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

Oh, yes.. those DO need to be connectedI can see the confusion about the 4/8 pin EATX 12v because even the motherboard manuals are not clear about that plug.. dual core 4pin, Quad 8pin and especially if overclocking is the goal. Not connecting the full 8pin CPU power plug that comes on modern PSUs (and the RIGHT 8pin plug too!) is a no-no with quads and clockingMake sure to use the correct 8pin connector on that plug. Do not mistake a 8pin PCIe connector with that CPU 8pin plug. The CPU plug will be all black on one side (4pins) and all yellow on the other (4pins)Although not connecting the 8pin CPU power plug and using the 4 should not damage the motherboard ... just make it unstable HoweverWhy would you not plug in the full 24pin from your PSU to the motherboard when the motherboard clearly uses the 24pin layout?Unlike the 4/8pin EATX 12v CPU power the 24pin motherboard plug is critical and without it you WILL overload the board with a high power PCIe video adapter which is why they added the extra 3 power lines and 1 ground to the plugPCIe cards draw a significant increase in current through the motherboard connector. With the introduction of PCIe 2.0 and above cards draw an extra portion of their 12 volt load through the PCIe slot. The extra 4 pins increased the current requirements so that one is easy to overload when only using a 20 pin main power cable. Typically that would burn the main power cord/plug and I dont see it causing a component to smoke however I do not know how Asus is using those power inputs to their PCB layer design either so it is possible the newer motherboards may be very sensitive to the 4pin power/ground missing at the main connector using a high power video adapterNow.. thats not to say there is something else wrong or that the original motherboard did not damage memory or CPU. Arcs are a very BAD sign which is why my original comment was so alarming in nature. My 'guess' is there is in fact something else bad in this system be it the CPU/video/memory or PSUVideo card is not out of the loop on that one either. Do you have another card you can install to see if there is any change? Finding the problem can be tricky and requires a process or elimination to figure outAt this point you may have damage memory or a CPU. HAve you tried to remove all but one stick of memoy (swap to single channel mode) and try to boot up?Reseating the CPU may not be a bad idea either at this point and confirm there are no bent pins in the socket. If the original motherboard was defective and had bent pins in the CPU socket that can account for a short to the memory or CPU One other thing too and its a very common mistake people make when installing a motherboard.. make SURE the standoffs are in the right place and there is no extra standoff shorting out the back of the motherboard. One of the most common errors is to place a screw standoff in the wrong place (no hole) and the motherboard ends up with a short on the back where the riser makes contact with the board.

Yes, you do need to plug in both 24 pin and 8 pin power. Had the same problem you are describing when I tried to boot my new system but plugging in the 8 pin EATX power solved the issue. Mine also had a 4 pin plug on the 8 pin EATX which the mobo directions clearly said to remove. Mobo is ASUS Crosshair III Formula.Don't know if this might have anything to do with it but I read at Newegg that some folks were receiving mobos from ASUS which required a new chip. Might want to check that out.

Thanks so much for the advice and suggestions folks: I learned some time ago that every time I thought I knew anything about computers that they usually say, OH! let me show you what you know and don't know. But it has never been quite this nightmare. The scenario and conclusion of this chapter went like this: Just to see what happened, I removed the 3rd party CPU cooler and installed the Intel factory default. My computer booted up. My mistake was not stopping there. The instructions for installation of the Scythe SCMG-2000 CPU cooler say to remove the CPU retaining seat and be sure to keep the insulation washers between the unit and the motherboard. There were no insulation washers in that location for my Asus P6T Deluxe V2 Motherboards. So I used insulation washers I already had and tried the Scythe cooler again. No cigar. Went back to the Intel cooler and got the same results again to my dismay, no boot up. The CPU has now been removed and reseated so many times that if it didn't already have damage, I fear that it or the MB may very well now have bent or damaged pins, regardless of the initial cause (Bad first Motherboard). I have used up the good stuff and my last attempts were with the Artic Silver (and I do use it very conservatively with the credit card spread approach). Conclusion: Both the CPU and Motherboard have been RMA'ed back to Newegg for exchange. If this doesn't work out, I am going to be hunting for a good bare bones sujpplier, and it really is getting to me. To be continued: RTH

If this doesn't work out, I am going to be hunting for a good bare bones sujpplier, and it really is getting to me. To be continued: RTH

RTH,I don

RTH,I don

Thanks for the offers DJT and Abe. I will have a week or two to chew on this before deciding what to do. I have put together a number of computers with little to no problem. I don't know how Murphy got so much control over this upgrade. I will give your kind offers some consideration, but I am in Lewisburg, West Virginia a long way from California.Respectfully:RTH

Thanks for the offers DJT and Abe. I will have a week or two to chew on this before deciding what to do. I have put together a number of computers with little to no problem. I don't know how Murphy got so much control over this upgrade. I will give your kind offers some consideration, but I am in Lewisburg, West Virginia a long way from California.Respectfully:RTH

RTH, ABE,Let me know if I can help, by the way I

Chapter Four: Finally got my new Motherboard (third one), and new CPU (Second one). I doubt that anything was wrong with one of them, but had no way of telling which one was the culprit. Newegg was OUTSTANDING in helping out with no problem at all. I am back on line now and everything looks great so far with the exception that some of my software and hardware will not work on the 64 bit system. So far, the following need new drivers to work. 1. My Epson Perfection 2480 Photo scanner (Request emailed to Epson) 2. Decoder software to watch DVD Videos on my DVD/CD Burners (Request made to LG by email). Anyone have a recommendation for a decoder for WinXP 64 bit? 3. Microtech ZIO Compact Flash Card Reader. Cannot reach Microtech, and one post says they are out of business. Any recommendations for a card reader that will work with WinXP 64 bit? 4. The Bible Library Deluxe Edition 4. (Email request sent to Elis Enterprises). Another problem is that I have not been able to get my GTX8800 video card to be recognized (third or fourth monitors). It calls for the same drivers as the new GTX285. I have tried all kinds of scenarios, Install one, then the other, etc.) It was recognized once in display properties, but when I tried to enable it the computer froze up. I never could get it to appear as an option again. It is listed in System Hardware Device Manager with an exclamination mark. I could not get it to work with anything except the default VGA drivers by itself either, and of course all the NVIDIA provisions are missing (Cannot change resolution etc.) The GTX285 card works great. I would consider another as my secondary, but I am not confident as to whether the problem may be something else, and not the card. Is anyone sucessfully useing a combination of a GTX285 and GTX 8800 card for multiple monitors, particularly on the ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 Motherboard? I tried several different drivers. It will probably be a couple of weeks to a month before I am able to get everything installed, particularly the massive bunch of stuff I have for FS. So far, with the exception of what I mention above performance is very impressive. A few minor disappointments. The MB does not have serial ports, so I had to buy an RS232 PCI card in order to include my PlusDeck 2 Tape drive. This negated useing my sound card as there is only one useable PCI slot (second covered by the graphics card). However, onboard sound works great. I also had two old IDE harddrives with Sata adapters. They (assumed to be the adapters) are not recognized by this MB. No biggie as I have four large Native Sata drives plus a 600GB external HD. If anyone knows a solution to the card reader, DVD decoder, and particularly the graphics gard combination problems mentioned above, I sure would appreciate it if you would share it. To be continued: RTH

One Down:Found a decoder for DVD videos with XPPro 64 bit.VLC media player works, although it is a little strange compared to what I was use to before.Demands a bit of patience. Once play is selected, it takes a few moments before it shows any sign of life. But it does seem to work ok.Now if I could just figure out how to get a Cinimascope Movie to fill the screen even on a wide screen LCD monitor. I am not I have boughtHappy flying (as if this had anything to do with flying).RTH

Chapter five (and hopefully the final chapter): Brief summary of how I got here from there (Notice the time frame): May 17th: Posted speculation on new i7 System upgrade: June 18th: Purchase June 25th: Received bad Motherboard (Arcing by Mem. slot) July 9th: Could not get new MB/CPU to run (no arc now) July 27th: Received new MB/CPU: SUCCESS! Hardware that will not work on my new WinXPPro 64bit operating system: Scanner and Flash card reader: Some software programs will not work either. (i.e. my old version of MSMoney in MSOffice 97, The Bible Library Version 4.0 Deluxe, Wordsearch). My solution was to implement my previous computer system as a secondary with Windows WinXPPro 32bit. Obviously a key motivation for this was also to purchase and install WideFS6 for FS9 and WideFS7 for FSX (upon which I have speculated for years anyway). FS RULES! I believe I now have all of my major FlightSim addons installed. I discovered that PF2000/PFE works great by itself on the secondary computer, but GameCommander2 would not work under any circumstances with this configuration. No biggie: I just installed it on my primary computer as well. I do have FlightDeck Companion (FDC) and FlightSim Commander (FSC) installed on the secondary and they work great. So far, the things I discovered that I was not able to reinstall: The PSS 777's. It would not successfuly copy from my backup, nor install from the installation provisions. It required an ok over the internet from PSS which of course does not exist any more. Sad. All of the PSS Airbusses, Concorde, and Dash 8 copied fine. My Dreamfleet Dakota will not fly in FSX after being installed although there are no errors in the installation. The RXP Garmin unique to this aircraft zaps the selection and is not compatible with 64bit. The Dreamfleet Baron in FS9 can be installed and selected with no problem. However, the unique RXP Garmin will not work in this bird either. I disabled it and installed my RXP purchased unit and it works fine, although there are some error windows that pop up when the bird is selected. Ignoring them, I have seen no problems. None of my FSD International aircraft (oldest versions) would work in FSX. I did have all of them working fine before my upgrade. Looks like FSD has negated this possibility with the last installation downloads, and I will have to break down and buy the newer versions of the Navajo and Pilatus. Sadly, there is no Cheyenne 400 for FSX. One item I do not understand after installing the 64bit XP Pro operating system. My name is not shown as a user as it is with the 32bit system, only "Administrator", which I am. Thus on startup it initially required entering my password as administrator in order to boot up. I discovered that if I deleted my password (entered as required in the installtion of winxp), that she would bootup without this requirement. In the 32 bit system, I can go to Start>All Programs>Windows Update and access/install updates as desired. When I try to check for updates in the 64 bit WinXP system it tells me I must be logged on as the Administrator (which I am). Instructions are to go to Start>All Programs>Right click Windows Update, Click Run and I have two options: "Current User", or "The Following User". If I click ok on Current User nothing happens. If I click, The following user, my only option is Administrator and it asks me for a password. I have reenterd my password in my account and it does not recognize it. I have also tried without a password and it still does not work. When I try to activate it with the administrator option, it just recycles back to the instruction window that told me the above. Ironically, in spite of now not being to access updates, if I remember correctly, when I installed the 64 bit operating system the first thing I did was successfully install all of the updates, and select automatic updates. My Add/Remove display under the control panel seems to confirm this as I have a mess of Updates listed, and on multiple dates. Mskes me wonder if I am updating automatically in spite of not being to access this manually. Confused I am. How do I access the update provisions? Is there somewhere else besides accounts that I need to enter a password? My success has been totally to follow Nick's recommendations and instructions in this thread, and as a follow up, "How & where do I read Overclock Speed", another post by "rhodges" on "Sept. 5" of this forum. Copies are in my safe and following them is mandatory in my book along with his other setup Gospel! "SETTING UP FSX and HOW TO TUNE IT", Author: "NickN", posted on January 05, 2009 is also an absolute must and I recommend that it be followed to the letter. I would also recommend the "Viewing Tutorial: How to use Nhancer" in the following link: http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?autocom...&article=32 The link can also be located under the post: "Shimmering again" by "PK" as the author on "September 2, 2009" within the FS2004 forum on AvSim. Ever since my last upgrade (not this one, years ago), scenery shimmered in FS9. The advice in this thread totally removed them. One item that puzzles me is occasionally when I boot up I get a warning on the CPU fan in the post up text. I checked it and it is running fine. Press "F1" and she boots up just fine. Temps are normal and the fan is running normally. It only does this occasionally, not on every startup of the computer. One confession: Be sure that you put the memory in the right slots. By mistake I misread the configuration backwords and put them in the wrong series. The computer would not post. I thought I had my same problem over again, but removing them and getting them in the right hole cured the problem and she came up perfectly. I'm sure I forgot something, but I think this covers the major issues and findings. One remainder unique to my system. Temperatures are a concern. Initially I was pushing the maximums, running CPU temps within the 60'sC to low 70'sC at idle, and spiking into the 80'sC with FS running. I read (combination of realtemp and AsusProbe) that at idle my MB temp and CPU temps were the same. My conclusion was that my issue might be simply ambient plus case temp in spite of a big case with a mess of fans. I removed the side of my case and the temps dropped about ten degrees. It was not until this point that I made the final setup edits as per Nick's advice in the thread, "SETTING UP FSX and HOW TO TUNE IT". Temperature dropped another ten degrees. Running FSX (LDS767, KJFK or KSEA, Maximum weather conditions) now produces temps running in the 50's to 60's C. Idled temps are in the 40's to 50's C. I have debated putting the side of my case back on, but I think I am about to make a very unorthodox modification. I am considering cutting new sides (both sides, I don't have the other removed yet) and modifying them to have cross case ventilation, possibly with new and larger fans depending upon first results. I have considered just getting pegboard and painting them, but that might not be too pretty. New metal sides with a similar design is another cosideration but it would require a lot of drilling. If I go this route, I think I will mount them with VelCro. That sure would make it easy to remove and blow out the dust occasionally. Bottom line: In Nick's setup advice for FSX as referenced above, He said: "If you are going to sit there and stare at the frame counter using it to judge performance.. you will be beating your head against the desk forever. Yes, you can use that number when the frame lock is set to UNLIMITED ONLY to get a feel for performance after making a change ASSUMING Unlimited frame lock does not cause microstutters in the area you are flying/testing but DO NOT use the number as a primary target goal LOCKED or UNLOCKED! In FSX its about SMOOTH flight with CLEAR terrain. If you are seeing that on the screen it does not matter WHAT the frame rate number displays!" This advice has proved to be absolutely true in my book! At the present time, everything is working beautifully. In FSX, at KJFK or KSEA with clouds and Precipitation maxed out, and moderate wind speed (16kts), my frame rates are in the mid 20's to low 30's. After the initial install without Nick's tweaks, these severe conditions resulted in rates as low as single digits. Occasionally as I slew around, it might spike rarely now into the teens. However, movement is smooth as silk with no signs of stutters, mini or major. When I reinstalled FS9, put FSGenesis, UTX, USRoads, and the rest of my scenery back in, I thought I had a new flightsim, and I was reasonably pleased with it on my old system. Almost considered forgetting FSX. With default scenery after reinstalling FSX, the clarity was unbelievable to say nothing of what it now looks like with GEX, FEX, UTX, and FSGenesis installed. I never knew it could look so good. If you are willing to jump through a few hoops (and spend the $$$$, whew), I highly recommend this system. It will probably be my last. Respectfully: RTH