Any Core I7 users yet?

Jeff Harper · March 17th, 2009, 02:39 PM

Terry, from what I've seen in this and other forums, the e-sata with these boards are not consistently great.

If you need an alternative for esata, the adaptec 1220SA cost $50 at Newegg, is PCIe, has two esata connections, and has built-in hardware raid. It's a very nice little card, and since you'll now have two esata drives you'd be in business, as long as you had an extra PCIe slot. Just a thought.

Dell replaced my MOBO twice in my last Dell, and as it turned out the SATA controller on that board was just not very good, the raid didn't work well on any of them. So for RAID I just turned to the adaptec card and it was amazingly effective.

Terry Esslinger · March 17th, 2009, 07:59 PM

Jeff,
Just got home with my 'new' eSATA HD connected it to the computer and of course the computer did not recognize so that rules out the drives as the problem. Now waiting around for Dell to call tonight as they said they would.

Jeff Harper · March 17th, 2009, 11:34 PM

Even if they don't call, if you have to call, they will take good care of you. Hopefully the new MB will take care of it...but if not I would consider just getting a card. For the price you paid for the Dell, if your esata doesn't work you're still ahead of the game.

I'll give them this, with my last system with them they really went the extra mile, it just turned out the PC I had wasn't built for video. If I could've upgraded the PSU, it might have resolved the issues I had, but they didn't have a PSU upgrade that would fit in the case, so I gave up and just built my own.

I wish you luck! Hopefully a MB swap will help!

Terry Esslinger · March 18th, 2009, 10:12 AM

Jeff,
You are right. Escept for the fact that I had to continually run the same tests over and over because I got different techs each call and they couldn't seem to accept the information on my case record as being accurate I really can't complain about the tech support. I reached a person very quickly each time and they called me back when they said they would. It now does appear that I am going to need a new MB and they are having a tech contact me to set up an appointment to do it. Now if I can get Best Buy to take back the spare eSATA drive....
I'll let you know how it turns out.

Ray Johnston · March 18th, 2009, 11:38 AM

I built an i7 machine from scratch this last weekend (i7-920, MSI X58 Pro MB, 6GB GSkill 1333, SATA II RAID0 - 640GB, nVidia 9800GT, dual monitor setup, clean install of Vista 64 and Vegas 8.1). Machine works great - ran Prime95 abuse testing for several hours with no problems or errors.

I am working on 3 projects at the moment, and brought these over from my tired old Athlon 64 3500+ machine (XP SP3, Vegas 8.0b), all 16:9 SD widescreen. Two projects seemed to open up just fine (after Vegas found the files), while the one that I need first (of course) causes Vegas 8.1 to get an exception error. I had not made any changes to preferences or options, but I had changed the directory structure of the source files (but Vegas found them). Then I realized I had not done a reboot after several driver updates in Vista. I rebooted, and then I was able to open the veg file, and I rendered out 14 video segments (chapters for a DVD), and I thought all was right with the world again.....

Fast forward to last night when I wanted to go back into the veg file to tweek several things, and now when I open it there is nothing showing in the video & audio timelines (just blank), and I get tiles instead of thumbnails for the media. When I hit play, the video plays on the preview as if it were in the timeline, but the slider and cursors don't work, and then it just crashes. In years of work with several versions of Vegas I cannot recall ever having it crash other than with the Pro Titler in earliest version of 8.

I then when back to "dumbed down" Vegas 8.0c (had to install), opened the file, and all just worked fine. No go with 8.1.

I am not overclocking. My northbridge temperature is pretty high (processor very cool), which seems typical of this MB.

Any one have any ideas? If the 64 bit stuff would just work, I would be very happy. I've seen some impressive render times. rendertest HDV.veg = 71sec for me (typical of 920 machines w/o overclock). With 8.0c it added about 50 seconds.

Thanks!

Jeff Harper · March 18th, 2009, 02:13 PM

This won't help you Ray, but I have not had success with 8.1 on three different machines. Admittedly the issues were with previous 8.0c projects, but I use MB regularly, as well as Ultimate S, so with all of these factors combined I just found it not useful for my purposes.

I may try it out on a new project for fun at some point, one that doesn't require Ultimate S multi-cam, etc, but other than a straightforward single cam project, I just can't use it.

Ray Johnston · March 18th, 2009, 04:23 PM

Thanks Jeff. I did forget to mention the project at issue was multicam (only 2). I'm wondering if a starting project from scratch in 8.1 helps or not? I would guess not.

I'm not using any plugins at the moment, but I do regularly use a multitude of formats, including jpegs, quicktime (Digital Juice). Typically 5 to 6 video tracks and 3 audio.

Anyhow it appears that I have to stick with the "crippleware". I may try doing my next project from scratch in 8.1 to see what happens. Frustrating to have this much horsepower and not take full advantage of it.... :-(

Jeff Harper · March 18th, 2009, 04:27 PM

I just brought in a HD project, very simple, one camera, created in 8.0c, and opened it with 8.1, and the audio couldn't be "found" by Vegas. I agree, it is disappointing.

Edward Troxel · March 18th, 2009, 05:25 PM

I did a 2-cam AVCHD project in Vegas Pro 8.1 using Excalibur for the multi-cam (among other things) and all worked as expected. I've used 8.1 for several things so far. While MB isn't 64-bit compatible, there are plugins that are. I used the NewBlueFX Color Fixer Plus to color correct both cameras.

Dale Guthormsen · March 18th, 2009, 08:03 PM

Jeff,

Curiously, did you open the media folder or did you go to import?

I found that when I went to imprt I could get things in that otherwise would not.

Jeff Harper · March 18th, 2009, 09:05 PM

Dale, the project was already previously assembled in 8.0c. I haven't created a project from scratch in 8.1 yet, but I'll keep in mind what you suggest, thank you Dale.

Jeff Harper · March 19th, 2009, 07:18 PM

I added additional PSU and found I can now hit 4.0 and appears stable, but i can't confirm with Prime because temps are too high to run it safely: 78C in idle! But I have confirmed my psu was holding me back.

Boot times have lessened, and machine seems more responsive.

Backed off on the CPU speed, but when I find suitable cooling solution at least I can run at the increased speed as I had wanted.

John Peterson · March 20th, 2009, 03:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Well I increased my PSU from 850 to 1350 and I have found I can now hit 4.0 and appears stable, but i can't confirm with Prime because temps are too high to run it safely: 78C in idle! But I have confirmed my psu was holding me back. Obviously, I am now a firm believer in you can't have too much power!

Boot times have lessened, and machine seems more responsive. Very happy I upped power.

Obviously I am powering down and backing off on the CPU speed, but when I find suitable cooling solution at least I can run as fast as I want.

Not sure how a larger power supply alone can increase boot times and responsiveness.

John

Jeff Harper · March 20th, 2009, 05:41 AM

By responsiveness I am referring to accessing HDs, not OS, BTW, so my post was misleading. I was having issues accessing HDs running off of PCIe raid card. Those issues have gone since adding second PSU.

DVDA was really dragging when opening projects from those two drives. Now it is lightning quick. The only thing I can guess is that possibly there was less than optimum power that did not allow for correct operation of the drives running from the PCIe card. John, I don't know why this is either. This is the second incident in which I was underpowered and changed PSUs to find improvement, particularly relating to accessing HDs or transferring files from one drive to another, especiially for drives running off of a PCIe card.

The first time it occured I had a host of issues that vanished with a new PSU. In that case I was seriously underpowered (350 watts) where I should have been running at least 600 watts.

And when I say boot times have improved I actually meant the pre-windows portion of the boot process, the time spent in POST has shortened. Actual boot times of windows is the same. I do not have an answer for why that is either, but I have seen similar claims made by others in oveclocking forums.

Many of these "issues" which I have are self-inflicted. Who really needs 8 internal hard drives + externals? While there are those that do, the vast majority of us here do not. On top if that, a case with 5 fans, 4 add-in cards, and 12GB of memory and oveclocked are overkill. I certainly don't need 12GB of memory for example or an audio card. Onboard sound and 6GB of memory would be more than sufficient.

Jeff Harper · March 23rd, 2009, 10:32 AM

Disregard message

March 17th, 2009, 07:59 PM	#242
Terry Esslinger Major Player Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Sacramento, Elk Grove. Calif Posts: 306	Jeff, Just got home with my 'new' eSATA HD connected it to the computer and of course the computer did not recognize so that rules out the drives as the problem. Now waiting around for Dell to call tonight as they said they would. __________________ Puttin the wet stuff on the red stuff!

March 18th, 2009, 10:12 AM	#244
Terry Esslinger Major Player Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Sacramento, Elk Grove. Calif Posts: 306	Jeff, You are right. Escept for the fact that I had to continually run the same tests over and over because I got different techs each call and they couldn't seem to accept the information on my case record as being accurate I really can't complain about the tech support. I reached a person very quickly each time and they called me back when they said they would. It now does appear that I am going to need a new MB and they are having a tech contact me to set up an appointment to do it. Now if I can get Best Buy to take back the spare eSATA drive.... I'll let you know how it turns out. __________________ Puttin the wet stuff on the red stuff!

March 18th, 2009, 11:38 AM	#245
Ray Johnston New Boot Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Wichita, Kansas Posts: 23	Somewhat disappointed... I built an i7 machine from scratch this last weekend (i7-920, MSI X58 Pro MB, 6GB GSkill 1333, SATA II RAID0 - 640GB, nVidia 9800GT, dual monitor setup, clean install of Vista 64 and Vegas 8.1). Machine works great - ran Prime95 abuse testing for several hours with no problems or errors. I am working on 3 projects at the moment, and brought these over from my tired old Athlon 64 3500+ machine (XP SP3, Vegas 8.0b), all 16:9 SD widescreen. Two projects seemed to open up just fine (after Vegas found the files), while the one that I need first (of course) causes Vegas 8.1 to get an exception error. I had not made any changes to preferences or options, but I had changed the directory structure of the source files (but Vegas found them). Then I realized I had not done a reboot after several driver updates in Vista. I rebooted, and then I was able to open the veg file, and I rendered out 14 video segments (chapters for a DVD), and I thought all was right with the world again..... Fast forward to last night when I wanted to go back into the veg file to tweek several things, and now when I open it there is nothing showing in the video & audio timelines (just blank), and I get tiles instead of thumbnails for the media. When I hit play, the video plays on the preview as if it were in the timeline, but the slider and cursors don't work, and then it just crashes. In years of work with several versions of Vegas I cannot recall ever having it crash other than with the Pro Titler in earliest version of 8. I then when back to "dumbed down" Vegas 8.0c (had to install), opened the file, and all just worked fine. No go with 8.1. I am not overclocking. My northbridge temperature is pretty high (processor very cool), which seems typical of this MB. Any one have any ideas? If the 64 bit stuff would just work, I would be very happy. I've seen some impressive render times. rendertest HDV.veg = 71sec for me (typical of 920 machines w/o overclock). With 8.0c it added about 50 seconds. Thanks!

March 18th, 2009, 05:25 PM	#249
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	I did a 2-cam AVCHD project in Vegas Pro 8.1 using Excalibur for the multi-cam (among other things) and all worked as expected. I've used 8.1 for several things so far. While MB isn't 64-bit compatible, there are plugins that are. I used the NewBlueFX Color Fixer Plus to color correct both cameras. __________________ Edward Troxel [SCVU] JETDV Scripts/Scripting Tutorials/Excalibur/Montage Magic/Newsletters

March 18th, 2009, 08:03 PM	#250
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	Jeff, Curiously, did you open the media folder or did you go to import? I found that when I went to imprt I could get things in that otherwise would not. __________________ DATS ALL FOLKS Dale W. Guthormsen

March 17th, 2009, 02:39 PM	#241
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Terry, from what I've seen in this and other forums, the e-sata with these boards are not consistently great. If you need an alternative for esata, the adaptec 1220SA cost $50 at Newegg, is PCIe, has two esata connections, and has built-in hardware raid. It's a very nice little card, and since you'll now have two esata drives you'd be in business, as long as you had an extra PCIe slot. Just a thought. Dell replaced my MOBO twice in my last Dell, and as it turned out the SATA controller on that board was just not very good, the raid didn't work well on any of them. So for RAID I just turned to the adaptec card and it was amazingly effective.

March 17th, 2009, 11:34 PM	#243
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Even if they don't call, if you have to call, they will take good care of you. Hopefully the new MB will take care of it...but if not I would consider just getting a card. For the price you paid for the Dell, if your esata doesn't work you're still ahead of the game. I'll give them this, with my last system with them they really went the extra mile, it just turned out the PC I had wasn't built for video. If I could've upgraded the PSU, it might have resolved the issues I had, but they didn't have a PSU upgrade that would fit in the case, so I gave up and just built my own. I wish you luck! Hopefully a MB swap will help!

March 18th, 2009, 02:13 PM	#246
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	This won't help you Ray, but I have not had success with 8.1 on three different machines. Admittedly the issues were with previous 8.0c projects, but I use MB regularly, as well as Ultimate S, so with all of these factors combined I just found it not useful for my purposes. I may try it out on a new project for fun at some point, one that doesn't require Ultimate S multi-cam, etc, but other than a straightforward single cam project, I just can't use it.

March 18th, 2009, 04:23 PM	#247
Ray Johnston New Boot Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Wichita, Kansas Posts: 23	Thanks Jeff. I did forget to mention the project at issue was multicam (only 2). I'm wondering if a starting project from scratch in 8.1 helps or not? I would guess not. I'm not using any plugins at the moment, but I do regularly use a multitude of formats, including jpegs, quicktime (Digital Juice). Typically 5 to 6 video tracks and 3 audio. Anyhow it appears that I have to stick with the "crippleware". I may try doing my next project from scratch in 8.1 to see what happens. Frustrating to have this much horsepower and not take full advantage of it.... :-(

March 18th, 2009, 04:27 PM	#248
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	I just brought in a HD project, very simple, one camera, created in 8.0c, and opened it with 8.1, and the audio couldn't be "found" by Vegas. I agree, it is disappointing.

March 18th, 2009, 09:05 PM	#251
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Dale, the project was already previously assembled in 8.0c. I haven't created a project from scratch in 8.1 yet, but I'll keep in mind what you suggest, thank you Dale.

March 19th, 2009, 07:18 PM	#252
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	I added additional PSU and found I can now hit 4.0 and appears stable, but i can't confirm with Prime because temps are too high to run it safely: 78C in idle! But I have confirmed my psu was holding me back. Boot times have lessened, and machine seems more responsive. Backed off on the CPU speed, but when I find suitable cooling solution at least I can run at the increased speed as I had wanted. Last edited by Jeff Harper; March 20th, 2009 at 05:16 AM.

March 20th, 2009, 05:41 AM	#254
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	By responsiveness I am referring to accessing HDs, not OS, BTW, so my post was misleading. I was having issues accessing HDs running off of PCIe raid card. Those issues have gone since adding second PSU. DVDA was really dragging when opening projects from those two drives. Now it is lightning quick. The only thing I can guess is that possibly there was less than optimum power that did not allow for correct operation of the drives running from the PCIe card. John, I don't know why this is either. This is the second incident in which I was underpowered and changed PSUs to find improvement, particularly relating to accessing HDs or transferring files from one drive to another, especiially for drives running off of a PCIe card. The first time it occured I had a host of issues that vanished with a new PSU. In that case I was seriously underpowered (350 watts) where I should have been running at least 600 watts. And when I say boot times have improved I actually meant the pre-windows portion of the boot process, the time spent in POST has shortened. Actual boot times of windows is the same. I do not have an answer for why that is either, but I have seen similar claims made by others in oveclocking forums. Many of these "issues" which I have are self-inflicted. Who really needs 8 internal hard drives + externals? While there are those that do, the vast majority of us here do not. On top if that, a case with 5 fans, 4 add-in cards, and 12GB of memory and oveclocked are overkill. I certainly don't need 12GB of memory for example or an audio card. Onboard sound and 6GB of memory would be more than sufficient. Last edited by Jeff Harper; March 20th, 2009 at 07:53 AM.

March 23rd, 2009, 10:32 AM	#255
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Disregard message