My new build - advice, comments?

[jimmyg]

Hello All,

First, I'd like to thank Rob for this site. I have used his guide 3 years ago and I successfully built my first PC without a hitch (well, maybe one or two but I was able to find out what I was doing wrong).

Now my video card is overheating and in lieu of replacing it, I decided it is time to upgrade my machine. Since I wish to change chipset, my old Mobo (socket 939) will be replaced. I also intend to install Vista 64.

Here is what I will be re-using from my original build:

Antec Sonata II case, with 450 W power supply (may need more wattage)

Floppy Drive

DVD read/write (sorry I'm away from my home PC and unsure of make/models - these are minor issues anyway imo)

These are my options for my new build... please tell me what you guys think, whether or not you have a preference of one over the other, and any other suggestions & comments you may have:

Motherboard:

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775, Intel P35 ATX

-or -

Asus P5N-E SLi LGA 775 Nvidia nForce 650i SLI ATX


CPU:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Yorkfield 2.5 Ghz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W

-or-

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4 Ghz 2x4MB L2 cache LGA 775


Heatsink/fan:

ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 120mm 2-ball UFO Bearing / Transparent CPU cooler

-or-

(still looking at other options)

Video Card:

EVGA 640-P2-N829-AR GeForce 8800GTS SSC 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI express x16 HDCP ready



My experience with putting together PC's is limited, but I've successfully done one before. Hopefully with some guidance from this forums' experienced and knowledgeable users, I will be able to build my new monster machine :)

The intent is mostly for high-end gaming, maybe some video & CAD work.

Thanks in advance to anyone who may be of assistance!

-Jimmy

[bean]

Jimmy,

The Q6600 is an old reliable. The price is lower and since you want to do some CAD work; I think the larger L2 cache may be a benefit. The 2.4ghz vs 2.5ghz is minimal and if you overclock, well you overclock.

See what others say. They will have more on the MOBO, too.

The case is sort of tight.

I'd say this PSU as a minimum.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010320058+50001459&StoreType=7&CompareItemList=N82E16817139001&bop=And

Good building

[jimmyg]

Thanks Bean, I appreciate your input!

[partyman97_3]

I have the gigabyte mb. Very reliable and if you go that route, a very good overclocker. Very reasonable. Just a thought though. It doesn't have support for raid and it doesn't have built in firewire.

Bean is also right on with the power supply. The hx-520 is extremely reliable and a solid performer. I don't know how partial you are to newegg, I happen to like them a lot, but I have seen that ps on other sites for as low as 69 dollars.

As far as cpu coolers go the artic cooler 7 pro is highly reccomemded around here and gets great reviews also. Once again, newegg is great, but the price on that has gone up on there lately, so if you shop around, it can be had cheaper too.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134

[RickyTick]

Bean and Partyman are right.

Let me also add that you would be much better off with a different video card.

For that price, you could get the 9600GT that would outperform that 8800GTS 640.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130334

This is also a hot card right now and is much better than the GTS 640.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130335

[jimmyg]

Thanks guys,

Would it be worth it to get a 600W PSU, with future upgrading in mind, or is 520 more than enough for a while?

At this point I'm looking to use 4 gigs of ram, leaning towards the 9600GT video card, and Arctic 7 pro cooler. I'm also considering purchasing an Antec 900 for the extra cooling features.

[partyman97_3]

Yes the 520 is more than sufficient. From most of the reviews I have read, the 520 will actually hold its own with most of the 600 watt power supplies. And I also believe that most of the folks here use them, as do I.

The 900 is definitely the way to go for great air flow. I have read some people complain about the noise of the fans, but I have all the fans on mine on high and don't really seem to notice them. Al tough I usually have some music on when I am in front of the computer. The 900 also has tons of room and great potential for growth and expansion. There isn't much provision for cable management, but there are tons of work arounds for that too. Do a search on you tube for Antec 900 and a bunch of tutorial type stuff comes up.

[RickyTick]

The HX520 is fine. It will more than suffice that build.

I have the 900 case too. All my fans are on low and you can barely hear it. Shop around, it goes on sale quite often. I've seen it as low as $65 after rebate.

[jimmyg]

Thanks to all for their help... this will get me started, I'll keep you posted as I progress with my purchases and begin the build :)

[bootsy72]

The 8800 GTS 320 or 640 is a great buy right now BUT...

for longevity, I would recommend either the g92 GT or GTS. You can tell the difference because of the higher core clock and the mem (it will be 512). The GTS 8800 OC (g92) is selling for about $250 right now (at newegg the MSI brand came with a free game just a couple of days ago). If you read reviews, you will see that the above mentioned card performs as well and sometimes better than a GTX card (for $150 less). It's an excellent buy, and better than the 9600 series for just a bit more. It also runs cooler and with less power.

I also have a gigabyte board -- the same you are considering. I originally bought the p5n-e sli and it caused nothing but problems so I exchanged it for the gigabyte board and had 0 problems. I have an e8400 processor which asus was struggling to make compatible with the p5n-e (even though they swore it was compatible at their site). Gigabyte seems to right now at least be better quality than Asus. A lot of people in forums are upset with Asus right now.

Antec Sonata III (500 Watts)
GA-P35-DS3L MB
E8400 Wolfdale (3.0ghz)
2x 1024 Crucial Ballistix 6400 4-4-4-12
320 Gigs WDC 7200 RPM
Lite-On dvd/cd +- 52x
MSI 8800 GTS OC (g92)
19" Hanns G widescreen
Windows XP

[jimmyg]

I'm definitely going to go with the Gigabyte mobo. I didn't realize that there were currently any issues with Asus... thanks for the heads up - I was strongly leaning towards Gigabyte anyway, this just solidifies it for me.

I'm not sure I want to put $250 into a video card at this time as my partial rebuild is turning into a complete new build and costs are adding up.

I'm thinking that I may just purchase a cheap video card to put in my old PC, wipe the HDD and reinstall XP on it and sell on craigslist or something to recoup some of my costs of the new build. I had a retail copy of XP SP2, and I'm under the impression that you can transfer the title once to someone else, correct? This way I can sell the old PC (which is still pretty decent for average users) and include the XP dvd which in theory should make it more attractive, and command a better price.

EDIT: I have found the MSI g92 8800GT OC runs at 678MHz for $200 after rebates, while for twenty bucks less I can get the EVGA 9600 GT factory overclocked to 700MHz. The memory clock though is a bit faster for the MSI g92 than the EVGA 9600, and the EVGA has half the stream processors that the g92 has (64 vs 128)... so all in all, is there really a noticeable difference between the two? If not I think I would stick with EVGA - just personal preference, I trust their expertise in video cards more so than I would with MSI.

[bootsy72]

You were very astute to notice the difference in the # of stream processors. They make a huge difference in the amount of load that your card can do. So for the extra 20 bucks, sacrifice 20 mhz and get 64 more stream processors... that GT that you found is comparable to a GTX which is only slightly less powerful than an ultra.. that 9600, while good, is not really comparable. Check out some reviews, and look at Rob's section on video cards and the link to toms hardware comparison chart.. compare the GT OC 512 mem with the ultra or gtx.. you'll see that it is one of the top 3 cards.. and obviously the GTS is better, but only slightly... bang for buck, the way to go is probably with the GT. I went for the GTS because I needed to hit $250 to use bill me later so I could pay it over time (I prefer to do it that way). Were I willing to dish out the cash all at once, I would have bought the GT just because it is a SLIGHTLY better value (either way, you're saving more than $100 by not getting the GTX but a card that is comparable to it with a smaller, more efficient processor.)

Hope that is helpful. You can find reviews real quick just by going to google and typing in Nvidia 8800 GT (g92)... skip all the junk where they compare games and just read the conclusions.. you'll see people have nothing but good things to say.

[jimmyg]

Thanks for the clarification Bootsy...

My orders are in and I expect to have all of my parts by the weekend so I can begin my build.

Here is my final list, if anyone notices any mismatches, give me a heads up:

Antec 900 case

Corsair CMPSU - 520HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 520W Power Supply

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX mobo

MSI NX8800GTS 512M OC GeForce 8800GTS (g92) video card

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 CPU

Vista 64 Home Premium OEM

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU cooler

4x1G Crucial Ballistics DDR2 -PC2 8500, = 1066 (my mobo supports 1066)



Thanks again to everyone for their help... you may see me posting more soon as I start my build should I encounter any problems, bios settings or flashing the bios, etc...

Thanks again to all!


EDIT: I do have optical drives an HDD's that I am reusing from an existing build

[RickyTick]

Just a suggestion.

Try first boot with only 1 stick of ram, not all 4.

[jimmyg]

According to UPS and FedEx, my parts should be arriving today!!! Ahead of schedule!!! Some fast ships in that shipping business, and newegg rocks!

I'll definitely heed your advice on the memory, Rick.

Well, hopefully this evening I'll get started - and hoping that everything goes off without a hitch!

[bootsy72]

You're going to love your new computer! Let us know how it works in the graduation page!

[jimmyg]

Yikes! Everything that could have went wrong on my part, went wrong with the build.

First, when applying the heatsink/fan to the cpu... I made a mistake trying to secure the box posts through the board (easier than my old thermaltake, but new to me). So I inadvertently lifted the heatsink after it had already made contact with the processor. Worried that the thermal compound would be uneven, or compromised in another way, I removed the heatsink and scraped the compound off of the processor and heatsink using a credit card, and then cleaning with 91% Isoprobyl alcohol with coffee filters. Cleaning off the processor was easy (with exception of a small dimple that still has the original thermal compound in there, still a little concerned about that), cleaning off the heatsink was more challenging because of the fine grooves in the Acrtic Freezer 7 (also a little concerned about the quality of the cleanup I did on that as well :( ) I applied Arctic Silver 5 as per their instructions and reinstalled the heatsink.

I install just 1 memory stick for first boot. Turn on the machine and I get a loud constant beep with increasing pitch until the machine shuts itself off. As there is no beep code that matches that description in the Ga-p35-ds3l instructions, I take that beep code to mean "oh shit". After some research it seems this happens when the CPU fan doesn't come on, and the power down is a safety feature so I don't burn out my processor .

So I notice that my 2x12 power supply connector wasn't fully connected to the mobo. Fix that, boot again. Same beep followed by shutdown, noticed my CPU fan wasn't running. Checked to make sure it was plugged into the CPU-Fan part of the board, it was ok.

Then I realized that I had to connect power to my video card. None of my previous video cards needed to be powered from the PSU, and the generic instructions for my MSI 8800GTS vid card makes no mention of plugging in a power connector :mad: . It was dark in the case, it was late at night and I was getting sloppy, not noticing that there was a female connector on my video card. So I connected that to the PSU and boot again.

FINALLY, I get the machine to post without a single beep (I though I would get one beep). I get the system disk error or disk missing or some message like that which I expected to get which was good. But I noticed that in the bootup it said DDR2 something : 0 (zero). It seems it didn't recognize my memory? It is a rev. 2 mobo, and I'm gonna look to see if there are issues with this bios version (I have read somewhere that some mobo's don't post the correct memory on boot with certain versions).

So all in all, I think I got it working at this point. Unsure about the memory, and still very uneasy about booting twice and getting a shutdown, not to mention my heatsink and thermal compound problems. I'll be monitoring CPU temperature closely for a while. Also, when it did boot correctly the last time, the CPU fan takes about 10 -20 secs to start. It spins like 1 revolution, stops, repeat, then comes on spinning normally. Should I be concerned??

Any comments, or suggestions?? I'm happy to have gotten through this but disappointed at my own mistakes and the lackluster instructions that came with my video card, and the short wires of the Antec 900 frontpanel is a bit of a pain.

[RickyTick]

Go to Crucial's website and find the spec for your ram. Most of the Ballistix versions require more than 1.8 volts, which is the default voltage of the motherboard. It may be as simple as a ram volt change in the bios.

[The Wise Monkey]

The CPU fan will only spin when its needed, so you don't need to worry about it.

As for your CPU cleaning, I recommend using a toothbrush - its amazing how well it works. :)

[jimmyg]

Here is the details of my boot with regards to memory:

POST screen says, DDR2 at Bank(s): 0 - this doesn't look correct to me, shouldn't I see 1G?

I Reboot and enter bios:

Standard CMOS Features:
Base Memory 640k
Extended Memory 1022M
Total Memory 1024M

The above looks correct to me as I have 1 Gig of ram.

PC Health Status:
Vcore 1.284V
DDR18V 2.192V - this seems ok to me (2.2V mem)
+3.3V 3.360V
+12V 11.795V

MB Intelligent Tweaker:
CPU Frequency 2.40 GHz
Memory Frequency 1066 - this is what i'm using
Normal CPU Vcore 1.31250V


So do I really have a voltage problem? PC Health status would indicate I don't. Do I even have a memory problem at all? Maybe one stick of ram doesn't show up in POST?

[jimmyg]

Here is the details of my boot with regards to memory:

POST screen says, DDR2 at Bank(s): 0 - this doesn't look correct to me, shouldn't I see 1G?



Hahaha, I think I'm answering my own question and quoting myself here.... 0 (zero) is referring to what DIMM socket my memory is installed in, isn't it? So zero would be correct if I have one stick installed in row 1 of 4, right?

If this is the case, sorry about my confusion... the POST screen scrolls too quick so that I only see the bottom of the POST, I didn't see the memory test, just what rows my memory is installed in :o

Is there a way to pause the screen when it POSTs?

[bootsy72]

I hope someone got back to you about this... sorry I havn't been around.

Yeah, I would not have suggested starting up with only 1 stick of ram plugged in... that can make things confusing for a new build. If I suspected a problem when I had 2 in, then I might try it... but assume everything will work fine and then try to fix what doesn't.

I am not sure how to pause the screen when it posts.. =( sorry. How are things working out for you now? I didn't see a post from you under the graduate page..