I plan to eventually manually set everything, but I was a bit concerned about the 1866 speed of the RAM. That's an OC'ed setting. In another "interesting" development, the specs for my mobo on newegg seem to say my motherboard is compatible with 1600 and 2133*(OC) but no longer include 1866*(OC). That was changed recently. I can still see the asterisk indicating OC speeds remaining next to the 1600, which shouldn't be there because 1866 and 2133 were the listed OC speeds. I got the 1866 figure from that page when I shopped for my RAM. AWESOME! Fortunately, there's a verified owner on there who indicated he has my board and has 1866 running just fine. Hopefully it works for me as well. People said it works on the ASRock board I originally considered before I was scolded by cmdrmonkey for sullying the quality of my build with that brand, so surely it would work with my MSi board.
Far as I know that speed is just a rating and the memory can go as slow as needed so it should go down to 1600 auto magically. The only odd thing I've seen is memory that runs at 1.6v and the board need to be manually adjusted. Looks like yours runs at 1.5v so no issue there.
Some people on newegg had complained of problems getting it set up properly. That's why I was concerned. I searched around for awhile and eventually found a vid of someone using OC Genie II with this board and that speed of RAM. The 1866 speed was included in the BIOS. I'm not sure why it's not listed on newegg anymore. It wasn't on the MSi page, either.
I've got this computer at least put together enough to install Windows 7. I have a bit of a problem with the interwebz, however. It seems to have no interest in acknowledging the existence of my cable modem. Evidently whatever is contained within a Windows 7 installation isn't enough to get connected. It wants driver updates, but it won't connect to the netz to let me do that. I guess I'll search around and hope I can transport it over. I can't do any updates until I get some sort of a connection.
I am a bit confused, does your modem not just give you an RJ45 connection? Are you going straight from the PC to the modem? If so you will need to reboot it so that it releases the IP from whatever it was assigned to before and gives it to your new build. An ipconfig /renew probably won't work but if you still have the old computer you could connect that and do ipconfig /release if you can't be bothered to reboot the modem. Make sure you either connect modem to the computer while rebooting or only plug the new build in once its been rebooted.
You might need to install the network drivers for your motherboard. Check MSI's website or the cd that came with the board. Try this, download realtek pci-e ethernet drivers: http://www.msi.com/product/mb/P67A-GD65--B3-.html#/?div=Driver&os=Win7%2032 I've had the same problem a few times when installing windows. Depending on the board it doesn't always include the proper network drivers. Come to think of it, the Abit IC7-G MAX2 Advance in my old Pentium 4 build had this same problem. I always had to hunt down the drivers on another computer when reinstalling XP.
I assumed that would have been the first thing he would have checked.... If you haven't AKS then this one is going to have to go down as a n00b moment for you.
I tend to keep a folder for each computer/laptop I own (work with too as I do it at work) on a store somewhere with a collection of generic drivers to avoid such problems. Anything newer than the OS your installing will usually need you to source the driver yourself (either online or with the media that comes with) although if you have the NIC installed both Vista and 7 are very good at sourcing them via windows update. These are 'usually' up to date but sometimes it is worth checking. AKS you can always boot the new built to Linux using a USB key or CD and get it online to download the drivers you need. Then you can just dump them on the drive somewhere and when you boot back into Windows you don't have to mess around too much. I don't think I have found a system yet where a Ubuntu boot won't have the NIC/NICS working even on our blades. Actually used it to diagnose a faulty NIC on one once, the Rx was working but the Tx wasn't, ESX wasn't giving away too much information other than the NIC being down.
The first place I went was to MSi's page to download drivers, but for whatever reason I couldn't find that one. I of course knew that I needed to update the drivers, but what I didn't expect was to not be able to access anything from the web at all. I was able to get online through the BIOS limited browser but nothing from Windows 7. I've been saving drivers on a flash drive and transferring them over. I installed all the AMD stuff. It looks like I'm getting mostly 7.9s.
I dosed off for a few hours. Missed my UPS delivery, too. I got it working now. That driver was the one I was missing. I'm installing things and getting it into shape.
Temperatures seem to be very good so far. I just played through the Bulletstorm Demo with everything turned up to give it a mild to moderate test. According to CoreTemp, the CPU was around 34 C when I checked after I exited the game. The XFX 6950 appears to idle around 42 C and only went up to maybe 46 C following a short session of Bulletstorm. So far, it's idled at a bit higher than the GTX 460 but is actually at a lower temperature after gaming. I don't think Bulletstorm challenged the card much, though. I'm DLing more demanding games. I would LOVE to see a really smooth frame rate with Just Cause 2, although I'll miss that beautiful water simulation option only Nvidia owners get. EDIT: Just Cause 2 did nothing to alter the temperature of my CPU. I think it was actually a degree or two COOLER after I got out of the game. I had EVERYTHING maxed. The GPU was at around 42C before I entered and 61C a few seconds after I finished my game. That's about where my GTX 460 tends to be after I play a demanding game. Of course, there are other factors to consider, most notably the fact that the 6950 is in a HAF 932 Advanced case with multiple gigantic fans blowing air on it in stead of a little cramped case from Gateway. Regardless, I'm very pleased with the temperatures I'm finding. Very cool considering how fantastic Just Cause 2 looked. I'm going to try out their benchmark tool now. I was getting maybe in the 20s to mid 30s at fairly high settings with the GTX 460 1GB. I'm going to see how much of a frame boost this card is giving me in those tests.
I'm hoping that is the case. I've read of people getting even cooler times. I'd love a sub 30C degree temp idle. Even 30C is really nice. I haven't overclocked the CPU any because I'm waiting through the break-in period for the Ceramique. I think it was around 25 hours. The hottest I've been able to get the 6950 so far is 68C, which was after several consecutive benchmarks. It's not quite as hot as I expected based on reviews. I guess the real tests will be when I get Metro and Crysis fully downloaded.
The ceramique is good stuff. My C2D E6600 is heavily overclocked (for an E6600 at least) to 3.2ghz, and it stays at about 40-42C. Prior to overclocking it ran at around 30-32C.
It seems like good stuff. I'm glad I waited. I looked at the thermal paste that was pre-applied on the stock CPU cooler and was so glad that I went aftermarket instead. The stock cooler looked like garbage. I'm looking forward to trying out the CPU overclocking. I have no plans to ever try to get to 5GHz or beyond. I can't think of anything that I would need to do that would require such an insane speed. I think the 4.0GHz to 4.5GHz range would be just fine. I'll test it out with Crysis, which seems to be among the most GPU heavy of the demanding games. Speaking of Crysis, I just tried it out for awhile. It certainly wasn't as silky as Just Cause 2, and I think the 3.4 GHz CPU speed probably held it back a bit. Max settings with 8x AA are still playable at 1080p. CF with and OCing the CPU should provide beautiful results. I'll probably be able to use the spectacular looking mods as well.