What you think of my build?

ekiro

n00b
Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
54
Windows 8.1 & Ununtu 13.10
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme
Intel i7 4930K
2x Kingston HyperX 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 2400MHz Quad Channel
4x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780
4x Samaung 840 Pro SSD RAID0
Rosewill 1600W 80+ Silver PSU
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Cool Master HAF X
Cool Master Eisberg 240L

Parts will be here tomorrow. Will start assembly then. Going to record it with pictures. ;)
 
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You kinda gimped it by maxing out your setup at 32GB of RAM when that setup can support 64GB of RAM easily.
 
You kinda gimped it by maxing out your setup at 32GB of RAM when that setup can support 64GB of RAM easily.

I know. But I barely use over 4GB anyway. 64GB is just completely unnecessary.

Fast memory speed is more important here.
 
Parts arrived. Still waiting for the HAF X

image.jpg
 
The rampage was DOA. Go figure...RMA..,

Anyone recommend a suitable alternative ?
 
Lol, funny. Everyone has their own personal use for a computer such a this, I suspect video editing but might have a different use.
 
Probably just wanted to waste money. Hopefully he puts those 780s on Team 33 for us.

You couldn't be more right. I did this because I was bored. But I can find use for this machine. I will use it for some gaming. Dedicate it to folding 24/7 and eventually collocate it to do some video encoding for me at a data center.

But yeah it was mostly a wasting money kind of thing.

Also considering giving it away to a lucky winner but need to find the right place and time to do that. Has to be worth it.

Anyway I'm waiting for the new motherboard. Will be here tomorrow. I'll post pics of final product.

Some changes:
- New case is the Cool Master HAF X
- New CPU cooler is Cool Master Eisberg 240L

The multiple heatsinks are because I wasn't sure which one the final version wil be. Let's say I have 3 heat sinks to return. :)
 
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Well if you're gonna fold on them, then it's for sure not a waste. Need I direct you to our DC sub forum for some help if ya need it?

4x 780s should do about 500k PPD. Would be a nice boost to meet our goal of topping Default as the [H]ardest folders on the planet.
 
Well if you're gonna fold on them, then it's for sure not a waste. Need I direct you to our DC sub forum for some help if ya need it?

4x 780s should do about 500k PPD. Would be a nice boost to meet our goal of topping Default as the [H]ardest folders on the planet.

Yes. How would I get maximum folding output out of this build?

I do plan on over-clocking the CPU to 4.5GHz.
 
Distributed Computing sub forum is where you need to make a post. Those guys know a lot more than I do about the F@H project and they'll get you on the right track.
 
Wow. The second motherboard they send me was DOA too. They refuse to send me a third one. They assume I am clueless at what I'm doing.

Ordered one from newegg this time. Should be here Thursday......
 
How are you coming to the conclusion that the motherboard is DOA?
 
I know all the assembly work was done right. For sure.

When I power on the system I see a orange LED at the bottom of the mobo (below the last PCI slot). Then there is a CPU_LED light that glows red. The BIOs never boots up either. The GPU gives me absolutely no output nor can it detect let alone power the USB keyboard connected to it.

Furthermore, when I boot up system it runs for a brief period before it reboots and then it's stuck god knows where.

Googling I also see a lot of folks reporting dead boards. Also saw some YouTube videos of people with the exact same issue. Same glowing LEDa. It's just crappy manufacturing.

Just perhaps the CPU is bad? That would require me to get ahold of a second 2011 chip. Something I don't have laying around.
 
It's really easy to bend the pins on the motherboard. Double check to make sure they aren't. I would also try one stick of RAM at a time. Have you done any sort of troubleshooting at all?
 
It's really easy to bend the pins on the motherboard. Double check to make sure they aren't. I would also try one stick of RAM at a time. Have you done any sort of troubleshooting at all?

I tested the build with only one video card. That didn't help. I did not test each DIMM independently. I'll give it a shot. Hope it works as it's quad channel RAM.

Im pretty confident it's the mobo. It wont even detect/power any I/O (keyboard/optical drive). But I will need to investigate those pins. Perhaps I overtightened the screws over the CPU cooler mounting brackets....
 
Third motherboard has the exact same issue. Now I'm sure it's a dead CPU. That's very rare.

Anyway. Extremely frustrating. New CPU will be here tomorrow. This shit better work.

If it's not the CPU, I'll get a hammer and pound it to bits.
 
On the upside, having bought into bitcoins at $12 per coin, I sure feel happy today. :D
 
The replaced CPU didn't solve the problem. Turns out the 3rd mobo was defective too. Waiting for the fourth one. You have no idea how ridiculous this is.
 
The replaced CPU didn't solve the problem. Turns out the 3rd mobo was defective too. Waiting for the fourth one. You have no idea how ridiculous this is.

There is no way in hell you got 3 bad mbs in a row. Something else is wrong with you system.
 
There is no way in hell you got 3 bad mbs in a row. Something else is wrong with you system.

Agreed.

From what I gather its one of a few things:
-RAM not compatible - try a single stick of something else (preferably something on the memory support list)
-Bad power supply - test in different system, try known good power supply
-Shorting mobo - put minimum parts together on anti-static bag outside of case and test there

That mobo does have a BIOS update to support the 4930K, but it would be pretty bad if it wouldn't boot running an older version...

EDIT: Also looks like there's some weird stuff with using the power connectors (4-pin, 8-pin, 6-pin). Looks like some folks are having issues when more then one of these is connected at a time.
 
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Agreed.

From what I gather its one of a few things:
-RAM not compatible - try a single stick of something else (preferably something on the memory support list)
-Bad power supply - test in different system, try known good power supply
-Shorting mobo - put minimum parts together on anti-static bag outside of case and test there

That mobo does have a BIOS update to support the 4930K, but it would be pretty bad if it wouldn't boot running an older version...

EDIT: Also looks like there's some weird stuff with using the power connectors (4-pin, 8-pin, 6-pin). Looks like some folks are having issues when more then one of these is connected at a time.

I tried booting it up with all, 4, 1, and no sticks of ram, and the same error persisted. I have no other type of memory at my disposal.

I would need to justify returning the PSU and getting a replacement as I have no idea how it could be defective, it seems fine.

I have no idea at this point. I do see some posts on newegg of people complaining about receiving multiple consecutive DOAs. But who the hell knows. It's frustrating me. I've assembled multiple heavy weight rigs in the past and they always worked on the first bootup. This is just craziness.
 
The CPU cooler I have (Cool Master Eisberg 240L) has a window on the block resting above the CPU. When I boot the system up, the pump doesn't appear to be anything. Doesn't seem to be moving fluids. I suspect this is because it can't get the CPU going in the first place.

Also, what are some ways to test for a faulty PSU?
 
what are some ways to test for a faulty PSU?

You can do some minimal testing with a power supply tester - I'm not sure if any of the cheaper ones are really any "good". Something like this:
www.amazon.com/4-pin-Power-Supply-Tester-Connectors/dp/B001MKCALY/

Best way is to test it under a real load, but you need a known good PC for that. Its also possible for a bad power supply to kill motherboards.

Some motherboards won't boot if they don't detect a CPU Fan spinning. Depending on how your cooler is wired and hooked up it could be halting the boot process if its faulty.
 
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Really hard to test a faulty PSU. Though you could try the paperclip test, but understand that even if it powers on with the paperclip that's not a sign that it's good. It can only tell you if it's a bad PSU not a good PSU. You could try hooking case fans to the PSU to simulate a load, but it probably wont be enough load to make a difference.
 
On monday I will go return the 3rd defective mobo and await the 4th one. Hope it works. I'm still betting its the mobo. I'm gonna BS amazon and claim the PSU is defective so they send me another one. This way the new PSU wont fry the new mobo if that is the case. Also ordered some cheapass stick of 1333 DDR3 RAM from eBay to test that too.

I can't return those videocards anymore as they are past the return date now. Thanks to shitty ASUS.

All I can do now is wait some more...
 
The chances of getting 4 bad motherboards is extremely rare. I think you'd have a better chance of winning the lottery. I think you're diagnosing the problem wrong. I hate to say there is a problem with your installation as it's really difficult to fuck that up especially if you've done it before, however it is REAL easy to forget a plug or bend those motherboard PINs. Though at this point I would probably put money on the PSU. It is a Rosewill and I'm not a big fan of their products. While they do make some good units, they don't make very many. I also found it really difficult, as in I couldn't find any proper benchmarks of that particular unit. If I were you, I'd try a single 780 on a different, known good and working PSU.
 
The chances of getting 4 bad motherboards is extremely rare. I think you'd have a better chance of winning the lottery. I think you're diagnosing the problem wrong. I hate to say there is a problem with your installation as it's really difficult to fuck that up especially if you've done it before, however it is REAL easy to forget a plug or bend those motherboard PINs. Though at this point I would probably put money on the PSU. It is a Rosewill and I'm not a big fan of their products. While they do make some good units, they don't make very many. I also found it really difficult, as in I couldn't find any proper benchmarks of that particular unit. If I were you, I'd try a single 780 on a different, known good and working PSU.

Can that power 4 GPUs and CPU OC'ed?

Especially when they're folding.

If you could have any PSU in the world for free, which one? That can power this build at 100%.
 
Can what power 4 GPUs and an OC'd CPU? I didn't recommend any other PSU. I would have to do some research to determine which PSU I would recommend to power that many, but for the sake of diagnosing your problem nearly any PSU w/ 550W+ will allow you to boot your system. All you need to do is get the system to boot with at least one GPU to determine if it's a PSU problem.

Again I would have to do some research, not something I really want to do right now. I'll do some quick calculations though to see what kind of power draw you should expect from this system. It's going to be higher than actual just to cover all grounds.

SLI'd 780s consume 590W on an i7 3770k @ 4.8Ghz. Note that these power figures are only for GPU stressing. Granted you could run both CPU and GPU slots on this rig when folding, it almost wont be worth it seeing as how the 780s will be in the upper 150k PPD while the CPU will do maybe 30k PPD. You'll want to dedicated CPU cores to the GPUs to get optimum performance from them since they'll give you the most PPD.




Just doubling that figure we're only at 1180W and do note that this is two overclocked 3770k CPUs as well. It's two complete systems here only drawing 1180W. Now I know the 4930k will draw a lot more power than the 3770k, so lets see what it will draw.

According to this review of a 4960X under full load 353W. So just for the sake of it, lets add that to two complete systems above. 1180W + 353W = 1533W. Now we're looking at 1533W to power 2 - 3770k @ 4.8Ghz, 4 780 GTX GPUs, and a 4960X CPU under full load. Also let's note that this power figure is measured at the wall.

Now I know the 3770k setup was using an Enermax MaxRevo 1350W PSU, I couldn't find out what PSU the 4690X was using so we're gonna assume the same PSU with the same efficiency rating. Since HardOCP did a benchmark of the Enermax MaxRevo 1350W you can see that under a 672W load it had a 90.20% efficiency rate. So lets do some numbers here. If the 3770k was pulling 590W at the wall, the PSU @ 90% was only outputting 531W. Assuming they used a 90% efficient PSU on the 4960X @ 353W it was only outputting 318W. So lets add them all up.

531 * 2 + 318 = 1380W

Keep in mind, this is still powering THREE complete systems here. With that being said, I would pick up the EVGA SuperNOVA 1300 G2 PSU. You can read the proper benchmark here. There probably are other PSUs that preform better, maybe have a better price, etc... this just happened to be the first 1300W PSU I looked up.
 
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Diff ram didn't fix it. Diff CPU and PSU didn't fix it. In sure all 3 boards are dead.

Bought the evga x79 dark and that should fixit.

Asus need go bankrupt.
 
Yes. I have a duplicate of everything at this point. I tested multiple boards in and out of the case and all permutations of builds with the available components on all 3 boards and they all react the same. Only one of them reboots itself after the first 15 seconds. But it still does absolutely nothing. And I tested it with just a fan heatsink too. I'm out of options. Newegg will make me wait a week plus for a replacement because thy want mine first. So I bought the new board fr
Someone on eBay.
 
The seller on eBay was playing games by bumping up his own bids under another account with no feedback. It went up to $700 before I said screw if and ordered another board and overnighted it from amazon. I will post pictures of my open build. If I am doing some wiring wrong or whatever (very unlikely) someone here may catch it. I find it hard to believe I received 3 dead boards but it sure seems that way. Fortunately there are reviews out there from people out there that have received consecutive DOAs justifying my case.

Also pardon any grammar/typos. I'm writing from the phone.
 
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