looking to start a fresh one

[lookin4grip]

Hi - First let me say I have enjoyed reading some of the informative posts here. I too am preparing my first self build and am hoping that a few of you well versed pros that have a few under your belt could take a look at what I am proposing.

I am building this system with hopes of utilizing it for years to come and thus going with the i7 in hopes of future proofing it somewhat. I will mostly be using it for all the normal use, however I feel I need the power for AVCHD editing on a personal scale. Please take a look at what I came up with.

Antec P182 Gun Metal Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail

ASUS P6T Deluxe LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - Retail

SAPPHIRE 100259-1GL Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

Pioneer Black 8X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 8X Blu-ray DVD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA Internal Blu-ray Burner 8X Blu-Ray DVD Burner w/ Software Model BDR-203BKS - Retail

(2 units) Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Microsoft 4GC-00002 Silver/Black 102 Normal Keys Wireless Ergonomics Laser Desktop 4000 - OEM

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit for System Builders - OEM

SONY Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 Pro Pack - Retail

Well - here is what I am thinking, please check for any know compatibility issues. I wanted to take advantage of the RAID 1, not sure if I can, do I need different HDD's? Also if I continue to use my old system with XP pro, Is it possible to get a upgrade version of vista x64 ultimate?

I am sorry I have so many questions, but this is so dam exciting. Any forsight will be greatly appreciated. I also have read that the Antec P182 need the PSU to have longer leads, does anyone know if the one selected we work?

Thanks - Todd

[RickyTick]

Welcome to the forums Todd.

That's a terrific system you got listed there. I don't see any problems with it at all.

[lookin4grip]

Do you see the need for a aftermarket CPU heat sink or will the stock one work with this GPU and case?

[RickyTick]

The cpu will come with a good heat sink, but now is the time to install one while the motherboard is out of the case. They're not terribly expensive, so if it's within your budget, go for it.

[lookin4grip]

What would be a good compatable unit, you know not to large to block access to anything? Is the zalman? any good.

Also... Do you know how the RAID 1 works with these boards, whats needed for drives and so. Do I need a raid card? I would ideally like (2) 1TB drives configured as RAID 1.

Thanks for your help.

[RickyTick]

This is a nice hsf for the price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233029

This one is a little pricey, but you get what you pay for.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835702007

[lookin4grip]

I got all of my components ordered and should show in by mid next week, then the fun begins. This is my first build, therfore I have never attempted to install a cpu heat sink, wondering about how much paste and how difficult this might be. I ordered the
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007
and
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233029

Are there any pitfalls to watch out/ worry about?

Also I am getting a little nervous with all of theses expensive parts, hoping they all come together properly.

[TheGeneralLee86]

The Paste you put on when you put it on put on a very thin layer so you can just barely see through it and barely at certain angles be able to see where they wrote the name of the processor and it should be fine because that is how much I did and had it running quite a bit and haven't had it go over 32-34 degrees Celsius and even when watching DVD movies have not tried blu rays yet because I don't have any.

Correct me if I'm wrong! Thanks!

[RickyTick]

Look through this
http://www.arcticsilver.com/ins_route_step2intelas5.html

[RickC]

The power supply you have ordered is very nice but I can tell you from recent experience that it has LOTS of wires. You'll need space to store the extras because there will be extras. I installed the very same in my new build and I filled my Antec 900 case quite well. The Antec 1200 would have been to much space so I guess I did right with my decision but be prepared to leave a sizable space to tuck the extra wires away, you'll see what I mean.

RickC

[lookin4grip]

The power supply you have ordered is very nice but I can tell you from recent experience that it has LOTS of wires. You'll need space to store the extras because there will be extras. I installed the very same in my new build and I filled my Antec 900 case quite well. The Antec 1200 would have been to much space so I guess I did right with my decision but be prepared to leave a sizable space to tuck the extra wires away, you'll see what I mean.

RickC

Thanks for the insight Rick, where were you a few days ago... lol. I was wondering that after seeing the pictures of the leads, and I certainly believe you. I hope I have enough room in the antec P182 case I ordered, from what I understand it will be tight down there already because of a lower fan. Maybe someone can clear up any questions about dealing with this particular case. Otherwise how did you like the PSU? How loud is your 900(that was my other selection)? That was the main reason I choose the P182, supposedly very quite (but I have no idea).

[lookin4grip]

Well... all the parts showed up yesterday, and I spent the better part of the night assemblying and scrathing. I am having a few problems/ questions though. If any wise ones have any input, I would surly appreciate the help.

First the easy one... I am only using the onboard sound (please refer to the build list above). I am wondering if I need to connect the optical drive to the optical cd on the mobo via 4 pin connector (i dont have one if neccessary)? Doesnt the data get routed thru the SATA anyway?

Second... I have my three switch antec case fans powered by the PSU rather that the mobo, what are you thoughts in comparison to connecting to mobo, the only connection plugs I had to use, is it better to change the connectors to 3 pin and connect to the mobo for better tuning? or just go with the 3 speed?

Last but certainly the most important...

I only have an optical drive installed and no floppy. I am trying to set up a RAID 1 config with the (2) 1TB drives. I really dont know what I am doing, the mobo manual says to load the driver via 1.44 floppy, I dont have that option, elswhere it states USB flash would work. I just dont know the sequence of events to make this work. I have configured the bios to raid, but am confussed on how to get further. I did install vista 64, and I realize that this will be lost and have to reinstall to get this going. Looking for help to cutdown the learning curve. Thank you so much for any replies.

By the way everything else went without a hitch, cpu temps are around 38C-50C, is this adequate? But of course the case has been open the whole time it has ran so far.

[lookin4grip]

WOW nobody around here?

[The Wise Monkey]

Give us a chance... :P

1. The sound from the optical drive is only used if you want it to play a CD as an alarm in the BIOS, as some motherboards allow you to do. For most of us this is really unnecessary, but is a useful feature if you need it. You will still get sound from it anyway, as the optical drive does none of the sound processing by itself, it just passes all the data to the motherboard via the SATA cable.

2. I'm not sure what you mean about the case fans, but it doesn't really make much difference as to what they are connected to. If they are attached to the motherboard, then you can monitor the speed that they are going in the BIOS or using some other piece of software such as SpeedFan.

3. I'll give it a go:

- Enable RAID in the BIOS using the Intel RAID option
- Reboot, and enter the RAID utility by pressing Ctrl + I. Use this utility to create a RAID 1 array using both your hard drives (it doesn't matter which one is the master drive)
- Download the Intel RAID drivers from the ASUS website and load them onto a USB stick
- Start the Vista set up, and load the RAID drivers from the USB stick when asked
- The two SATA drives shown in the Vista setup should then become one, and you can start installing.
- When you have installed Vista, install the latest chipset drivers for your motherboard, and you should be all set.

Note that this will make the boot time slightly longer as the Intel RAID utility will need to check the disks are still in the array before booting.

[lookin4grip]

Thanks for responding WM. I maybe dont have my drives set up right something. I did pull a 3.5 floppy out of my old computer to make the floppy driver disk. Here is what I have done so far.

Connected (2) 1TB drives via SATA 2, SATA3 ports. I however did not master/ slave anything (I did not think I had to with SATA) just plugged them in and connected power leads.

Then I set BIOS to RAID, rebooted and tried to get the Matrix Storage manager to run from booting to the ASUS mobo CD. I was prompted that the Intel drivers were installing and could not be removed, I knew no better and agreed. In a DOS prompt it asks me for a flopply disk to copy the drivers, that slowed me down a bit. I did pull a 3.5 floppy drive and installed it, and it copied 7 files to the floppy disk.

Now here is the problem. Upon booting after POST it now displays to press ctl+l to make a raid set and says the drives are non-raid drives. I try ctl+l and this will not work for me, it also blast thru that screen so fast. So it just tries to boot to optical, then boots to windows (because I already installed that yesterday, twice, lol), windows only shows the C: drive in "my computer" and a A: drive before I even installed the floppy, but shows 2 drives under "hardware manager" area (I am confussed on what I even have for drives).

Are my drives not RAID compliant? Why won't the ctl+l get me into the raid set area?
How much slower boot are talking? could I revert everything back so I dont have the post POST screen that states ctl-l and just install two drives a C: and D: perhaps? I guess I just dont know, and seek you wisdom on what and how to do. Thanks again for looking into this.

What kind of options do I have here?

PS. Why upon booting to Vista DVD does it not let you do a clean install with formating, it says it want to rename files as old and keep them, I dont want that, I want a clean install! I am sorry for so many questions, I know this is probably pretty simple to you guys. Thanks again.

[lookin4grip]

I just keep wondering if it is even worth tring to set a raid 1 up, or would I better of just copying the file from drive to drive myself. What is your opinion?

[The Wise Monkey]

It says they are non-RAID drives because you haven't created an array yet.

Perhaps I was slightly confusing earlier - when I said "master", it wasn't a reference to the master/slave relationship of IDE drives; perhaps a better word would have been primary i.e. the one you will actually use. The other drive, secondary say, will be the mirror.

You need to boot into the utility, and there should be an option to create a new RAID array. Use this to create a new RAID 1 array, then boot from the Windows DVD to install a fresh copy.

As for boot speed, it will add maybe 10 seconds? It will need to confirm the array and check the drives are still there, so no major delays at all.

The good thing about having a RAID 1 array is that you can just boot into the utility again and delete the array while leaving the data on both disks intact. This means that you will effectively have two copies of Vista installed - one on each disk.

Windows writes to disk in small amounts almost constantly, so copying files yourself is a waste of time and would need to be done a lot to keep it all up to date.

[The Wise Monkey]

Actually, since you are only using two drives, you might want to check out your motherboards Drive XPert feature:

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/index.php?x=reviews&id=933&page=5

About halfway down the page, this article tells you how to set up a RAID 1 array.

[lookin4grip]

So you believe it worthwhile to continue pursueing raid 1, I will check out your link, thanks.

How come vista reports drive A: if there is not a floppy drive connected?

Why is vista only showing the C: drive and not both drives if the array has not been made yet?

[lookin4grip]

Actually, since you are only using two drives, you might want to check out your motherboards Drive XPert feature:

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/index.php?x=reviews&id=933&page=5

About halfway down the page, this article tells you how to set up a RAID 1 array.

After reviewing my manual it appears the deluxe V2 mobo does not have the Drive Xpert feature this might be another difference between V1 and V2.

[The Wise Monkey]

Ah, OK then, but you can still make a RAID array using the Intel utility.

Windows reserves, by tradition, drives A: and B: for floppy drives, then drive C: for the first hard drive, so these drives would be shown even if you don't have a floppy drive installed.

Your other hard drive won't appear yet because it hasn't been formatted so that Windows can write to it. Follow this guide to Format the other drive using Vista's built in Disk Management tool:

http://support.gateway.com/s/software/MICROSOF/vista/7515418/7515418su251.shtml

Although there is not much point to this if you are going to be creating a RAID array, as it will all be wiped anyway.

[lookin4grip]

WM thank you helping me through this; was trying to enter the raid utility once again and realized that... Let me say sorry in advance... all along that I should press the ctrl + I. I misread the manual and monitor all this time! Gee wiz, I could not see that it was an i not an l. I am in the process of installing vista 64 as I type, I believe I am on the correct path. Just goes to show you that your brain can see what it thinks it sees. Thanks for taking the time to help me through this.

When I select a disk to defrag (raid 1), does it defrag both disks?

Do you recommend installing all the mobo utilities?

[The Wise Monkey]

Heh, no problem, it happens to all of us. :)

Your array will only be treated as one drive by Windows, so anything you do will be applied to both disks, including defragmentation. They will be kept identical at the bit level hence why if one of them fails you can just swap it out with another and rebuild the array. :)