Well, I did it!!!!More expensive than I originally planned, but this may be my last upgrade, so I went for broke.Finally bit the bullet and went for it. My components have shipped from Newegg as follows:1. Windows XP Pro 64 bit2. Intel Core i7 975 CPU + ASUS P6T Deluxe MB Combo3. Scythe MUGEN-2 SCMNG-2000 CPU Cooler4. OCZ Platinum Memory 6GB 7-7-7-24 OCZ3P1600LV6GK5. EvGA 01G-P3-1180-AR GTX 285 Video Card6. Two each Western Digital VelcoiRaptor 300GB HD's7. OCZ OCZTFRZTC Freeze Extreme Thermal Cond. CompoundFor what it is worth to anyone else speculating, I have followed the pricing over the past several weeks. They fluctuate quite a bit, as much as plus or minus $50 for memory, MB, Video card etc. At the moment, the following favorable specials (to me at least) are available for the items listed above:MB and CPU combination $50 reduction in priceMemory: $20 rebateVideo card: $20 rebateHarddrives: $30 rebate (Each I think)I hate the hassle of rebates with a passion, but so far they have always been honored with no problem through Newegg purchases for me if one is patient enough to wait a while. Not so with some others I have bought (Years ago Norton comes to mind as the first, but Norton has turned into a bad word in my view anyway with FS and died away long ago). Hopefully with this new hardware coupled with some of what already exists as mentioned in my original post to this thread, and Nick's installation and tweak guides I will soon have a system that runs FSX NEAR the way FS9 already runs (Flawlessly and smoothly with sliders maxed out, well almost maxed out anyway). I know my Power Supply is a bit of overkill, but I already have two good Corsair 1,000 watt power supplies.I will let you know how all of this works out.Again, my sincere thanks to all, especially Nick for your thoughts, experience, and advice.Respectfully:RTH

Well, I did it!!!!More expensive than I originally planned, but this may be my last upgrade, so I went for broke.Finally bit the bullet and went for it. My components have shipped from Newegg as follows:1. Windows XP Pro 64 bit2. Intel Core i7 975 CPU + ASUS P6T Deluxe MB Combo3. Scythe MUGEN-2 SCMNG-2000 CPU Cooler4. OCZ Platinum Memory 6GB 7-7-7-24 OCZ3P1600LV6GK5. EvGA 01G-P3-1180-AR GTX 285 Video Card6. Two each Western Digital VelcoiRaptor 300GB HD's7. OCZ OCZTFRZTC Freeze Extreme Thermal Cond. CompoundFor what it is worth to anyone else speculating, I have followed the pricing over the past several weeks. They fluctuate quite a bit, as much as plus or minus $50 for memory, MB, Video card etc. At the moment, the following favorable specials (to me at least) are available for the items listed above:MB and CPU combination $50 reduction in priceMemory: $20 rebateVideo card: $20 rebateHarddrives: $30 rebate (Each I think)I hate the hassle of rebates with a passion, but so far they have always been honored with no problem through Newegg purchases for me if one is patient enough to wait a while. Not so with some others I have bought (Years ago Norton comes to mind as the first, but Norton has turned into a bad word in my view anyway with FS and died away long ago). Hopefully with this new hardware coupled with some of what already exists as mentioned in my original post to this thread, and Nick's installation and tweak guides I will soon have a system that runs FSX NEAR the way FS9 already runs (Flawlessly and smoothly with sliders maxed out, well almost maxed out anyway). I know my Power Supply is a bit of overkill, but I already have two good Corsair 1,000 watt power supplies.I will let you know how all of this works out.Again, my sincere thanks to all, especially Nick for your thoughts, experience, and advice.Respectfully:RTH

----------------------------------------------------------------------------Please do give a full report on this new system you are building. I am in the market as well..and am with most interest following these threads...especially the ones having an i7-975 as the CPU!

To add a little, well maybe not humor, but amusement to this scenario.I thought I had ordered about everything I needed for this upgrade, including Artic Silver thermal compound when I remembered that Nick recommended the OCZ compound instead of the Artic Silver. Everything on this order from Newegg is out for delivery today from UPS.Immediately after placing the order, I placed a second order to Newegg for only the OCZ thermal compound.Both orders were placed last Wednesday only mins. apart. The first big order arrived in Roanoke, Va Friday, which is about 90 miles from my location. Due to the weekend, It arrived near my home and is now out for delivery this morning, the following Monday, less than three whole work days, with the most efficient routing possible in my view. Pleased as punch, I am now awaiting the UPS delivery truck.Now the amusement:The second order for only the tube of OCS thremal compound had a DHL tracking number from Newegg. I discovered that this was in error, and it really was a tracking number for the United States Postal Service. No biggie and a mistake any of us might make.Origin for shipment: Edison, NJ. Now there are two Edisons, in NJ, one in Middlesex county, and one in Sussex county. I have to plead ignorance on the geography in NJ, but the distance to the destination only differs by 16 miles from either on Mapquest, both consists of 260 miles on Interstate 81. I think this is academic and speculate that a single city of Edison might spread over into the two counties and we are really talking about the same origin for both Mapquest locations.Destination: Lewisburg, WV, located about 15 miles from the Eastern Virginia state line on Interstate 64 (West off of Interstate 81).Mapquest highway distance listed from Edison to Lewisburg: 475 (from Middlesex County), 459 (from Sussex County). Now, the turnoff from Interstate 81 on Interstate 64 to Lewisburg is about 50 miles short of Roanoke, Va. Speculating that the delivery might have gone on through Roanoke and taken the shortest route from there to Lewisburg, make the distance in the vincinity of 500 to 525 miles or so. Worst case would be that the mail bypassed Lewisburg and went all the way to Charleston, WV and had to backtrack exactly the same way again back to Lewisburg. This would be a total of about 650 to 675 miles or so.Now peek at the routing by the USPS to give my my tube of compound:1. Edison, NJ to Rutherford, NJ: 40 miles2. Rutherford, NJ to Forrest Park, Ga: 866 miles3. Forest Park, Ga. to Greensboro, NC: 343 milesFrom Greensboro, NC where it is now located to God only knows where, but I hope not California, Alaska, or Hawaii. I will use Roanoke with hopeful thinking.4. Greensboro, NC to Roanoke, Va: 100 Miles5. Roanoke, Va to Lewisburg, WV: 90 milesTotal routing miles (being optimistic): 1,439 miles.Delivery date? Who knows?No wonder the postal system needs to raise our postal rates. I have heard of such with taxi drivers in Metro cities, but going 1,000 miles out of the way is a bit ridiculous.I think I will send a copy of this to Newegg. My recommendation would be that they avoid the USPS like the plaque.To be continued (If I ever receive my tube of thermal compound):Happy flying:RTHEdit: Now the real Kicker:Just checked my mail and there was the item in question. How, I have no idea as tracking still shows it to be in North Carolina. If you understand all of this, you have me beat.

There's a lot of numbers in your post haha....so you have all your parts now?

Chapter One: Disaster!Installed everything and cranked her up. Power and HD lights blink on, fan tries to start for a split second, Blue electrical arc at the end of the "A1" memory slot toward the middle of the Motherboard.Same thing with all other hardware removed except for the CPU.MOtherboard RMA'ed back to Newegg for a replacement.To be continued:RTH

Well, I did it!!!!More expensive than I originally planned, but this may be my last upgrade, so I went for broke.Finally bit the bullet and went for it. My components have shipped from Newegg as follows:1. Windows XP Pro 64 bit2. Intel Core i7 975 CPU + ASUS P6T Deluxe MB Combo3. Scythe MUGEN-2 SCMNG-2000 CPU Cooler4. OCZ Platinum Memory 6GB 7-7-7-24 OCZ3P1600LV6GK5. EvGA 01G-P3-1180-AR GTX 285 Video Card6. Two each Western Digital VelcoiRaptor 300GB HD's7. OCZ OCZTFRZTC Freeze Extreme Thermal Cond. CompoundInstalled everything and cranked her up. Power and HD lights blink on, fan tries to start for a split second, Blue electrical arc at the end of the "A1" memory slot toward the middle of the Motherboard.Same thing with all other hardware removed except for the CPU.MOtherboard RMA'ed back to Newegg for a replacement.

Me too, the components should be all here by tomorrow from Newegg. I ended up settling on the parts listed below -ASUS Rampage II ExtremeIntel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition w/Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366 RTMushkin Redline Ascent 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) (6-6-5-18)EVGA GTX 285 2GB FTW Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1tyWD VelociRaptor 150GB

To add a little, well maybe not humor, but amusement to this scenario.From Greensboro, NC where it is now located to God only knows where, but I hope not California, Alaska, or Hawaii. I will use Roanoke with hopeful thinking.No wonder the postal system needs to raise our postal rates. I have heard of such with taxi drivers in Metro cities, but going 1,000 miles out of the way is a bit ridiculous.I think I will send a copy of this to Newegg. My recommendation would be that they avoid the USPS like the plaque.

Except that if you order that grease from Newegg for shipment to Hawaii by UPS Newegg will charge about $30. By USPS more like $2. USPS flat rate priority mail box. Best deal in the world.scott s..

"Did you ever find exactly what the problem was or the cause of your

My assumption is that the MB was defective. Otherwise, I don't have a clue. I still had the arc with everything removed except the CPU. I sure hope it wasn't the CPU, but judging from the location on the MB it seems somewhat removed from the CPU location. I also hope it did not zap my memory on that slot.My Power Supply is a Corsair HX1000W (1000 watt) unit. I don't believe it is the problem as it was working fine before, and is working fine with the reinstalled hardware that I formally had now (making this post after the reinstallation, WOW, what a hassle!).Thanks for the reply and good luck!RTH

Well at least Newegg should have you back up and running soon.In the last ten years of building gaming machines I

I see you put the Mushkin redline in there very nice!!!When you get the chance I'd love to see the flight1 mustang VC in NYC with addons :)

I see you put the Mushkin redline in there very nice!!!When you get the chance I'd love to see the flight1 mustang VC in NYC with addons :)

So far the Mushkin

Chapter Two:Got my replacement Asus P6T Deluxe V2 Motherboard today.Good news and bad news. Obviously, the first board was bad as all fans crank up now, and the DVD/CD Rom Drive lights come on as she tries to boot up. No fire or smoke thank goodness like the first board had.The bad news is that I cannot boot up, but I think I probably know why. However, before I dive in, I thought I would seek confirmation.The EATXPWR plug has the option of plugging in 20 or 24 connections. I thought my previous system only implemented the 20 pin option, but I am not sure of that. It may very well have used all 24. In any case, should I use all 24 connections on this system?The EATX12V plug has the option of plugging in 4 or 8 connections. I am sure that on my previous system only 4 were used. My new Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard also has the second four connections blocked with a blank plug by default. Should I remove the plug blocking these pins and plug in the second 4 connections for a total of 8?Is this my problem of not booting up. No beep, no live monitors, and that hunker of a CPU cooler feels cool.Should I connect all 24 pins on the EATXPWR plug and/or the 8 pin connection on the EATX12V plug? I don't want any more green arcs on the board so thought I would seek confirmation before I plug anything else in. I don't see a thing in the documentation addressing this issue.Any credible advice sure would be appreciated.Respectfully:RTH

Should I connect all 24 pins on the EATXPWR plug and/or the 8 pin connection on the EATX12V plug? RTH

RTH,Yes just like with the Rampage II Extreme in the pics above, you should have the full 24-pin EATXPWR and the 8-pin EATX12V plugged in.What did you have before; it

Chapter three:After receiving a reply on another forum plus a Google search on the 24 pin / 8 pin question, I went from the 20 pin configuration to 24 pins, and from 4 pins to 8 as advised by several posts.Unfortunately, the same thing is happening.When I had all hardware connected I saw the following happening. My two DVD/CD drives light up and the lights blink four times each (They do this regardless of whether the communication ribbon is connected or not every time the computer power is applied.) Moments later, my harddrive light comes on and remains on for somewhere in the range of 10 or 15 seconds, then turns off.I started disconnecting hardware one item at a time until all I had connected were the Power Supply, CPU, and Memory. Same thing, no beeps or attempt to boot. If I remember correctly, on a working system, some beeps should be heard with only these connected and installed.When I reconnected the harddrives only, the harddrive light (panel front) blinks for a split second as soon as power is applied, then blinks once a few seconds later only once. It does not stay on for a few seconds as it did when all hardware was connected.With the memory removed, I do get the dash plus two beep signal (one long plus two short beeps) which jives with what the MB manual says. However, I do not get the beeps which the manual indicates that I should have with no graphics card installed. However, with the graphic card installed, but with the two power supply plugs unplugged, I get one long continual beep which I would think would be expected.I checked all jumpers and they are in the manual's default positions. I also cleared the "RTC RAM" as instructed in the manual. No luck and no affect.I then tried another power supply (24 pin and 8 pin connections only). Same thing, no boot beeps.The lights I see on the motherboard are as follows.Power switch is lighted red and works fine.Reset switch is lighted green, and when I had all power hooked up, it recycled the sequence of DVD/CD Drive and HD lights.Directly below the "Intel ICH10R" chip is a row of bright white lights.Slightly above and just outside of the inboard end of the A1 memory slot is a blue light.My assumption is that all of these lights are normal and I would appreciate it if someone could confirm this, but could anything here be an alarm, particularly the blue light at the end of the memory slot? That is just about exactly where the bright green electrical arc was on my previous bad MB. Possibly are there alarm lights at the end of each memory slot which might indicate a bad memory.Nothing I have touched on the motherboard is even warm, much less hot, including all heat sinks and even the pipes on the CPU cooler.I am about to the point of thinking that the previous bad motherboard zapped my CPU, memory or both. Now I am worried as to how Newegg is going to react to that. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on anything else to check before I take that step.Thanks:RTHDJT01:What I had before was an Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo on an Asus P5N SLI MB with 4GB M

Chapter three:After receiving a reply on another forum plus a Google search on the 24 pin / 8 pin question, I went from the 20 pin configuration to 24 pins, and from 4 pins to 8 as advised by several posts.Unfortunately, the same thing is happening.When I had all hardware connected I saw the following happening. My two DVD/CD drives light up and the lights blink four times each (They do this regardless of whether the communication ribbon is connected or not every time the computer power is applied.) Moments later, my harddrive light comes on and remains on for somewhere in the range of 10 or 15 seconds, then turns off.I started disconnecting hardware one item at a time until all I had connected were the Power Supply, CPU, and Memory. Same thing, no beeps or attempt to boot. If I remember correctly, on a working system, some beeps should be heard with only these connected and installed.When I reconnected the harddrives only, the harddrive light (panel front) blinks for a split second as soon as power is applied, then blinks once a few seconds later only once. It does not stay on for a few seconds as it did when all hardware was connected.With the memory removed, I do get the dash plus two beep signal (one long plus two short beeps) which jives with what the MB manual says. However, I do not get the beeps which the manual indicates that I should have with no graphics card installed. However, with the graphic card installed, but with the two power supply plugs unplugged, I get one long continual beep which I would think would be expected.I checked all jumpers and they are in the manual's default positions. I also cleared the "RTC RAM" as instructed in the manual. No luck and no affect.I then tried another power supply (24 pin and 8 pin connections only). Same thing, no boot beeps.The lights I see on the motherboard are as follows.Power switch is lighted red and works fine.Reset switch is lighted green, and when I had all power hooked up, it recycled the sequence of DVD/CD Drive and HD lights.Directly below the "Intel ICH10R" chip is a row of bright white lights.Slightly above and just outside of the inboard end of the A1 memory slot is a blue light.My assumption is that all of these lights are normal and I would appreciate it if someone could confirm this, but could anything here be an alarm, particularly the blue light at the end of the memory slot? That is just about exactly where the bright green electrical arc was on my previous bad MB. Possibly are there alarm lights at the end of each memory slot which might indicate a bad memory.Nothing I have touched on the motherboard is even warm, much less hot, including all heat sinks and even the pipes on the CPU cooler.I am about to the point of thinking that the previous bad motherboard zapped my CPU, memory or both. Now I am worried as to how Newegg is going to react to that. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on anything else to check before I take that step.Thanks:RTHDJT01:What I had before was an Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo on an Asus P5N SLI MB with 4GB M

Ouch. I'm afraid I agree with you that this looks like a zapped CPU and/or RAM.Something to have in mind if you're going to try to get a refund on these items: just check p2-36 of your manual (assuming it's the same as the one for the Deluxe v2 on Asus's website) and make sure you are ready to justify your build method. Reading this, I can just about see why you were in doubt about whether to connect all 8 of the pins on the EATX12V connection (especially if 4 of them were blocked by a plug on your MB) but I'm not sure why you thought it was OK to connect only 20 out of the 24 pins on the EATXPWR connection.Tim