Memory, PSU, Sound Card the works, some advice welcome

stakey

Hi folks,

First time post, long time reader. Okay, i build a machine in January with the following specs

1.8 ghz AMD Barton
80GB HD
PowerColour ATI Radeion 9600 XT 128 MB
ASUS A7N8X-X Motherboard
512 (2x256) MB 3200 DDR RAM Running at 400 MHZ



Now all is well, the system is stable and running grand except for two things.

1) the machine tells me at boot that the memory is running at 200mhz and not the 400mhz its meant to be running at. Now this means that perhaps its running at 200 mhz per chip and so the memory is running dual channel with the speed shared or the memory is running in single channel mode with at 200 mhz (which would be crap). There is nowhere in the BIOS Settings to change the memory over to dual channel. Any advice, opinions, thoughts?

2) A small whine comes from the PSU when there is power going to the mother board. This I believe is because the damned PSU isn't earthed properly ( I think this becuase when i touch the machine the whine decreases), so can anyone recommend a good silent PSU at in or around 420.

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Some other things

I'm buying an audigy 2 7.1 this week and was wondering whether or not the audigy put alot of strain on power supply (this is the one with the drive for the front of your machine).

If that problem is there what is the best PSU for the job...

thanks for taking the time out to read this

Cheers

deconstructor

unkel

Originally posted by deconstruct
the machine tells me at boot that the memory is running at 200mhz and not the 400mhz its meant to be running at

The machine is correct. Your 200mhz memory is working fine at 200mhz...

AMD Athlon XP machines don't really work with dual channel. Even if you have 2 matched sticks of ram it still doesn't really work

You need the latest AMD64 or Pentium 4 setups to use dual or quad pumped memory respectively

duridian

Double data rate memory. The effective speed is 200MHz doubled giving 400MHz. So there's nothing wrong there.

Sorry to have to tell you this but the A7N8X-X is a single channel motherboard, so there's nothing you can do to enable dual channel.
Zalman and Globalwin do ultra silent psus but they are a bit pricey. Antec are pretty quiet as well and IMO excellent quality and value. Just steer clear of the likes of Qtec and you should be ok.

jozi

No one mentioned the Be-Quiet PSU's they have on www.hitide.ie
Don't know anyone who has one of them but they are meant to be a decent PSU
Have a look here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=152842 about 1/3 down

Jozi

CombatCow

I bought a Blackline 450W BeQuiet,I will hook it up today and tell you what i think,btw the outside of the psu has a mirror finish...looks very cool.


CC