Hey fellas, I am in the situation of not being able to operate three wide-screen monitors and use TeamSpeak at the same time. Specifically, my monitors will not support a 50Hz refresh rate and so I can not use TH2go at the resolution I prefer (1920x1080). Off-line everything is fine as I am able to use these monitors while FSX is in "windowed" mode and still maintain a fair FPS value. Therefore, I am considering a second GTX 580, SLI, some extra cooling assistance (so I can "dial up" my I7 950 to about 4Ghz) and Nividia"s Surround to resolve this problem. I would appreciate hearing from those of you who are using Surround and who are on TeamSpeak. I am wondering about the effect on FPS. I noticed that, using one monitor only, I am able to use TeamSpeak and enjoy MP flights with others over Orbix's PNW. When I bring even the second monitor into play, my FPS drops from 47+/- to about 2.3. I have talked with others who are using TH2go at the lower resolutions and they appear to have no trouble operating multiple monitors. I would really like to hear from those of you who are using Surround and are enjoying MP activities in that mode before I commit to the additional monies required. Thanks! John

Good Morning John! Very cryptic, I know, but I'm a one-finger BB person!!....and I know you know my system in some degree, but for the record - when in a 10-flyer (as last night) on-line session, I run TH2G (3840 x 1024) + TIR + TSspk +FSHost + EZCA + Shade + Alacrity + FPS_Limiter _ Milviz 310 - frames locked at 30 with no degradation in performance. Not everyone will get this, and some will achieve better, but I have to say I'm very happy with this system and FSX. Best,

Hey Paul, I am somewhat familiar with your system. I believe it to be a wonderful! It's no wonder you achieve the results you do. I am hopeful there are some folks out there that operate multiple monitors and do so using Nvidia's Surround. I would very much like to hear from some of those operators about their level of satisfaction and whether or not they are achieving the same results using Surround that those of you who are using TH2go achieve in terms of FPS numbers. Take care, John BTW, I am thinking I will probably upgrade the entire system sometime next year. At that time, I will look at Sandy Bridge. Until then, I am probably going to put a second 580 in and SLI the two of them to run Surround. I am going to mount a Corsair H-100 on my I7 950 and move it up to somewhere between 4 - 4.2ghz. I will need a new case to accomodate the cooling unit but that is no problem. Finally, since I have noticed that my present motherboard "steals" some RAM during the overclocking process, I am going to mount another 4 gigs. I have 12 installed and "see" 8 due to the CPU being overclocked up from 3.2 to 3.8 ghz. I do, from time to time, notice I'm down to about 100 megs of "free" memory when I have everything dialed up. I would like to "see" about 12 gigs RAM to give me a little more breathing room. What do you think? Any suggestions?

Interesting... I may be missing something re the Intel procs & oc'ing... I've never heard of this 'stealing' ram.. what mobo do you have, if I may ask?

MSi X58 Pro-E, model no. MS7522 (v3.x). Triple channel mode, 12 gigs DDR3 RAM installed. I7 950 ( 3.2 Ghz) Clocked to 3.8Ghz. 8 gigs RAM shown in the Task Manager's "performance" tab.

Hmmm... OK, John, thanks.... So - you have 3 x 4-gig memory DIMMS, so first - I would shut the pc down and then switch the DIMMS around. It may be the case that one of them is not seating properly, and doing this will probably do that. Must make absolutely sure they are deeply into their respective sockets, and that the end latches are closed securely. Secondly - it may also be the case that one DIMM is defective, and to find that out we need to test before the OS is mounted... Sooooo.... Can you burn a file to a CD? To test the memory - if you don't have it - get "ImgBurn" from :- http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/ImgBurn/1128426215/1 - it's the blue rectangular box orn the right side. Once you have this - then get MemTest86 v4.0 from:- http://www.memtest86.../download.html. The filename is Memtest86-4.0a.iso.zip.Unzipped this will give you "Memtest86_4.0a.iso.Then pop a new CD into the burner, launch ImgBurn, click on "Write image file to disk". At the upper part of the left side will be "Source" and "Please select a file".. . so browse to the newly downloaded .iso file, and then burn it to the CD. This will create a bootable CD, which if left in the caddy, will boot - and launch Memtest86 which will then begin testing your pc's memory. Don't stay up too late! Cheers, pj

Hey Paul - Thanks for the info and the links. I will download and begin the tests tonight. Yes, I can burn a CD and I am interested to run the memory testing pgm because I have had questions in my mind about the explanation I received regarding the loss of 4 gigs of RAM simply because of a small overclocking procedure. I have search extensively on the web, trying to find a confirmation regarding the loss of this RAM when one overclocks an I7-950 and I have not been able to come across one. I'm not suggesting anything other than I can't seem to find a reason why this would happen. I am told my system's memory consists of 6 sticks of 2 gigs each of DDR3 RAM. The motherboard operating manual shows a total of six slots available for RAM. Anyway, we will see when I open the cover and actually get in there. I'll let you know what happens. Later, John BTW - Charlene and I are headed upstate this later this week and we are trying to get ourselves ready. We will return early next week. This process might get put off until after I return - depends upon the size of the "honey-do" list that will greet me tonight when I get home.

Hey Paul, Looks like I'm not the only one experiencing this problem. Take a look at this thread: http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=135048.0 Same motherboard. What do you think? Later, John

Ooooo.... not good.. I'll do some more reading tomorrow, John. Forget the pc for a few days, and enjoy yourselves! Cheers, pj

I believe you are correct on two counts - first, it doesn't sound good - and second, I probably need to "hanger" everything for the time being and make sure Charlene has all the support she needs. She's wonderfully supportive of my hobby even though she really doesn't have any interest in it herself. I really appreciate that. Now is the time for me to "turn it off" for a few days and go have a great time with her in the mountains. Before I let you go - here is my latest thinking. I'm really not upset about the problems uncovered with my present motherboard. I'm not interested in replacing that board at this time. It is a good board to use if you are interested in over-clocking your CPU and, if I tried to pull it now I would probably create some additional compatibility problems trying to retain the existing CPU, etc. Sometime next year I am going to build a new system. I am going to take advantage of you before I start. I hope you and I can spend some time together discussing this new machine. My goal will be to put together the best system that the two of us believe is available at the time. In the meantime, I am in the process of upgrading my present system with an eye toward removing parts of the upgrade and placing them in the new system when the time comes. I want to end up with two machines - the one I am operating now and the new one - then link them both together. The new machine will be responsible for the "heavy lifting" and this one will simply run several ancillary processes, thereby taking some of the load off the new machine and/or providing some additional capacity for other things. I have ordered another GTX 580 - identical to my present card, a Corsair H-100, 6 new sticks of 4 gigs RAM, and a new case to accommodate the new cooler. I will pull the existing GTX 240 and save it. I hope to end up with this machine looking something like this: I7-950 over-clocked to between 4 - 4.2 Ghz - water cooled2 GTX 580's SLI24 gigs DDR3 RAM (board recognizing at least 16 gigs - which is the same ratio of actual vs recognized RAM I am living with now)Nvidia's Surround driving my 3 wide-screen AcersTrackIR5 When the new system is built, I intend to remove the two GTX 580's and place them in the new system. At that time I will re-install the GTX 240 in the old system. Probably will remove the overclocking on the old system and remove the Corsair H-100 for installation in the new system (although maybe not - I have to think more about that). My thinking here is I will end up with the beginnings of a "cloud" system involving multiple machines. I see no need for each computer to be equal to the others in terms of it's individual capabilities. Each machine simply has to be robust enough to handle it's assigned responsibilities. I ordered the above equipment Monday and so at least some of it should be here when I return next week. Take care, John