Building your own trading computer

Quote from Bolimomo:

I have decided to build the third i7 box. Sorry Went Fishing. I am so far kind of an Intel fan. And more than that this time I want to experiment with overclocking. (And I have no patience to wait for online orders. :) )

I bought a MSI Big Bang Xpower motherboard:

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Big-Bang-XPower.html

I didn't realize that it was a board designed for high-end gaming. What caught my eyes was the 6 x PCIe x16 slots (they said only 2 @x16, 2 @x8, 2 @x4 - something like that. But I think it would work). I want to have this box to potentially drive 8 to 10 monitors.

One unfortunately thing: there is no onboard video out. When I started putting the PCIe X16 cards on the box, no video display at all. I couldn't even get to BIOS.

At first I thought it was a PCIe 1.0 versus 2.0 compatibility issue. (Mobo = PCIe 2.0, cards = PCIe 1.0). But after getting some PCIe 2.0 display cards, still didn't work. Since there is no other way to see the display (no Windows or any driver loaded at this point), I am scratching my head on how I can trouble-shoot this thing. The plan is to bring my box to the store and have them help me trouble-shoot.

Have any of you had a MoBo that doesn't have any built-in VGA video? How do you get into the first monitor display for your BIOS?
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It's mostly budget mobos with onboard video chips. With 6, x16 slots, no onboard video would be expected.

Try doing a fresh install from your OS disk.. and with only one video card in the x16, #1 slot. Unplug all other peripherals besides keyboard, mouse, optic drive.
 
Boli

A further note, I have a MSI motherboard too. Mine has a LED "screen" that displays "fault codes" .... This code flashed, and a quick look in the book and a web search suggested booting up initially with only ONE memory stick installed.
 
Quote from Went Fishing:

Boli

One question, how many memory slots did you fill ?? When we flipped the switch on mine, we had the same issue. Removed all but ONE memory chip, and everything LIT UP and worked fine.
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WF: I called MSI tech support and that's what they suggested too. Insert only one memory clip at a time and test it out. I have 3 clips, 2GB each. Tried them all. Same issue. The status light kept displaying "FF".
 
Quote from Scataphagos:


Try doing a fresh install from your OS disk.. and with only one video card in the x16, #1 slot. Unplug all other peripherals besides keyboard, mouse, optic drive.
More...

Thanks Scat. But at this stage, I haven't even been able to get into BIOS, let alone installing Windows. I only have the one display card inserted so far. I had tried all 6 slots (the MSI tech support guy said use the first x16 that is closest to the CPU... and I did). Nothing.

I am going to bring back the whole assembly to the store and ask them to isolate the faulty part for me.

At one point I thought maybe Big Bang Xpower requires a high end graphics card to work with. But the MSI tech support assured me that supposedly any graphics would work.

So far I know it's not the display card (tried with some known-good display cards), and not the memory clips. Possible: power supply, i7 chip, or motherboard.
 
Update: Problem found. There are 2 slightly bent pins on the LGA 1366 socket. It darned on me that I never thought of inspecting the socket first before clamping down the processor. The motherboard did not even initialize.

The CPU is good, memory clips are all good, video card good, power supply good.

Need to return motherboard to MSI.
 
Quote from Bolimomo:
Update: Problem found.
The CPU is good,
memory clips are all good,
video card good,
power supply good.
Need to return motherboard to MSI.
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Good and good for you.
 
Quote from Bolimomo:

Update: Problem found. There are 2 slightly bent pins on the LGA 1366 socket. It darned on me that I never thought of inspecting the socket first before clamping down the processor. The motherboard did not even initialize.
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Anybody who maybe interested in my lesson learned.

Motherboard did not initialize because there are bent pins in the socket. (2 red arrows). The blue arrow: two more pins that may be problematic.

I honestly don't know if this was a manufacturer's defect or not. I should have inspected the socket before starting. And be gentle with these things. They are quite delicate.


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I received my final rebate check in the mail this week and that reminded me to post a follow-up on my resent build. To put it in a word, I'd say, awesome, the speed of the Processor and SSD is incredible. I can run a virus scan in less than 2min, programs open and shutdown in a blink of an eye. I had no idea how slow my old box was, I'm very happy. Today was the first NF Payroll report that I traded with the new box, everything went fine.

I've had no compatibility issues with any of the components. I'm only using two of the video cards, running 4 monitors, but I'm itching to get 2 more very soon. The switch from XP to Win 7 is taking a little getting used to, and some of the new 64 bit software (e.g. Ninjatrader 7) has it's own little quirks. Some of the features I was comfortable with on the older version (NT v6.5) ,,,,, just don't work or don't exist , on the new and improved version. New colors, new sounds, the first few trades I put on, I closed out at a tick, just to make sure I could, odd windows popping up, new/different colors flashing, I've used my old setup for years, and forgotten all the adjustments I made. I'm a lot more comfortable with the new software now, it's been about a month. But that's all software stuff, the box works great!

Thanks again, for everyone's input here on the Hardware Forum, I've learned a ton reading these posts, Thanks.

Quote from Went Fishing:

My parts list,

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Processor

MSI 890FXA-GD70 AM3 Motherboard

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) Memory Model

Crucial 64GB Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Western Digital 640GB 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive

SAMSUNG DVD Burner

Rosewill Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Rosewill 630W 80 PLUS Certified, PSU

4 NVIDIA Quadro NVS 295 Video Cards

Win 7 Pro (64)
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Quote from Went Fishing:

I received my final rebate check in the mail this week and that reminded me to post a follow-up on my resent build. To put it in a word, I'd say, awesome, the speed of the Processor and SSD is incredible. I can run a virus scan in less than 2min, programs open and shutdown in a blink of an eye. I had no idea how slow my old box was, I'm very happy. Today was the first NF Payroll report that I traded with the new box, everything went fine.

I've had no compatibility issues with any of the components. I'm only using two of the video cards, running 4 monitors, but I'm itching to get 2 more very soon. The switch from XP to Win 7 is taking a little getting used to, and some of the new 64 bit software (e.g. Ninjatrader 7) has it's own little quirks. Some of the features I was comfortable with on the older version (NT v6.5) ,,,,, just don't work or don't exist , on the new and improved version. New colors, new sounds, the first few trades I put on, I closed out at a tick, just to make sure I could, odd windows popping up, new/different colors flashing, I've used my old setup for years, and forgotten all the adjustments I made. I'm a lot more comfortable with the new software now, it's been about a month. But that's all software stuff, the box works great!

Thanks again, for everyone's input here on the Hardware Forum, I've learned a ton reading these posts, Thanks.
More...


I had many problems with Ninja 7 and running certain programs, so now I continue to run Ninja 6.5 but I set up a windows virtual PC to run in XP mode. I allocated 3 GB of memory per instance and the thing runs way faster than my old XP box!

Of courses with ninja canning 6.5 in the upcoming months that presents a whole other set of problems...
 
We have a Windows 7 thread under Software. Check it out and make your system appear and function very much like XP but at blazing speeds.
 
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