GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 help?

[khoop21]

figured it out. had to to install drivers on both cards independently.
now, I just realize, my SSD drive is in IDE mode.
when i change it in BIOS to AHCI mode, it will not boot.
i was told that it needs to be in AHCI mode to take advantage of the SSD drive.

[nijel]

Open regedit, go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci], change "Start" to 0 (zero), reboot and change SATA to AHCI mode in bios, install latest Intel RST driver. Done.

[khoop21]

WOOHOO! thx bro. that works.

[Dark Mantis]

And you will see a fairly big perfomance hyke too.

[khoop21]

I almost forgot to ask you, will my other two drives slow my system down at all?

[Dark Mantis]

It all depends on how they are configured.

[khoop21]

well I put the SSD on SATA3_0 in AHCI mode, and HDDs on SATA2_2 and SATA2_3 IDE as storage drives.
like you said on the other post.

[nijel]

All Intel SATA ports are in AHCI mode. Your HDDs are just fine. Make sure for the SSD this is not checked for max performance:

[khoop21]

rgr that.

[digitalnerd]

Hey guys. Seems like a helpful group on here.

I just purchased the GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 as well. Looking for a few pointers and suggestions as my last complete build was 5+ years ago. A lot has changed since then, just want to make sure I'm getting the most out of this monster.

These are the parts I picked out, found out one won't fit so far
Still building, have not powered up yet...

CPU: i7-2600K

MOBO: GA-Z68X-UD7-B3

CPU COOLER: ZALMAN 9500A-LED 92mm 2 Ball (WON'T FIT!! TOO MUCH OVERHANG INTO MEMORY BANK SLOTS CLOSEST TO CPU SOCKET)

2 x VIDEO CARDS FOR A CROSSFIRE SETUP: XFX HD-485X-ZNFC Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

POWER SUPPLY: SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

RAM: G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR

CASE:  Antec Six Hundred Black Computer Case

HDD: Kingston Digital SSDNow V+100 96 GB Solid-State Drive SVP100S2/96G

Everything was purchased from Newegg except for the HDD (that was amazon). My main concern so far is since the CPU COOLER wouldn't not fit, will the stock be sufficient? A little bit of extra (drop or two) of Arctic Silver was added the pre applied stock cooler, I would assume that will only help things as long as it was mixed in and spread evenly.

Sounds like SataIII in the Bios is the way to go when I use my SSD for the OS. Are triple video cards possible with the ones I have?

I wish I could make the Zalman CPU cooler work but that black plastic mounting pushes into my memory bank space. Any way around this problem? Not sure how I would have known before ordering.

Sorry for the long post!

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

Should be a nice setup there when you have finished.

A lot of the new bigger coolers overhang the memory slots but often things can be customised so that they fit anyway. Before you start though do not mix the TIM. I would recommend cleaning it all off and start again with some Arctic Silver 5 or similar and only use about a grain of rice size in total. Too much is as much of a problem as too little. If you are sure thta the Zalman won't fit try something like the Noctua, excellent and quiet.

I think you have made a mistake with your GPUs though. One modern card would be more powerful than those two in crossfire. Look at a 6950 or similar. It would wipe the floor with these two 4850s. It would also be DX11 supporting.

Yes the Intel SATA3 ports are the best for your SSD for booting.

[digitalnerd]

Hi Dark Mantis, thanks for the welcome aboard.

I appreciate the information!

I will remove the current TIM mix with alcohol and reapply a single rice grain sized dot on it to reapply. The Artic Silver 5 was really sticky and goopy I noticed, is this OK? Should I try to spread it around at all or just put a single rice grained drop directly on the CPU OR CPU COOLER?? It's really sticky! It's a new unused tube, just wondering if it is supposed to be like that.

Yeah, I should be honest. I bought the GPU's because they were a good deal. I'll keep my eyes on the 6950 (eyefinity also interests me) I might have to keep an eye out for a more modern card(s) in the near future. Seems like this mobo should be able to support technology for a while.

Cool, I'll make sure plug the SSD into the Sata3 port for sure then! Do I also need to change it in the Bios?

Thanks!
DigitalNerd

[Dark Mantis]

If you are doing a clean instal then just make sure the Intel controller is set to AHCI mode in the BIOS  and that should be all you need to do from that point of view.

The Arctic Silver is very sticky and sounds like normal. You can either spread it carefully across the surface with an old credit card or similar or just leave the heatsink to level it down.

[alpha1]

Hello!

I have mb gigabyte Z68-UD7 I wonder where I can connect the port that I will work raid 0? I have 2x ocz vertex 2 120gb sata II

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

The best ports for running a RAID0 as your boot drive would be the Intel ports SATA3_0 and SATA3_1.