actually have the K7N2-ILSR my self) and used 2 sticks of crucial 256 PC2700, works fine, even though no crucial ram appear to have been tested for the compatibility list.

I did find these crucial sticks on the MSI forum's patched togethor list of approved mem modules that work though, it is very useful, see here:

http://forum.msi.com.tw/thread.php?threadid=14555&sid=


I am actually running an Xp2500+ Barton running at 2.2Ghz, identified as an XP 3200+, with the K7N2 Delta - ILSR, and the 2 sticks of 512mb PC3200 Twinmoss with winbond chips (Dual channel)
Very similar to your system, so it should be ok with the right Ram.
Good luck with it , i would only recommend approved Ram though ! The MSI forums ram list is a good enough reference though, as the nvidia compatibility list is very limited.

[daz_uk]

Ok, Update time.
I tried the 2x512mb 3200 Crucial RAM in my brothers K7N2-L Delta and it DID NOT work in Dual Channel mode, it seems the double sided 512mb DIMMS (3200) cause the most incompatability problems with the Nforce2 Chipset.
Anyway, I tried them in Single channel and they DO WORK - tested overnight up to
3159% and its rock steady and doesn;t seem much slower anyway (what is the percentage performance drop from not using Dual Channel you think?) but because this has gone on so long my brother said thats fine. I'm mad though that I had to dig around so much in the first place to find out that 3200 ram is not exactly compatible with Nforce2.
I managed to source some TwinMOS on Winbond -CH5 stuff that I know works for £61 inc.vat each 512 DIMM, but my bro says its ok - just stick with the 1gb of crucial in single channel, so subject to the memtest continoulsy passing, thats ok.
Now for the original 1gb of TwinMOS on TwinMOS, well seeing as the crucial was gonna be mine but its no my brothers, I tried the Twinmos in mine again...but not running at its stated 200. I run it in sync with my 2700+ which I have at 175fsb. So I am underclocking the RAM (which doesnt work on my board at 200 anyway - but even if it did it would be running asynchronously with my 333 inherent processor).
with my proc AND my RAM at 175fsb it is 100% stable (so far!). SO at least I won;t have to RMA it to ebuyer (already got like 3 items on my brothers credit card waiting for RMA's!!!).

Ok, now issue number 2! After all the above, I put my new shiny Sapphire Radeon 9800XT 256mb in my machine. I removed Nvidia drivers first, then I used detonator_RIP to remove traces, rebooted then installed latest 4.2 cats for the ATI...no problems! AS soon as it was on, I engaged the aut overclock malarky and it upped it from 418 (standard) up to 430 (ahemm) running at 69 - 71 degrees (is that normal?). Now i knew about Rage3d Tweak and Redline overclock thingy but I wanted to just run with this for now. I ran a few bencmarks and to be honest on 3dmark2003 I got up to 6309 marks which is ok for a 'untweaked' system I guess (Was getting about 5800 - 6000 on my old setting with the a350 GeforceFX 5900 Ultra).
Anyway, Aquamark was weird 'cos in some sections the frame-rate was noticeably lower but in other places was noticeably higher than ther Geforce FX. The end result was 41,000 which is about same as it was with the Geforce, except with my old setup of 2700+@2281mhz, 2x256mb Kingston Value Ram @ 6-2-2-2, GeforceFX 5900 Ultra @ 485/905 was around 43,000 tweaked as best as I could. SO maybe I can exceed that but with this Twinmos @ 175 on 8-3-3-2.5 (more relaxed timings as its more finicky!) and the Radeon not overclocked much , it was about the same.

Ok, issue number 3!!!
After all the above, I loaded up Deus-Ex2 which on the GeForceFX5900 Uktra with the system above ran a bit....poo really. Well when I say poo i mean it was not silky smooth as I wished, so when I put the Radeon on....well what can I say - the DX9 optimizations show through as it runs considerably better untweaked then my Geforce and system did tweaked!
Then I loaded Halo........hmmmmm. on ,loading up my sound was popping a bit (using AC'97 onboard sound with latest Nforce Audio driver) and when I loaded the game, it stuttered and the sound was popping quite a lot and stuttering the audio and video simultaneously...hmmmmm. I immediatly thought it was either my sound drivers or my new video drivers.... So i stopped all apps and removed any suspect stuff or redundant stuff hanging around, then I made sure I had lates audio drivers etc and re-tried. It was still the same. I tried reducing my machine to stock - no difference. So i upped it again and tried another game. Max Payne 2 in 6x antriscopic at 1280x1024 max details etc. it ran great (GREAT!) but there was the poping and stuttering again - but very mild compared to Halo and less frequent but it WAS there. GRRRRR!
Ok, so it was now like 3am and i'd had about 8 hours sleep in 3 days plus working all day (ok, so its as a games designer but its still hard work!!!), so im tired at this point - so I try the Realtek driver instead of the Nvidia one, no difference. Then i reinmstall the audio on Nvidia driver and run Halo again....hmmmm....it is BETTER but not perfect by any means.
At this small improvementI call it a day (4:30am) and go to bed. I'm now in work, i've had 2 pro-plus and a coffee - LOL - and im striggling with my eyes but had to update.
If you have any suggestions about my system stuttering etc then let me know lads!

Cheers!

DaZ