Lesson learned re. Nvidia nTune/Vista

Hi, I'm new to this forum and to overclocking.
I'm building a new system: ASUS P5N-E Sli, Core2 Duo 6600, 2GB 800MHz DDR2
RAM, Vista Ultimate, nVidia 7600GS 256mb (soon to be 8800GS, 320mb) Video,
SATA II drives.
I'm trying the various settings for CPU and memory speed/timing to get an
optimum setup.
This forum is a wealth of information, thanks!
One experience to share, I found nVidea's nTune utility. It looked like just
what I needed.
I ran it, no problem reading the various measurements.
I then ran the full tune-up, to run 3+ hours. I went to bed, expecting a
fine tuned system in the morning.
What I found was a hung system. No prob, tune up will make the corrections
on restart, I thought.
Restart, no joy.
Reset the BIOS to a known stable setup I had saved. System started, but
Vista won't run. It goes through the green bar thing, goes black and never
recovers. I tried a dozen BIOS settings, getting slower and more
conservative each time. No luck, but I finally got it to run well enough to
enter Safe Mode. (Wheww!)
I ran System Restore back to before nVidia's nTune install, and got my
system back.
I hope this helps someone else from running into this.

Is there any way to run nTune with Vista? Is there a similar utility around?
I also could not get coolbits to run under Vista as others have reported.
Any workaround?

Any suggestions welcomed, and thanks!

Jack R

'Jack R' wrote, in part:
| One experience to share, I found nVidea's nTune utility. It looked like
just
| what I needed.
| I ran it, no problem reading the various measurements.
| I then ran the full tune-up, to run 3+ hours. I went to bed, expecting a
| fine tuned system in the morning.
| What I found was a hung system. No prob, tune up will make the corrections
| on restart, I thought.
| Restart, no joy.
| Reset the BIOS to a known stable setup I had saved. System started, but
| Vista won't run. It goes through the green bar thing, goes black and never
| recovers. I tried a dozen BIOS settings, getting slower and more
| conservative each time. No luck, but I finally got it to run well enough
to
| enter Safe Mode. (Wheww!)
_____

I am just beginning to overclock an Intel E4300 / EVGA 680i SLI system.
(See E4300 and 650i thread started 23MAR07).
The operating system is Windows XP Pro.

nTune does nothing at all for me. When automatic tuning is run, the message
'nTune must be run on nForce2 or higher' appears, and then application then
churns away doing nothing. This is even after making the two changes at the
end of this post. So what you see may not be a Vista problem.

Also, if I set the CPU voltage to [Automatic] in the BIOS, the voltage
actually set change with the amount of overclock, up to a limit of 1.4000
VDC.

*****

Found through a diligent search of the EVGA site (actually, it was a newly
posted FAQ) that the version of nTune that ships with the EVGA 680i SLI
should be uninstalled and replaced with a newer version from nVidia (9.53)
which will fix the BIOS settings changing behind your back problem
My BIOS settings on my 680i motherboards are being changed/reset on
some boots/restarts.

Question / Issue

My BIOS settings on my 680i motherboards are being changed/reset on
some boots/restarts.



Answer / Solution

In most cases people who have experienced this problem were using the
nTune software that came on the 680i driver installation CD. It is
recommended to uninstall this version of nTune via Add/Remove Programs in
the control panel. If you plan to use nTune please download the latest
version from this link: http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp




There is also a BIOS update (P27). P27 has the following fixes
a.. Quad-Core OC Improvements
b.. Additional support for 1333MHz CPU's
Also includes these updates from bios P20, P21, P23, P24, P25, and P26:

a.. Wireless PCI card fixes
b.. Vreg fan header default set to on
c.. Memory performance improvements
d.. Vista WHQL Certified
e.. USB Floppy improvements for RAID installs
f.. Correct CPU temp and voltage system monitor displays in BIOS
g.. Correct default CPU multiplier setting
h.. Fix "Code 50" hang received under certain VGA configurations
i.. Fix for SATA disk drives
j.. Improvements to memory stability and overclockability
k.. Disabled spread spectrum tables for improved overclockability
l.. Improve POST screen CPU speed reporting
m.. Improves X-Fi and internal audio functionality
n.. WHQL Certified BIOS
o.. Improvements to overclocking
p.. Enhancements for Quad-Core CPUs
q.. Adds ability to enable splash screen.
_____

Phil Weldon

"Jack R" <jackr_nospam.RemoveThis@msn.com> wrote in message
news:ZoTUh.1202$QH3.133@newsfe12.lga...
| Hi, I'm new to this forum and to overclocking.
| I'm building a new system: ASUS P5N-E Sli, Core2 Duo 6600, 2GB 800MHz DDR2
| RAM, Vista Ultimate, nVidia 7600GS 256mb (soon to be 8800GS, 320mb) Video,
| SATA II drives.
| I'm trying the various settings for CPU and memory speed/timing to get an
| optimum setup.
| This forum is a wealth of information, thanks!
| One experience to share, I found nVidea's nTune utility. It looked like
just
| what I needed.
| I ran it, no problem reading the various measurements.
| I then ran the full tune-up, to run 3+ hours. I went to bed, expecting a
| fine tuned system in the morning.
| What I found was a hung system. No prob, tune up will make the corrections
| on restart, I thought.
| Restart, no joy.
| Reset the BIOS to a known stable setup I had saved. System started, but
| Vista won't run. It goes through the green bar thing, goes black and never
| recovers. I tried a dozen BIOS settings, getting slower and more
| conservative each time. No luck, but I finally got it to run well enough
to
| enter Safe Mode. (Wheww!)
| I ran System Restore back to before nVidia's nTune install, and got my
| system back.
| I hope this helps someone else from running into this.
|
| Is there any way to run nTune with Vista? Is there a similar utility
around?
| I also could not get coolbits to run under Vista as others have reported.
| Any workaround?
|
| Any suggestions welcomed, and thanks!
|
| Jack R
|