horseshoejoe

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I'm using the Rampage II Extreme Board in a PC for media and gaming, but also for a little work. I'm also attempting to use a couple of legacy drives and a PCI Video card salvaged from my last desktop. Of course attempting to use this older gear (recycling!) probably isn't making things any easier.

I've searched Tom's, the ASUS forum and on Google for answers, but not having any luck. So let's see if anyone here has the chops to handle this multi-part question.

First, Here's The System:

Rampage II board with an I7 920, 6G (6x1G) of Kingston DDR3 1800 Ram, Antec P182 Case and Antec 650W power supply.
Using a TRUE Heatsink and 2 Noctua Fans and system runs at a stable 3.8Ghz and idles at 31C. OS is XP SP3, 32

VGA is an Asus 9800GTX (PCI-E). Also attempting to use another VGA, the "Sparkle" GeForce 8400 GS Video Card (PCI)

For drives, I'm using a Seagate 500GB SATA. and a legacy Toshiba DVD-RW IDE drive. Also have a legacy Seagate 40GB IDE drive that I've been attempting to add since it has documents I need.

Monitors: Samsung 173b 17," Dell 3008 30," and Panasonic PT-AE1000U 1080p Projector

Questions:

1) Have the above 2 monitors and a Projector I am attempting to provide a signal to from my recently built PC with the Rampage 2 board. The Asus 9800 GTX runs the 2 LCD monitors no problem.

Note that the 9800 GTX (PCI-E) has a couple of DVI ouputs. The older 8400GS (PCI) card has a single DVI output and a VGA output.

With three HDMI outs, I figure "Great, I'll run the 30" and 17" LCDs in a two monitor setup on the desk, then -- at least for a while -- power the Projector off the 8400GS PCI card using a DVI-to-HDMI adapter."

Here's what happens: I can't use the 8400GS PCI card when I am using the 9800GTX card with either 1 or 2 monitors. If I try the system crashes.

Will PCI-E and PCI cards work simultaneously on this Rampage 2 Board? If so what are the settings? Do I need to update the BIOS? Should I just toss the PCI video card and drop the money for another PCI-E card? If there is a PCI/PCI-E conflict on this board, is it just with video cards?

2. I am attempting to add the Seagate 40GB IDE drive to the IDE cable powering my IDE Toshiba DVD-RW. Having no problem powering the IDE DVD-RW drive. But as soon as I add the old Seagate IDE drive, I encounter problems at startup: Suddenly the system doesn't want to boot off my SeaGate 500GB SATA and instead only recognizes the 40 Gb IDE drive. Without the 40GB drive on the IDE cable, the system works fine with the 500GB SATA Seagate HD and the IDE Toshiba DVD-RW.

Will IDE and SATA HDs work simultaneously on this Ramapage 2 Board? Is this somehow a IDE master/slave configuration issue? Are their settings I should change, perhaps updates in Drivers or BIOS that may fix this? Or should i just get out the Zippo and lighter fluid and destroy this legacy IDE drive and -- if I can stomach it -- the files I have on it as well?

3. I have the DRAM set to "Auto" in BIOS. I have 6Gb of 1Gb per DDR3 1800 Kingston RAM. I figured with the DRAM set to Auto I wouldn't have any problems with RAM. However, right now, my system only shows that I have 2.74Gb RAM!

I know running XP 32 is going to shave 1Gb off the RAM vs 64. But what is the story on this case, where I have more than 3Gb "missing?" Settings you'd advise?

4. Fan Control. The install disc I received with this Rampage 2 Board did not have the Fan XPert Utility. Was looking to download this from Asus, but surprised this was not on the included Disc.

I have downloaded and am using SpeedFan 4.37, but cannot seem to make speed adjustments with this. I have repeatedly attempted to adjust the Fan Speed settings in the BIOS to no avail. I can't even get the 9800GTX card fan speed to adjust using the utilities on its setup disc. Still system cooling is actually not a problem and the TRUE/Noctua Fan setup I have works as well as reviews showed.

Still, how do I control fan speed (Especially Case, CPU) with this Rampage 2 Board? What am I doing wrong?



If you can only answer one of the above 4 questions, even that will help. Please give it a shot and/or add any links that might help. Thanks :)

 

Mondoman

Splendid
#3) 32-bit OSs like Windows XP 32-bit is limited to 4GB of RAM addresses. Some of those addresses are used up by hardware, including the RAM on your video card. After that, any addresses that are left are used for RAM. Thus, the amount of usable system RAM you will have under XP 32 is 4GB - amount of RAM on video cards - roughly 512MB. 2.74GB sounds about right.

#2) Intel has been trying to get rid of IDE for a couple of years now. In practice, on newer systems trying to run an IDE hard drive on the same cable as an IDE optical drive often causes problems. Best solution is to buy an external USB hard drive enclosure and install your old IDE drive in there, then plug it into your computer's USB port and copy over any data you want.

#1) It may be an issue of the video drivers. I'd contact nVidia to find out if a two-card config such as yours will work.
 

horseshoejoe

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Thanks Mondoman for the Tip on #2. I took an 80Gb external HD I had sitting around, opened the thing up, pulled the 80Gb drive (also IDE) and subbed in the 40Gb drive I was trying to get to work internally on my new system. Connected it to the USB port on the front of the case and transferred all the files I needed that way. Worked like a charm.

As for #3, I updated the video card driver at NVidia. Both the PCI card and the 9800GTX card required the same driver update. Once it was installed, though, I still didn't have any luck getting the two cards -- PCI and PCI-E -- to run monitors simultaneously. I pulled the PCI Video card for the time being.

For #1, are you saying that as long as I am running XP 32-bit on this Rampage 2 board (With 12 Gb capacity and 6Gb DDR3 1800 RAM currently installed) that the best I am going to see is approximately 2.74 Gb Ram? Thanks again
 

Dahak

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1:Your 9800GTX will support 2 monitors.

2:For some reason,IDE is still classed as the MASTER over SATA in most BIOS.Try pinning the older hard drive and the optical drive as slave.

3:Only a 64 bit OS will utilize more than 3.25 gigs of RAM.A 32 bit OS will only use maybe 3.75 gigs of memory in total.I would recommend stayling below 4 gigs.Goodluck.

Dahak

ASUS P5N-D
C2D E8500 STOCK
ZALMAN 9500 CPU COOLER
2X2GIG DDR2 1066 IN DC MODE
TOUGHPOWER 850WATT PSU
EVGA GTX 260
SMILIDON RAIDMAX GAMING CASE
LG 24IN WS LCD 1920X1080
250GIG HD/500GIG HD
LOGITECH G15 GAMING KEYBOARD
G5 GAMING MOUSE
LOGITECH Z-5500 5.1 SURROUND SYSTEM
500WATS CONTINUOUS,1000 PEAK
WIN XP PRO