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[Finaldeath]

Okay, so got my new PC and its parts setup - using the release candidate of Windows 7 right now to test things. Good and bad points abound, forewarning to all etc. etc:

- SSD drives are good, especially random access times (ie; in the 0.2 ms range, 125MB/s burst speed), HDTune says an average of 160MB/sec read, and write in it's standard test. However the onboard Intel RAID (which basically every i5 chipset has) is crap with it - it made it disasteriously slower using RAID 0, and I'm not going to bugger around reinstalling 10 times testing variations to find out what the issue there is.

Pleasing results at least.

- i5 is fast. Good stuff. Nice with RAM being made a bit faster too.

- Windows 7 boots fast, which is great. 64 bit means driver signing which isn't so great. Still has a terrible firewall too (will be installing an alternative to stop some outgoing stuff). GUI is more responsive, if the graphics drivers don't crash. Improvement on vista in the control panel department too. Insane OS install size though - 10GB for the Windows folder, which I am sure I can whittle down (it appears a lot are drivers...hmm). Some weird decisions

- I hate monitors now. EDID - the thing that gets sent through the cable and is seemingly NECESSARY for stupid Windows 7 to recognise the monitors resolutions, is broken on one of my 22" monitors (XP btw doesn't notice the problem). Trying to re-update the damn thing simply doesn't do anything. If anyone has specalised knowledge here it'd be helpful, else it looks like I'll try a VGA cable next to force it to do more then 640x480.

- Finally: ATI drivers suck.

Wait, let me go into more detail here, and I'll be damned if I buy an ATI card again.

Yes, beta drivers, yes, beta OS, however I'm confused as to why it can't cope running Dawn of War II which chugs out a nice average 50 to 60 frames a second, but randomly "Graphics driver has timed out" on me, and eventually blue screens.

This is with, and without, any overclocking too. Simply playing the game for about 20 to 30 minutes causes it to do it a few times (while the game is running) then blue screen.

I can't check temperatures while it's running (note: no second monitor, see above) however the fan sounds okay. Memtest returns only 1 error after a ton of passes, which I call fluke on, and the CPU overclocked or no never goes to terrible temperatures (60-65 I think? using OCCT for some brief 1 hour tests...need to do more of this).

Anyone using vista might have come across this. Tips welcome since I brought the damn thing and don't want it to constantly crash!

Also annoyingly the ATI "Scale resolution in the drivers" option is disabled, and I can't find a way to enable it (which I'll use for square games), and the ATI drivers has a utterly shit control panel, and the ATI drivers do not let you set per-game options, and the ATI drivers want to kill me in my bed while I sleep, and the ATI drivers don't uninstall properly, and the ATI drivers


Finally, I've just reinstalled (to check the SDD's without RAID as above) and so reinstall + minor OC to begin with + reinstall drivers from scratch might well solve the blue screen issue. Or might not...hmmm...

I'll get pictures of stuff at some point. I need to do some more testing (thus my lack of playing TF2). Curse you ATI!

[Chaos]

- Finally: ATI drivers suck.
Yes, beta drivers, yes, beta OS, however I'm confused as to why it can't cope running Dawn of War II which chugs out a nice average 50 to 60 frames a second, but randomly "Graphics driver has timed out" on me, and eventually blue screens.

This is with, and without, any overclocking too. Simply playing the game for about 20 to 30 minutes causes it to do it a few times (while the game is running) then blue screen.

I can't check temperatures while it's running (note: no second monitor, see above) however the fan sounds okay. Memtest returns only 1 error after a ton of passes, which I call fluke on, and the CPU overclocked or no never goes to terrible temperatures (60-65 I think? using OCCT for some brief 1 hour tests...need to do more of this).

lol.. well you said it yourself.. BETA OS and BETA Drivers... the ATI crash is a known bug.. has been happening to everyone in the RC.. but has been fixed with the actual release OS yay!
and you can check the temps of your gpu. use GPU-z and log the data to a file.. if you BSOD, check the last temp and tada

[Zarf]

for the SSD RAID, did you go and download the Intel drivers from their web site? Otherwise it'll just use the crappy default microsoft built ones

[Magathery]

Applaud to Final for write up.

[Power]

I also use Ati Drivers and Win7 RC, additionally it's a x2 card, so there also also the crossfire issues involved. I too had some occasional lockups (never bluescreen though), but it doesn't appear to be as bad as you have it, Final.

I'll have to say, I never had a problem with the driver or the card when I had the 9800pro back in the days, it's not that bad, probably just beta sickness.

But the Ati Control Center is indeed enraging and by some miracle, they managed to get it even worse with one of the last versions.

[egg]

The monitor resolution is probably down to your graphics card beta drivers.

Download and run the certified vista drivers for it, remembering to opt out of the ati control panel shit.

The timeouts is due to drivers also.  Ihave this with my nvidia card in vista... (its very common issue in vista http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Display+Driver+atikmdag+and+nvlddmkm+Stopped+Responding&meta=&aq=null&oq=ati+graphics+driver+stopped+responding)

Mine under Win7RC is fine though....

[Finaldeath]

for the SSD RAID, did you go and download the Intel drivers from their web site? Otherwise it'll just use the crappy default microsoft built ones

I've used the drivers on the ASRock website which should have done it correctly (and yes, I inserted a penstick and chose the right driver even though the MS drivers did detect it).

Any link to the better drivers? I'll be reinstalling tomorrow or the weekend at this rate and will try it HD Tune is pretty good at checking this in a matter of minutes.

One oddity in any case is that Windows 7 does do a minor bit of SSD detection (apart from turning off the disk defrag - it's on the MS website if you search), which you can't find any options for otherwise, which is a bit annoying.

lol.. well you said it yourself.. BETA OS and BETA Drivers... the ATI crash is a known bug.. has been happening to everyone in the RC.. but has been fixed with the actual release OS yay!

I'll believe it when I try it, since they should be releasing the new drivers today right? At least it's easy to reproduce.

The ATI forum post on the problem is crap btw, but for anyone who doesn't know what I'm referring to it's listed there in full gory detail - ie; gory as the fact your entire OS will bluescreen.

and you can check the temps of your gpu. use GPU-z and log the data to a file.. if you BSOD, check the last temp and tada

GPU-Z, hmm, thought I tried that, must have forgot (or used an older non-beta version that didn't support 5800's) - thanks for the tip, it appears it supports 5800 series now too (if only in beta). I'd be surprised if it was overheating though.

The monitor thing, for more info so you realise I do know it is this, here:

What it is
Blog post about how to run through some tools which I've tried (and PowerStrip sadly failed to be able to do it)

The reason why I know it's EDID is that I have 2 duplicate monitors - both exactly the same model, brought at the same time, and PowerStrip can read the EDID off one but not the other.

However, yes, the ATI drivers don't help for being utterly buggered in regards to actually changing any advanced settings. nVidia appears to have workaround registry editing you could use to force "Don't use EDID you idiot".

I spent several hours last night battling with it - however, no success, but I have a few things left to try - the ATI Tray Tools (might) let me add custom resolutions or force EDID off (or messing with the services ATI runs...urg), which should work fine, and there are a few tools left to try, including messing around with PowerStrip more...and some real hacking might fix it.

Edit: Found this too, which I'll try.

I'll also be checking my overclocking, this will go in another thread, once I've done it and properly done Prime95 overnight sometime.

[Zarf]

OCCT is pretty awesome, you can stress test your components whilst monitoring and logging temps, power etc.
http://www.ocbase.com/perestroika_en/index.php?Download

[Finaldeath]

Got that Zarf, does work well going to use it some more (only was using it on the RC, forgot about using it now).

Okay, update time:

- Monitor now works with me fiddling around more with the EDID upload and the tool finally worked. At least I didn't have to send it for warranty repair. Still sucks how Win7 can't override it, stupidly.
- SSD's are setup just as separate drives (using AHCI), simply put I'm getting the speeds now, I can run the wiping tools properly, and I've updated the firmware too. Putting them in RAID at this time is just going to be more hassle then it's worth.

However, I have not solved the TDR errors. I'm posting this on my XP box with the card now installed in it - obviously the card isn't used at all on the desktop so I've got to run games/testing things (this directX 11 benchmark will be a good one to test on both my systems). Wish me luck - I'm not sure what will be better, it crashing my system (thus it IS the card) or it not (in which case it is the drivers on Win7, or another part of the system, gah).

Still bemusing and I've logged a call with XFX. If it is the card, I'll need to get it replaced under warranty - via. Overclockers or them I'd guess. If it isn't the card, next stop is pulling out the RAM and re-inserting it piece by precious piece. Sigh.

Oh, and WinXP mode is a pretty neat download to get a VirtualPC instance of it. I'm going to test out just running programs on it (I think it can be run "as if it was a proper program" and appear as such) since there is bound to be a few things that I need that only runs on XP. Only shame is of course no 3d acceleration.

[Zarf]

Shame you couldn't get RAID going, still they should be bloody fast anyway. Might have been an issue with hdtune which is a little long in the tooth nowadays. This is a much better benchmark for SSD's - http://alex-is.de/PHP/fusion/downloads.php?cat_id=4 - you can change the language to english.

Good luck with the card test!

If you want 3d acceleration for virtualised apps, you can use Suns Virtualbox, Its open source and can do the seamless integration thing.

[Finaldeath]

I'll give RAID a try next time I reinstall. I didn't just try HDTune, it was the same in some other testers although I'll give that one a shot too now

Appears it might be the RAM...perhaps...but only bizarrely so since I had run Memtest (both overclocked and not) on the entire 8GB for several passes with no errors next week.

So, has anyone had Memtest totally STOP I mean - the red + is flashing, but the WallTime stops and the tests just...stop? Any ideas what that means?

Been trying with each set of RAM and both does this (no errors mind you, sometimes it even makes 1 pass). Now doing individual sticks...one running now for an hour with 3 passes, so might be able to find something more conclusive (I'd also better keep restarting it with a reboot now and again to simulate what I've been doing previously).

Worrying since it might be the motherboard, very hard to tell, and the only issue seems to be the graphics drivers crashing which I must say is totally bizarre.

[Zarf]

That is sounding suspiciously like a motherboard issue, would make sense since you've got graphics and storage subsystem issues.

PITA to diagnose, hopefully you bought from a company with a decent Returns service who'll take your word on the issues and replace.

[Chaos]

Id have to agree with Zarf there.. sounds like you're having chipset issues

[Finaldeath]

Hell it seems like it. RAM testing in various slots and combos always pauses at random times - maybe an hour in after a few passes, maybe 5 minutes...can't be 4 faulty sticks of RAM!

ASRock should be okay, or I can complain to the people I brought it from (scan in this case), since I got it less then 30 days ago. Bloody annoying, it's a decent board all said apart from this issue.

I still dislike the ATI drivers, nothing will sway me from that though I still am battling with the drivers in any case, if they crash or not!