Newbie Lurker Jumps In

[pmk]

Hello everyone,

For years I've thought about assembling my own computer but never had the knowledge or guts to try. Now, thanks to finding this site and the incredible people who are willing to share their knowledge and time, I've decided to give it a shot. I've been reading the posts for a few weeks and here's what I've ordered. I know, I should have asked before ordering but the damage is done.

Antec 900
Corsair 520HX PSU
Asus P5KC
E8400
4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 1066
WD Raptor 150GB 10,000RPM
8800GTS 640
LiteOn LH-20A1L Optical
Windows Vista 64 Bit

As to the case and PSU my confidence is high. (Thanks Jamie Nixx) I'm a little nervous about the P5KC but counting on my luck. Thinking about BIOS has my acid reflux in high gear but I have time to read while I wait for the E8400 to come in. Will these components work OK together? Did I screw up with the 64 bit Vista? Any and all comments are welcome, even the lol and roflmao variety.

Thanks,
Pat

[The Wise Monkey]

Nothing to complain about, looks good.

One thing though - why did you chose the GTS 640? The GTS 512 or the GT perform better and are cheaper. :)

[pmk]

One thing though - why did you chose the GTS 640? The GTS 512 or the GT perform better and are cheaper. :)[/QUOTE]


Less than thorough research. I didn't know. I made the assumption that if 512 is good, 640 is better. I guess this is a good example of why I should have asked first. Thanks Wise Monkey.

[shyster]

Just to second WiseMonkey there should not be any real problems with your computer, but yeah ditch that 640 if you can. If it is coming seperately refuse shipment or I guess you could always try returning it, depending on where you got it from you might get nice customer service reps who will wave the restocking fee.

The other thing I would mention not that it is bad, but the crucial memory is more expensive than the corsair I believe, so was there some reason you went with it?

Finally yes vista 64 was the correct choice since you went with 4gbs of ram, 32 would not even be able to use all 4gbs.

[RickyTick]

Welcome aboard.

If the 8800GTS 640 card is a EVGA brand, then register it right away at evga.com. You'll have 90 days to to use it and then Step-Up to something better. You only pay shipping. If its not an EVGA, then you're stuck, unless you want to return it to the vendor and order the 8800GT 512.

BTW, I had a 8800GTS 640 and I played Bioshock at max settings and it ran flawlessly. Its a very good card, but you can do better for less money.

Otherwise, you system build is terrific. I have 64-bit Vista with no issues.

When you attempt first boot, you may want to try it with just one stick of ram. Just a thought.

[shyster]

Ricky,

I thought for the step up program you had to pay for the difference in price? Is that wrong? If that is not wrong then I am stepping up to the 9800. Or did you just mean you only pay shipping since the 8800GTS 512 is acually cheaper than the 640, and consequently there would be no difference in price?

[RickyTick]

Yeah, thats right. If you're stepping up to a card that cheaper, you only pay shipping. And they don't refund you the difference in the price of the cards. If you're going to a card that's more expensive, you have to pay the difference. They ask for a copy of your original receipt.

[pmk]

As to the crucial vs corsair memory, again I didn't look hard enough. Rob had spoken highly of crucial and I figured that was good enough for me. Comparing the system I'm getting for less than $1500 to the last two Dell computers I bought, it seems relatively inexpensive. I'm sure if I had been more involved with building computers and the technology driving the field I'd have a different take. The more I read here the more my eyes are opened. Thank you all.

The 640 is an EVGA card. Thanks for the heads up, I will definitely go the upgrade route on the card. I can't wait for the E8400 and motherboard to show up.

Pat

[The Wise Monkey]

Don't get us wrong - you still will have an absolutely top of the line PC that will smoke 99% of the current market. Its just that with a few minor alterations, you could have made it slightly better. :)

[pmk]

Thanks Wise Monkey. I'm going to make the tweaks I can. Now I'm looking at upgrading the 8800GTS 640 to the 9800. Just a couple overtime shifts or so and a few tweaks to the budget.

I appreciate all the advice and comments here. Next time I'll be better equipped and a bit smarter. Anyone thinking of building for the first time can pick up some good pointers as well.

[Amosmoses33]

depends on what you paid for the card, if there is a big difference between the 8800gts 640 and what ever you would get to replace it, i would send it back to where you bought it and get a refund and buy the other...that would be giving away money to step up.

[pmk]

Antec 900
Corsair 620HX PSU
Asus P5KC
E8400
4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 1066
WD Raptor 150GB 10,000RPM
8800GTS 512
LiteOn LH-20A1L Optical
Windows Vista 64 Bit


The E8400 finally came in and I put it all together. Everything works fine with the exception of the memory. It only runs at 800 mhz, I've tried manually resetting the bios but the computer won't fully boot. With all the bad press on the Asus website and here I don't know if its something I did or didn't do, or if the mobo won't recognize the ram. The scuttle butt on the Asus site is to not use the latest bios update, which is several weeks old now, but to use the next to the latest update which I am. I'll keep digging for now, hopefully its just something I missed.

[The Wise Monkey]

No, your motherboard can only support up to 800mhz i.e. PC2-6400. There is nothing wrong with it - this is just the current standard for RAM.

[pmk]

Straight from the specs: Dual-channel DDR2 1066/800/667 MHz or DDR3 1333/1066/800. I bought the pc2-8500 thinking the board supported it. What am I missing?

[jimmyg]

I am kinda noobish with this stuff and not sure if the MHz would be downgraded due to power but...

You are using the same memory as I am in my build which I started last night. If you can get into bios, go to PC Health Status and see what is reported for DDR18V, it should be 2.2V. My mobo automatically detects what voltage is necessary, you may have to increase the voltage +.4 (if it is 1.8) for 1066MHz memory.

The other thing I've learned from before (from my experinece anyway) with regards to memory, if you have one bad stick, or one stick that is 800MHz, they will all default to the lowest common denominator. If your voltage is correct, try one stick at a time.

I don't want to spread misinformation, so if I'm wrong I'm sure someone will quickly point out my mistake

[shyster]

Go to Asus's website and make sure that that ram is specifically on the supported vendor list. If it is, then the next thing would be to just chalk it up to another miss on Asus's part.

Possible fixes would be flashing the bios, or moving the ram into another slot to see if it will go to the correct speed. I would also check the asus forums specially under the P5KC section, because I remember people have similar problems to this and they might have a fix suggested there, that I could not think of.

By the way is the RAM two stick of 2gb or four sticks of 1gb? I seem to remember there being issues with that board supporting four sticks of RAM as well.

[pmk]

Crucial is not on the supported vendor's list. Strike one. 4 sticks of 1gb Ram. Strike two. The Asus forums are full of similar problems. In the Asus manual it says, "This chipset officially supports DDR2-800 MHz. With the Asus Super Memspeed Technology, this motherboard natively supports up to DDR2-1066 MHz." At this point I'm not sure what to expect.

In the bios, I can't even access the Dram voltage. It's on the second page under Jumperfree Configuration, but my second page stops short of that entry. I'll go back through it again take another look.

Thanks,
Pat

[The Wise Monkey]

I could have sworn the P5KC doesn't support 1066... Oh well, must have got it confused with another Asus board - they're all very similar. :D

[shyster]

Well WM it is really a question of quantity.

If something supports two out of 10 million then technically it supports it, but in actuality not really. The same is pretty much true for Asus' board. It supports a very tiny list of 1066 makers and even the ones "supported" have known issues.

Rant go...

Unfortunately PMK unless you can still RMA it, or if you even want to, you might be screwed for it. Asus, well I only started building computers after finding this site so I never saw their hayday, but apparently they were good once, once being the stressed word here. Now-a-days it seems they are a horrible company, they blame people for buying the wrong parts instead of taking the blame themselves for not supporting widely used parts. Their tech support is beyond a joke, I suspect most of it is farmed out to other countries, India perhaps, which does not necessarily make them bad, other than they are teching them english but not how to fix computers.

Rant end...

The easiest thing to do probably, if you can, would be to RMA the board itself and trade it in for an Abit or gigabyte, their boards are comparable both in prices and quality. I think the Abit is actually better other than it does not have ddr3 support. But WM swears by gigabyte and I have not seen many bad things about them either.

The other option would be to RMA the ram for something that is supported, or keep the ram leave it at 800 and wait, and hope that they release a bios update that supports the ram you have at the speed you want.

WM please confirm that the above statement is even possible. I am not all that sure about bios updates but I would think they could add to the hardware supported list with software updates.

[The Wise Monkey]

I'll be honest here - I have no idea... XD

Probably not, as it depends on the architecture of the whole motherboard as opposed to the BIOS, but I'm not sure.

[pmk]

"This chipset officially supports DDR2-800 MHz. With the Asus Super Memspeed Technology, this motherboard natively supports up to DDR2-1066 MHz."

Does this mean it needs to be overclocked to get 1066?