System up and running for six months. Motherboard is coupled with an Intel e6420 cpu, 2GB GSkill 6400 DDR2 ram, PNY-Nvidia 7300GT pcie video card, Thermaltake mini-typhoon cpu cooler, Enzotech forged copper northbridge heatsink, two WD SATA hard drives(250,160) and a LiteOn SATA cd/dvd burner. Equipment is installed in a Powmax9 bay ATX case w/450W power supply.

System is overclocked from 2.133Ghz to 2.99Ghz. Cpu temperature runs at 39 degrees C and the systems temperature runs at 42 degrees C. Cpu fan speed runs nominally at 1400rpm
Ambient RT was approximately 30 degrees C at the time of temperature check.


CPU voltage is set at 1.4V
MCH over V is set at 0.2
cpu clock ratio at 8X
cpu host frequency set at 374
pcie fequency set manually at 100
sysmultip(spd) set at 2.0

System is stable under load testing with Super Pi. Auto BIOS reset works well. Have run most major distributions, 32&64 bit, with no problems. Do not have any PATA drives connected.

Connection to some on-board connectors is awkward and the front panel board connectors are not unified for easy connection.

Edit addition 11/08/07- Attached equipment and specific Linux distributions used/tested on GA-965P-DS3 motherboard.

ACCESSORY EQUIPMENT:

Logitech x530 6CH SPKR SYS, Logitech USB wireless mouse, Logitech USB headst w/mic
Canon USB LIDE 60 scanner, Samsung 15 inch LCD moniter(1028x768@60Hz), Realteck PCI NIC (10/100), Energizer UPS, Belkin auto KVM switch, Kingston 1-GB USB stick, SMC USB 802.11b wireless adapter, and an Inexo USB 802.11b wireless adapter.

Distributions (partial list) used and/or tested successfully:

Sabayon 3.4F 32bit & 64bit, Mint 3.0,3.1,4.0b XFCE,Gnome & Kde, Suse 10.3/10.2-64, PClinux 2007 & offshoots, Ubuntu 7.10 G/K/X versions, Slackware 12.0, Vector Gold 5.8, Mepis 6.5, Puppy up to 3.0, Frugal 0.8, Mandriva 2008, Kanotix, Zenwalk 4.8, and Centos 5.0.

Edited 11/13/07-Accessory equipment added:

Inland USB Multi port car reader/writer
ENCORE TV tuner Pro Mdl-ENLTV-RM pci adaptoer with remote
Samsung 2510 mono chrome Laser Printer to replace Epson Stylus color C-82 printer.
Stratitec 4 port minu USB hub


Edited 04/08/08-Changed Monitor, added an additional hard drive and an additional 2Gb of ddr2 memory.

New monitor-Samsung 19" ws mdl 932BW
New Seagate 300GB SATA/300 internal hard drive
2GB more of GSkill PC-6400 DDR2 CLS-5-5-5-15 memory.

All new items work flawlessly with a wide rage of Linux 32/64 bit distributions.

Only nuisance issue to date is with the SATA CD/DVD burner not ejecting after loading most new distributions for testing. Also, cannot get new versions of DSL-XX to boot.

Automatic BIOS rollback works perfectly and restores system to OEM settings after Over Clocking failure.


Edited 09/01/08-Added 500GB WD USB 2.0 hard drive.

The new drive initially caused the system to fail with over-clocking settings and reboot into 'stock' OEM BIOS settings. Problem was solved by "disabling" the legacy USB setting in the BIOS.


Edited 06/17/09

Added an external USB to IDE/SATA adapter. Used the new adapter to check old hard drives for use as temporary external storage devices or installs into refurbished old computers.

Edited 11/27/09

Added a portable 500GB WD My_Passport Elite hard drive, model WD500ML-00. Also added a new cordless (wireless) Logitech keyboard and mouse, model EX-110. All are functioning as advertised on multiple Linux distributions.


Edited 05/25/10


Upgraded the processor from the Intel e8420 dual core to an Intel quad core Q-9400. Budget constrains prohibited buying a new motherboard, processor and memory.

With a motherboard BIOS upgrade from f-11 to f-14, everything works great. The system is now over clocked from a stock of 2.66Ghz to 3.2Ghz using the previously listed after market HSF. Core and system temperatures are holding steady at 40-41 degrees C.

Virtual machines appear to run almost as fast as a 'native' installations. This is the last modification for this system.

Edited 12/21/11

As part of pre planing for a new system scheduled for the 2nd quarter 2012, all my components were transplanted three months ago into a Coolmaster 690-2-advanced case with plenty of room. One extra top exhaust fan was added. With the added case feature of an e-sata connection on the top of the case, a salvaged 160Gb Toshiba laptop hard drive was plugged in. Due to better wire routing and ventilation, CPU and system temperatures' dropped about 5 degrees C with the same overclock settings.

The 5yr old UPS unit failed shortly after the component migration and was replaced with a Cyberpower 625VA unit.

Even with a 750W power supply the motherboard is straining to provide adequate power to all the motherboard fan connectors. Several case fans are connected via converters directly to the power supply connections. It became necessary to 'shut off' a 'fan failure warning' setting in the BIOS. It's really time retire the GA-965-p rev.3.