[JohnMarcus]

I have ordered a MSI 845G chipset board called MAX 6580-020 from newegg. It should be here in a couple of days.


I also order an enlight case, a Western Digital 120 GB special edition Hard Drive, A Raden 7500 OEM, a Toshiba DVD drive, a keyboard and mouse from them.


From OCSystem I ordered PC3200 cas2 RAM. About $200 for a 512 MB module.


From Googlegear I ordered the 2.26 GHZ Northwood. There was a price reduction by Intel last weekend. It was $270.


Wish me luck putting it all together, as it is my first build.


Total cost, about 1000 dollars.


Have not ordered a DScaler input card yet. I would like an inexpensive one.


Thanks everyone here, and especially Xcel, for the good advice. As you can see, I took the advice to heart and stayed within the recommendations of the group. It should feed my Barco 1200 quite nicely.


I will start putting it together next Wednesday.


I will post my followup notes here.


John Marcus

 

[hobie_od]

Please let us know.


According to MSI, this board only supports pc2100. Will it be able to utilize anything higher?


I guess so. AnandTech has a review using ddr333. It seems fast.

 

[JohnMarcus]

According to Anandtech, and I think, Tom's Hardware, you can set it up for DDR333. This is an "unofficial" support. There is a documented setting for this in the manual, which is available on the web site as a PDF file. Only the 845G can do this. The 845E does not support this.


I hope it all works.


I got about a zillion questions. What should my resolution and video settings be for my Barco? Where is the sweet spot, or what should I start at? I guess, with time, this will become apparent.


John.

 

[xcel]

Hi JohnMarcus:


___I have one of these with a Windows XP Pro going in as I type … From the BIOS options, there is nothing added that I have not seen before. The USB D-Bracket 2 port works using a USB based MS Intellimouse Explorer with a 1.6A at 145 MHz FSB on it so far but again, this board is really missing that 4/5 divider and AGP/PCI lock for us enthusiast performance nuts. Other than that, with only 15 minutes behind it, it appears Ok … I have to get that Fuzzy Logic 4 app up and running to see if it has any features I want … All in all, it is just another 845G board with a lot of tweakers delights missing but at least its inexpensive.


___Good Luck


___Wayne R. Gerdes

___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.

___ [email protected]

 

[hobie_od]

Wayne,


Does that mean you cannot set it up to use PC2700?


A friend was wanting me to set him up a mATX system. I was wondering if I could use the mATX version of this board with a Radeon and a MYHD in a case similar to YY101, Inwin 504 , Lian Li PC30 .


Jim

 

[JohnMarcus]

Your not gonna believe this ....


Ok, Tuesday night I open all the boxes. I am almost knocked over by the sight of a very nice looking ASUS motherboard from Newegg. I check the invoice, the shipping order, the order, it all says MSI 845G Max. To make things worse, this particular Asus board only takes Duron, etc. types of processors. So I cannot use it even if I wanted to.


So I call Newegg on Wednesday, they cannot ship me the one I want because they don't have it in stock anymore. They issue me an RMA, and several hours later the Asus is on the way back to Newegg.


So i do a pricewatch, more to find my board than to find a cheap price, and I find a place called PCClub that has an even better board in stock, a 845g-Max-L that has a built in Lan. Looks good. I place an order and a two day delivery to get it by the weekend.


Wednesday afternoon only an hour after my order, I look at my account on PCCLub, and what do I see, but that they did not ship me the board I wanted, but a much less capable board called an i845GL, or an MSI 6525GL. I look at my ordering part number and it refers to a MSI 845G Max-L. But my shipping manifest is different. WTH. The wrong board again.


So on Thursday at lunch, I spend 45 minutes on the phone, I finally get someone there to realize their part numbers are screwed up, they apologize, they realize that they no longer have the MSI 845G Max-L, but they have the 845G Max (the same, minus the Lan). They agree to overnight the 845G Max, and issue a RMA for the Board they only just shipped (but cannot stop). I spent 35 dollars to ship a board I didn't even want.


So Friday comes, I am very excited to open my new box, my little boy is there to help. I open it up, put it in, hook up the cables... about a 1 hour job, I have never done it before but it does not look hard....


30 seconds after I turn it on... looking at the bios setup... a sudden black screen, and no response. I turn it off and on... nothing. I unplug it ... It does restart but only lasts 20 seconds before a black screen. It doesn't even last long enough to reflash the bios. I reset the CMOS about 20 times.


I unplug the IDE stuff. I reset the memory and the CPU. No change.


So. I got a bad board. I will order another one. Number 4, if my counting is correct.


Now I am thinking of ordering the I845E-Max2-LR. It has the built in Lan after all, the digital sound, Raid. But the chipset is slightly slower, about 5 percent as per Anandtech. But I could push the overclock back up to at least DDR333 levels, if not 400 where my memory is rated.


BTW, someone once asked if my board could do DDR 3200. According to the people I bought it from, OCsystem.com, The 3200 module is backwards compatible all the way back to DDR PC 1600. But I can easily push the memory speeds up in the bios or the fuzzy logic app. Having faster memory means the system will be more reliable when running it faster, and might get higher top speeds if I decide to overclock it (which is ridiculously easy with that fuzzy logic app, just push a button, it measures how fast you can go).


When I get an actual board, I will update the forum.


Thanks,


John Marcus.

 

[JohnMarcus]

I got an RMA from PCCLub after I convinced the tech people there that the 845g Max board was bad. They overnighted me a new board (another 40 dollars shipping, don't ask - I ordered another 9 dollar LAN card to go with it). I put it in and voila, a good board.


I run the bios setup no problem. I set DDR 333 no problem, the choice is there in the bios. I turn off "spread spectrum" to get more stability. A few other settings, no problem.


Now I load Windows XP pro. It takes about an hour just to format my WD 120 gig hard disk. I formatted about 110 gigs just to leave some room for later, you know, maybe linux or something.


This special edition disk, with the 8 meg of buffer etc, is so quiet I cannot hear it. If I put my ear right next to my case, I can just barely hear it.


I have the Toshiba DVD/CD rom drive. It is also so quiet I question wether it is working. Only when it speeds up to high speed can I actually hear it.


The CPU cooler fan is likewise quiet. I cannot hear it even when the case is open and I am looking at the fan running. It is the stock cooler that comes with the Northwood from Intel.


My case fan, on the other hand is loud enough to make up for all the other things. It drowns out all the other noises. It is an enlight case as recommended by xcel. I don't think I can hear the power supply fan at all. It came with the case. So I have only one source of noise, it is the case fan.


Win XP pro loaded without a problem, but I still have no video drivers. XP is running basic VGA services through my Radeon 7500 but it cannot find any good drivers on the XP disk. I now have to find XP drivers.


Strangely, some of the software, such as the ATI media center, loaded just fine off of the CD that came with my OEM 7500, but not the drivers themselves. The disk does not seem to have XP support.


My next steps are to find the VGA drivers for 7500, pick a sound card, get a router or hook up to my DSL, hook up SPDIF to my receiver decoder, pick a DVD player, hook up to my Barco, and play a movie. I hope.


John Marcus.

 

[hobie_od]

Awesome!


I will have the Asus mATX 845G board delivered today. I don't think I will get to mess with it much now. It will probably picked up before I get home.

 

[JohnMarcus]

I put the 6025's in. See this thread: Thread:


I now have a very high performance video card.


I put the creative Audigy gamer in, and it works fine. I have one complaint about the Audigy gamer. It installs about 30 programs along with the driver. All these programs are polluting my desktop, my registry, and I am sure, my system folders. I have no idea if I want these programs, I have no idea what half of them are, and I don't know how much damage I will do to the Audigy system by deleting the obscure ones. So I am stuck with them until I am ready to risk deletion. For instance, I think one of them is a DVD player. I doubt if I will use it, given the quality of the DVD player that comes with the 7500.


I'll keep chugging along.


John

 

[xcel]

Hi Guy’s:


___I am going to give a thumbs down on this particular P4 I845G based board. Its fine for straight HTPC use but for the enthusiast, there are a lot of issues including the Auto setting for PC2700 operation at 133 MHz FSB (its barely documented), the USB 2.0 drivers are causing problems for many, poor IDE controller performance, and the boards included std. and enthusiast SW is absolutely terrible. I am livid about the .120 bios that appears not to be ACPI compliant out of the blocks … A small suggestion. Spend another $35.00 and pick up an Asus P4B533 or ~ the same for the SiS 645DX based Asus P4S533. These boards have given me nothing in the way of trouble and both offer more performance.


___Good Luck


___Wayne R. Gerdes

___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.

___ [email protected]

 

[ramick]

Oh, this sounds good - he picked the P4[S/B]533 over the MSI xxx.


I finally (2 days, yeah, I know) got my MB, CPU, HS, fan, but no memory!!!


I was trying to do the setup this weekend, but... voicemail and email have produced nothing from ocsystem.com. So far, I cannot rec them. Of course, the vendors rec'd by members on the forum produced (rapidly, I might add) results - thanks.


I will try another route to the memory issue if ocsystem does not pan out...

 

[hobie_od]

Bummed!!


I ordered the Asus 845GL-VM from Untited Micro. Their website listed it as having AGP port and SPDIF capability. Both of which are not true. The box was also was supposed to be assembled by them, but it was sent as parts only. And without all the necessary cables.


As far as the built in 3D capabilities they are weak. With a 1.6AP4 could only produce 1300 on the MadOnion 2001 3D mark. DVD play back was pretty poor also.


I will wait tomorrow to see how UnitedMicro fixes these problems.


I am supposed to get a board with the 845G builtin graphics, AGP port, USB 2.0, and spdif out.

 

[xcel]

Hi Hobie_od:


___None of the GL’s that I know of have an AGP slot and using the onboard graphics is a waste of time for both gaming and HTPC use. The G’s have onboard graphics and the E’s do not but both have an AGP slot. The PE versions of the chipset will probably be its savior (soon to be released) but so far, no one appears to make the perfect board E or G based 845 from my reads.



___Good Luck


___Wayne R. Gerdes

___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.

___ [email protected]

 

[hobie_od]

xcel,


I am putting this together for a friend. He wants to use this as a text only machine now, but convert it later for HTPC use. Therefore, he doesn't want to spend the extra $50 on a Radeon now.


According Asus's website the P4533-VM does contain an AGP port. The picture would seem to confirm this.


FWIW: He has yet to see this CPU go above 40'C. So the cpu cooler never goes above 2100 rpm. These are amazingly cool. I would definitely have no problems using one of these in a micro-case.