Update 2 Continued from above post (image limit)
Here is the little story about my precious Striker Extreme. If you've seen my original rig, this is the mobo that started it all. My first rig ever. Let me tell you over expensive 1 way trip to hell I paid for. I believe the rig came to a grand total of about $6,000. At the time, the 8800GTXs were about $900 themselves. And I bought 2 of them. I don't regret them one bit. Not at all. It was the mobo, the ram, and the Lian Li case I got that I regret. Well, the Lian Li case I loved - but it was sooooo small. It is what led me to get the Lian Li V2000 which I'm currently using, its the same case but triple the size. It also had Koolance water cooling built into it which worked great but at the time caused more problems ontop of the bajillion others I had with this GOD FORSAKEN PIECE OF :turd: MOBO!!!! I swear to holy hell, this thing was absolutely hell for me. Between the random errors and the shorting out.... ugh. I RMA'd it twice, and my 2nd time - I said to hell with it and bought, my 2nd mobo mistake, an EVGA 680i along with a Quad Core upgrade from my E6700. Boy, those were bad times because the EVGA mobo is a whole other story. Anyways - why am I going to use this again even though I know its a hellish byproduct of ASUS? Well......... It was sitting there and I said to hell with it, I'm going to save myself a few bucks. I'm not going to be using it awhole lot except folding so it can't be that bad.
The problem is, I had some recent computer problems. I used the Striker as a temporary test bed just to screw around. I must have shorted it or something because there was smoke and the whole 9 yards (love that silicon smell, let me tell you). I think it is dead. So, instead of going straight to the lighting I decided to run some tests before I do what I always end up doing - putting it together, finding the thing is dead, and being the lazy ass I am - not finishing the project.
My E6700 - also my first CPU. Going down memory lane. This thing went through that hellish trip and not once has it failed me. It's a very very very good CPU.
Decided to try something new instead of Artic Silver 5. Some Shin Etsu I found on OCN which linked to ebay for like $3 a tube. Got like 5 syringes. I can't tell you how many times I've had people say either "I didn't know you're a diabetic" or "YOU DO DRUGS?!!!!!". People love to rip through my room because it is filled to the brim with video games, hardware, books, loose change, and other misc cool things (I guess?). People just love to do it, and since I got the Shin Etsu - people freeze up when they peek in my little draw with my commonly used stuff.
One thing I don't like about the Shin Etsu. It's kind of pasty. Not like Article Silver 5 which is more liquid like and is easy to spread. I had some trouble spreading the Etsu around. It was sticking to the little metal roller I had but barely coating the CPU itself
My cpu heatsink - used this before in my friends rig. Other then that I've never done air cooling before. These push pins, for the record, are THE dumbest things to EVER EVER EVER be created. I don't have hatred for anything else in computer related things as much as I do push pins.
Here we go. First problem with the :turd: that is the Striker Extreme.
The Southbridge's heatsinks are 5 freakin feet high. The heatsink doesn't fit!!!!!
Had to install it without the proprietary fan.
Then slipped it on, but it doesn't completely blow into the center of the heatsink now, but its not a big deal.
Also my first RAM. The Tiger Direct guy convinced me to guy these. They seemed so cool at the time.
An 8800GT. I have 2 of these for the rig. But for now, just testing the mobo, we're going to use only 1.
And - the freakin thing works! Holy :turd:!
Got to 3.62ghz before convincing myself that the mobo is useable. Don't know if its stable, but I'm probably not going to go that high considering I don't want that much heat output in the room.
I'm hoping to do the lighting next. But we'll see.