New PC Build

[SepticLemon]

Yeah, finally I'm building myself a new PC. I've had this PC for 8 years, my Current specs are...

Windows XP Professional SP3
Pentium 4 Prescot @ 2.4 GHz with 400 MHz FSB
Sony Motherboard with crappy limitations and proprietary sockets
Crucial brand 1GB of RAM (2*512 RAM) @ 400MHz
300GB IDE HDD
60GB IDE HDD (To install games onto)
Nvidia GeForce 6600
proprietary sized 300 Watt PSU
Sony Vaio PCV m-ATX Case


And here's what my new PC will have...

Windows 7 Home Premium (I don't need pro just yet)
Pentium i3 530 Clarkdale @ 2.9GHz dual core with Hyper Threading per core
OCZ brand 4GB of RAM (2*2GB RAM) @ 1300MHz (Later I'll get another pair of these for 8GB)
Asus P7H55-V H55 Motherboard with possible FSB of 2200MHz
1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 SATA HDD
ATI HD 4870
Gigabyte ODIN Plus 700 Watt ATX PSU
Cooler Master CM690-ii Advanced Case


I'll post pics when I get to build this :D :PT: I'm very excited, though I have for the 6th of September before I can build it, man I hate waiting, but I was cheap enough to go with free shipping, lol.

[meu2]

That’s a nice spec machine your building. I especially like the case; you really can’t go wrong with the Cooler Master stuff. I am curious why you picked such a powerful PSU though (more optical/hard drives going in)? I find this useful for getting a quick idea of my power needs: http://www.corsair.com/psufinder/default.aspx

I always find it exciting to get a new machine, especially when you’re building it yourself. Where about did you shop for the parts btw?

[SepticLemon]

Well the PSU and Graphics card I bought off a friend at work. He won the PSU on a magazine competition and said he could sell it to me, as far as I'm aware, I'm going to use this mainly for future proofing, especially if I go into the realms of overclocking (if I do that though I might have to buy more reliable RAM than OCZ, something like Corsair) or if I pick myself a better graphics card that requires more juice from the PSU. Plus this PSU has over 85% efficiency on it, which means I can get close to 700 watts if I want it. ATM it's very overkill for what I want it for, but that just means that it'll be very cool and quiet when I start using it. As for drives and stuff, I'll be using 1 optic drive, a Samgsung SATA DVD-RW drive and 3 HDDs, the 1TB Samsung drive, and my 2 older IDE drives. Windows 7 will be installed on the 1TB, Ubuntu 10 will be installed on the 60GB and my music and video will be put onto my 300GB drive.

Pretty much I'm building this to be as future proof, and affordable as possible, the problem with my current machine was that I was dumb to purchase an on the shelf PC from Staples thinking it was the shit, to eventually discover how un-upgradeable it is. firstly it uses a PSU it looks just like a typical ATX PSU, however, comparing a real ATX PSU to it, it's an inch thinner, and an inch longer than a typical ATX PSU. The motherboard itself can only handle up to a 2.4GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, try finding a BIOS flash for this board! god... I ended up called Sony about it, and they treated me like I didn't know what I was talking about... So yeah, that my current machine in a nutshell, I might turn this into a home server or something, but it's not that quiet, so I might not...

I got, or more so, "getting the parts", since I haven't got everything yet, from different web sites, as I said, I bought the PSU and Graphics card from a friend at work, I got my copy of Windows 7 from http://www.ebuyer.com which is like the UK equivalent to new egg. The Processor and RAM I'm getting from http://www.aria.co.uk another great website, I was going to get the processor and RAM from ebuyer, but aria had better prices. The case, motherboard and hardrive I'm getting from ebuyer.

[meu2]

Well the PSU and Graphics card I bought off a friend at work. He won the PSU on a magazine competition and said he could sell it to me, as far as I'm aware, I'm going to use this mainly for future proofing, especially if I go into the realms of overclocking (if I do that though I might have to buy more reliable RAM than OCZ, something like Corsair) or if I pick myself a better graphics card that requires more juice from the PSU. Plus this PSU has over 85% efficiency on it, which means I can get close to 700 watts if I want it. ATM it's very overkill for what I want it for, but that just means that it'll be very cool and quiet when I start using it. As for drives and stuff, I'll be using 1 optic drive, a Samgsung SATA DVD-RW drive and 3 HDDs, the 1TB Samsung drive, and my 2 older IDE drives. Windows 7 will be installed on the 1TB, Ubuntu 10 will be installed on the 60GB and my music and video will be put onto my 300GB drive.

Pretty much I'm building this to be as future proof, and affordable as possible, the problem with my current machine was that I was dumb to purchase an on the shelf PC from Staples thinking it was the shit, to eventually discover how un-upgradeable it is. firstly it uses a PSU it looks just like a typical ATX PSU, however, comparing a real ATX PSU to it, it's an inch thinner, and an inch longer than a typical ATX PSU. The motherboard itself can only handle up to a 2.4GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, try finding a BIOS flash for this board! god... I ended up called Sony about it, and they treated me like I didn't know what I was talking about... So yeah, that my current machine in a nutshell, I might turn this into a home server or something, but it's not that quiet, so I might not...

It's certainly worth springing the extra cash for an 80 plus PSU, it'll pay for itself down the line.

Off the shelf PC's are good for what they are, but they're definitely designed to be completely replaced every few years instead of upgraded.

[SepticLemon]

Off the shelf PC's are good for what they are, but they're definitely designed to be completely replaced every few years instead of upgraded.

Well, this son of a bitch has lasted for 8 years, soit's done it's job, even though I'm not using the same CPU, RAM, HDDs and Graphics card it came with.

[meu2]

I've been there myself. I had a P3 machine that I used for ten years, though I did upgrade the RAM, HDD and optical drives through the years. The machine is retired for now, but I have stored it for use in a future MAME project.

[SepticLemon]

Well I got an email saying that I should receive my processor and RAM tomorrow, the rest on the other hand I have to wait until next week :(

I might take a few photos...

[SepticLemon]

Well, I got my Processor and RAM today. Now I'm too excited! Thank god eBuyer allows you to upgrade your shipping, lol. Now I'll be getting this on Friday! Woo! Something to work on over the weekend!

[SepticLemon]

Hell yes, the beast is born!!!!

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/585/img0723o.jpg

Gotta love the CM690-ii case!

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/8165/img0725x.jpg

The insides!

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/530/img0726pp.jpg

I love the behind the motherboard cable tidy, makes so much room inside!

[meu2]

Nice build. The Cooler Master CM690-ii has some nice features, like the tool-less drive slots, but the usefulness of the underside motherboard cable tidy cannot be understated. Thanks for sharing.

[SepticLemon]

Here's a dumb question to ask.

How can I find out if the RAM in my machine is in dual channel mode? Is it something that's in the BIOS? or is it automactic?

[meu2]

It's usually automatic, but you might have to check the memory management in the BIOS. It may also marked as Interleaved in your BIOS.

[SepticLemon]

Ok, here's an update to my PC.

I had to re-install windows... urgh... Reason being I couldn't work out why the CM690-ii Sata dock wasn't hotswapping. Turned out I needed SATA to ACHI rather than the Sata to IDE that was on by default, and each time I tried to boot under ACHI mode, Windows 7 pulled a tantrum until I switched it back to Sata to IDE. Since then, I reinstalled Windows, with the ACHI mode, and now the CM690-ii sata dock now hotswaps! yay!

[SepticLemon]

ARGH! CRAP!

I just tried to install a new heat sink and fan to my machine, a such quietier one, but I foolishly installed the processor the wrong way round and I smell burning!

I took the processor out and cleaned off the burnt area with some isopropyl but it refuses the boot!? Theres still some burn marks on the socket too, I'll need to find a way to clean that up. But if all else fails, what's dead? the motherboard and/or the processor?

[meu2]

Sounds like the CPU is dead to me, there certainly not designed to operate without cooling. Not sure about the motherboard, but it might be okay. If you have another compatible CPU for that socket I would try that out first.

[SepticLemon]

Well, the did have the heatsink on, but it wasn't on the socket right.

What's more disturbing is that I looked at the socket a bit more and there's a patch where the plastic has clearly melted and burnt in, proberly what I'm smelling, and some of the contacts are very burnt, more so than the CPU itself. No I don't have any other 1156 processors or motherboards on me so I guess I have to get a new motherboard just to see if the processor is fine, because I think the motherboard is more damaged here.

[seanyboyuk]

Enjoy your new pc i bet its a dream!
My current spec is:
Dual core 2 duo 1.8ghz
4gb ram
xp home
2x 250gb hard disks
1x 1tb hard disk
audigy sound card
geforce 6800 card
2x dvd burners
32" lcd samsung tv
I have a nice pc for what i need. I dont play modern pc games anymore i just use it to browse and download so i cant see upgrading for a couple of years. Id i do decide to upgrade i will replace the 250gb hard disks with ssd drives as they are more affordable now and to be honest the speed they can transfer at would render the need to upgrade ram and cpu, just would need a new graphics card but hey that suits my needs too.

[meu2]

Well, the did have the heatsink on, but it wasn't on the socket right.

What's more disturbing is that I looked at the socket a bit more and there's a patch where the plastic has clearly melted and burnt in, proberly what I'm smelling, and some of the contacts are very burnt, more so than the CPU itself. No I don't have any other 1156 processors or motherboards on me so I guess I have to get a new motherboard just to see if the processor is fine, because I think the motherboard is more damaged here.

That those sound like the motherboard is in a bad way alright. Your probably right to try changing the motherboard first in this case.

I remember a guy in college booting up a P4 without a fan or heat-sink. It literally melted to the motherboard in a matter of seconds.

[SepticLemon]

So yeah, here's the damaged socket

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs616.snc4/59640_10150282654835442_807085441_14967098_965062_ n.jpg

[SepticLemon]

Ok, I just tried to send a request to send the motherboard back to get a replacement, I'm going to play the "lying" game and just say that the processor got hot because of a fault.

Hopefully I can lie my way into getting a new mobo.

Plus I've been talking to a few people about the CPU, it might be dead too, but I need to test it with someone's mobo before I do it.

At the moment I got my Laptop hooked up to my monitor, Mouse and keyboard and treating it like a desktop...

It's not the same... :(

[SepticLemon]

Ok, a little update, I should be receiving a new Motherboard and CPU by Thursday.

Unfortuantly I could "lie" to them, they figured out it was a CPU burn-out and that it wasn't included in my warrenty, so I had to pay for them >_< gah

However I got the same processor and CPU, so the liklyhood is I won't need to reinstall windows again, I hope... I'll be annoyed if I have to!

That and I got myself a new mouse from Amazon, though to be honest amazon did over sell this thing, it's a cheap Logitech laser mouse, the tech inside is very good, but the outside feels like the kind of mice I was using in school in the mid-90s... When my next pay day arrives I might splash out on something a bit better feeling.