Successful cash in the mail for a couple hundred. Received by them in first class mail on a saturday, BTC sent on Tuesday. I did not specify a max price, and purchase price was right at MtGox price. I'm happy.

Definintely finicky about memory. Didn't like any of my sticks I had already. Had to swap back to my old board and ended up wasting a couple doses of IC Diamond.

11.8 drivers have been a huge help on this machine. I can now run 950/300 on my 5830 and for the first time have been able to run 860/400 on my 6950 and get it to crack 350Mhash. 

Excellent read, and some thought provoking ideas.

Thanks for posting!

Couldn't find anything else that seems as nice in the same price range (the link someone posted on NewEgg was already sold out by the time I looked) so I went ahead and ordered the refurb P45X3. I'll post up how it goes after I receive it and get it installed.

@st4rdust : I like NewEgg and always price there, but even though tye have a little less stock I often find as good or better deals on basic parts at Microcenter.com and they have a local outlet I can order online and pick up and save the shipping and return locally if needed. If they have a store nearby you check it out, it makes great sense. If only they would accept bitcoin...

Thanks for the feedback, that's good info to know. I was actually considering trying that board with an old Pentium D CPU I have lying around since it wouldn't work with my E5300, but looked more at the P45X3 since it has more 1x slots if I ever wanted to add several GPUs. Gonna have to do some digging to see how similar these boards are as far as chipset and bios.


EDIT: This is the board I am looking at:
http://3btech.net/asp4coqu16mo.html

Hrm, I currently have a 5830 in my x1 slot using a x1 to x16 riser cable, which the system sees and it mines well. Although, the x1 acts in some ways like it's the primary slot, that's where the POST display is shown. I suspect this causes some of my stability issues I am seeing. I suspect it's because the x1 slot is closer to the CPU, it is actually first on the bus.

Looking at an ASRock P45X3 (also seen written as P45XE  ) motherboard that looks like it meets all my requirements and supports my E5300 LGA775 processor and my DDR2 memory I have laying around. It has two x16 and three x1 slots.

Anyone have any experience with this or similar ASRock boards on a mining rig? 

I am only running 11.5 since every time I tried 11.6 I got a lot of random lockups or weird display issues. Thinking this over again (or overthinking?) I suspect part of my problem may be that since the x1 slot is closer to the CPU it might actually be the first slot on the bus so that's why my 5830 is the active card when the board POSTs. Thinking maybe an upgrade to ASRock P45XE board that would have 2 x16 slots and more x1 slots (that are not the closest to CPU) might be in order. That's a $55 option, or about $200 to build a more modern Phenom or i3 based system. Then I could crossfire if I wanted and add another GPU if I am so inclined and can fit it in the case where it will stay cool. Could also start builidng a media PC to replace the laptop for our TV, and put the 6950 in there and mine when not watching TV.

I definitely need to try 11.7 drivers, but may also wait until I have more normal slot configuration. Still been pretty stable with my 5830 clocked under 900.

Thinking about upgrading my hobby bitcoin rig and looking for some advice on a motherboard with an LGA775 slot (either an E5300, or a spare Pentium D) that uses DDR2 memory (either 800 or 667) and has at least 2 x16 slots and at least one additional x1 slot so I could expand to another GPU card. My local Microcenter has a great site to search by board specs, but they do not have anything with 2 x16 that still has another x1 slot.

Running at near-stock speeds on my 5830 seems to be much more stable. Damn. I'm reluctant to reinstall drivers, because I had a hard time getting both 5830 and 6950 drivers correct and both recognized by Windows in the first place.

What is weird is that my 6950 is in the x16 slot (you would think that would be the primary video) but the 5830 in the x1 slot is where the monitor output is when the system POSTs and shows loading Windows, then the primary desktop is on the 6950.

Is there some setting I am unaware of to select a "primary" display card(or slot) either in the BIOS or in Win7? Hrm, maybe a new MB is in order, perhaps with at least dual x16 slots. I have been thinking about it anyway so I could have the option of adding another GPU if I get a case location figured out.

I'll try playing around with the 5830 overclocking/underclocking. Usually the second I go under 400mhz memory speed it will lock right up. Maybe try 11.7 drivers as well.

I have a very mild Win7 hobby rig running latest version guiminer with a non-reference 6950 2GB in my x16 slot and a 5830 in a x1 slot (via premade x1 to x16 riser cable). I do not overclock my 6950 since it has never seem to run stable over 820Mhz which doesn't seem worth the overclock. I do overclock my 5830 to 950mhz, and underclock the memory to 450 (will always lock up as soon as I go under 400) It's in a case but with a ton of fans (140mm side mount blows right on cards), and temps seem acceptable to me, 74-76 degrees peak temps on both cards, with about 55-65% fans using auto speed). I have a newly installed 850w Kingwin P/S that replaced a 500W and the 350W that I was using to power the 5830. System seemed to be stable, going 7days + without a hiccup, but now seems to lock up (screen frozen, or blacked out when I turn the monitor on) at least once a day (of course, usually just after going to bed, or leaving for work).

Looking for some ideas on what might be wrong. Dirty power? Should I consider a nice UPS that can output 800w+ ? I'm going to look for some heat pockets maybe in the HDD area, or around the MB/CPU, but I have dual top mount exhaust fans, and 4 exhaust fans in that area so I'm doubting that. Flaky core system components, maybe? I have been thinking about a MB/CPU/RAM upgrade so might just replace that anyway. Just frustrating to have a system that ran so well becoming such a PITA. 

Thermal paste is probably the #1 response to high temps and #1 thing  folks newer to hardware mods are reluctant to do. Seriously folks, watch a youtube video and go for it.

Great idea!

I got a 5830 as a second card to play around with and run at 1x. Sure wouldn't be dropping 250+ on a card to do that with. 

I bought my 6990 to mine with and for a better cards for the occasional gaming I do. I consider this a sunk cost from wanting a better GPU and it's in a PC I already own, so I don't consider that an expense. In just over a month of mining, I earned enough to purchase additional cas fans, a riser cable and a 5830 to use as a second card.

Personally, I anticipate mining bitcoins and slowly addding additional hardware from profits and seeing where that goes.

Been mining for only about a month, bought a 6950 to mine with and use as an upgraded gaming card too. Picked up a 5830 with coins earned from 6950 mining and installed it on a 1x slot with a riser cable and now working on tuning the rig with 2 cards, and iro ning those issues out.