Well I bought the new box today.

[MindWerks]

Cost me about $2000, but it's a SWEET box. Can't wait till it arrives via Fed-Ex

AMD 64 3500+
Nvidia 6800 Ultra
1 Gig of 3200 DDR Cruicial ECC RAM
Creative Audigy2 ZS
2 SATA 200 Gig drives
1 SATA 74 Gig 10,000 RPM Super drive
Gigabit Lan
Lots of other Gaming addons

If this doesn't play HL2 smoothly I give up. :p

[LA_MERC_Mercy]

now that is a nice box...where did you get it at?

[SaBeR512]

Hes got "connections" in the "hood". :ldm :ldm

[MindWerks]

I bought all the pieces seperatly. I'm going to build it myself. I got all the components from ZipZoomFly.com

[~a/c]

I bought all the pieces seperatly. I'm going to build it myself. I got all the components from ZipZoomFly.com
Oh man....I have a crazy case of teh jealouz0rs now

[[uGa] Saint]

Oh man....I have a crazy case of teh jealouz0rs now

ahhhhhahahaha... man.. your crazy...

[aCiD]

i gotzors a

Pentium 4 HT 3.0C CPU
2 WD 80gb HDD and 1 200GB HDD SATA
ASUS P4P800 E Deluxe MOBO
ThermalTake Big water cooling
Nvidia BFG 6800 GT OC card
480true Antec PS
Corsair XMS Xtreme Ram 1gig
Creative Audigy2 ZS
all in a Thermaltake va3000 Tsunami Dream case
and spent only 1400 w00t

I thinks thats it, but its runs HL2 and max settings with no prob.. so have fun, w00t w00t

[MindWerks]

I got all the pieces put together and it is a damn fast box...OMG. But there is one problem.. I can't get the Audigy 2 ZS card to be recognized. I put the card in my old machine (to see if it was a faulty card) but it worked right away. I tried every PCI slot there is in my case but no luck. I'm going to try to flash the Mobo BIOS when I get off work, but I'm not sure if that will work.. I hope it does. I want to get this damn hardware setup out of the way so that I can concentrate on setting up my software the way I like.

[~a/c]

I got all the pieces put together and it is a damn fast box...OMG. But there is one problem.. I can't get the Audigy 2 ZS card to be recognized. I put the card in my old machine (to see if it was a faulty card) but it worked right away. I tried every PCI slot there is in my case but no luck. I'm going to try to flash the Mobo BIOS when I get off work, but I'm not sure if that will work.. I hope it does. I want to get this damn hardware setup out of the way so that I can concentrate on setting up my software the way I like.
I'm assuming your motherboard has onboard audio as well? I think you might need to change a BIOS setting or a jumper to turn it off, then the Audigy should work.

[aCiD]

hrm mine had an onboard sound, poped the card in and it worked fine, doh... grats on puter tho :)

[MindWerks]

I have tried EVERYTHING there is to try. I turned off the onboard audio, I tried manually setting the IRQ's I tried actually removing the metal tab attached to the card just in case it was grounding out or not seating all the way down into the slot... Nada... It's come to the point where I'm 99% sure the motherboard is faulty and the PCI bus just isn't functioning. (sigh) You have no idea how hard it is to find a brick and mortar store that sells decent motherboards. I'm going to call a couple of places tomorrow and just buy another Motherboard. UGG, Last time I ever build a box with MSI motherboards ever. Of all componets to be bad in a PC I can't think of a more annoying or pain in the butt part then that one. (as you can tell I'm just a tad frustrated, I should be playing my HL2 damn it).

[npor]

Before you do that, have you tried using a different sound card in there? Maybe the ZS is defective?

[[uGa] Saint]

Before you do that, have you tried using a different sound card in there? Maybe the ZS is defective?

huh, good question.


I put the card in my old machine (to see if it was a faulty card) but it worked right away.

oops, nm. That was one of the first things he said, lol.

MindWerks, get some other sorta PCI card from a friend and see if it works. If it IS the motherboard, MSI is really good about fixing manufacturer defects. Just email them for an RMA and you can get it fixed for free. Sucks, but at least you dont have to spend any more money.

[MindWerks]

I found a local store that had the exact model of Motherboad that I got online. I bought it and put it in my machine and it works great. All is well, it did cost me an extra $165 to get the replacement board though. I will just RMA the defective one and get a new board then sell it on Ebay or something to recoup the losses. Either that or I'll just keep it on hand in case I ever need a replacement. Hey I'm just happy I was able to play HL2 on it's best settings with perfect play. Damn this machine is fast... WOOT :)