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MetalDwarf

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 20, 2002
Messages
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New rig, its been a long time.

Current setup
MSI 754 MOBO
Sempron 2500+
768MB DDR
ATI X300
2x200GB, 1x250GB, 2x320GB, 2x500GB
Tv tuner hauppage MCE 150
PCI IDE controller


New rig
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Gigabyte GA P35-DS3R
2x1GB OZC Gold PC2-6400 XTC
Galaxy 8800GT 512MB
Auzentech Prelude
Thermalright Ultima-90 HSF
same drives,
same tv tuner
Coolermaster CM690 Case
random cheap flash card reader
Corsair 620HX PSU

I'm excited
 
that´s one hell of an upgrade :) and a lot of hard drives. what do u need that many hard drives for? nevermind rhetorical question ;)
 
I hope those hard drives are SATA....doubtful that your new board has more than one IDE channel (2 devices).
 
Looking good. Though if all those drives are IDE, pick up a PCI IDE adapter from newegg.

Oh and post some pics of it when its done!
 
Or, you could get USB2.0 enclosures for some of those IDE drives.

I'm just curious, but what speakers are you using with that Prelude?
 
Drives:
2x200GB WD Caviar IDE
1x250GB WD Caviar IDE
2x320GB Segate SATA
2x500GB Hitatchi SATA
1xDVD-RW IDE

I have a PCI IDE controller, the 2x200GB will connect to the IDE controller and the DVD and 250GB drives will connect to the motherboard IDE header

Auzentech Prelude will be connected via analog & optical to:
Sony STR DE-995 reciever in a 6.1 setup
Front Center/ Rear Center: Behringer TRUTH B2031P
Front L/R: Bose 802-II (hot rodded with super tweeter)
Rear L/R: Behringer TRUTH B2031P
Sub: amplifier QSC Ex4000 -> custom built 15" Adire Audio (RIP) Tempest Sub (sealed) sounds fantastic

At some point down the road I will hot rod the Sony reciever to get a line level out for the Front L/R and then run that into the Bose 802-II active EQ and that into a Crown CT-800 Amp and that into the Bose 802-II's but thats another post
 
my specific order


Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor LGA775 Kentsfield 2.40GHZ 1066FSB 8MB Retail Box 1
Coolermaster CM 690 Mid Tower Black ATX Case 5X5.25 5X3.5INT No PS Front USB Sound Firewire & eSATA 1
Patriot Signature Line 8GB SDHC Secure Digital High Capacity Class 6 Flash Card
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R ATX LGA775 Conroe P35 DDR2 1PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 SATA RAID Sound GBLAN Motherboard
Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX Triple 12V 50A 24PIN ATX Modular Power Supply 120MM Fan 2X PCI-E
AuzenTech X-FI Prelude 7.1 Sound Card PCI 32BIT Eax 5.0
Thermalright ULTIMA-90 6 Heatpipe Cooler LGA775 AM2 CPU Heatsink *Fan Not Included*
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120MM Cooling Fan 1600RPM 28.0DBA 63.7CFM FDB
nGear Flash Card Reader 3.5IN Internal USB Black CF/SM/SD/MMC/MS/XD 18IN Cable Seperated Connectors
Corsair PC2-5300 1GB 1X1GB DDR2-667 200PIN SODIMM Memory
Galaxy GeForce 8800GT Overclocked 600MHZ 512MB 2.0GHZ DDR3 PCI-E DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out OEM Video Card

Shipping & Handling: $43.73
Shipping Insurance: $35.81
SUBTOTAL: $1,273.10
PST(7%): $89.12
GST (6%): $76.39
TOTAL: $1,438.61
 
Why did you order laptop RAM? You're buying that for a laptop right?
 
laptop ram and flash card are for the girlfriends EEE PC ;)

So, parts should arrive next week sometime. my next question is what OS should I go with?

I've always run XP, but I did play with Vista during Beta.

Should I stick with XP or go with Vista? If i go with Vista should I get 32bit or 64bit?
 
MetalDwarf said:
my specific order


Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor LGA775 Kentsfield 2.40GHZ 1066FSB 8MB Retail Box 1
Coolermaster CM 690 Mid Tower Black ATX Case 5X5.25 5X3.5INT No PS Front USB Sound Firewire & eSATA 1
Patriot Signature Line 8GB SDHC Secure Digital High Capacity Class 6 Flash Card
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R ATX LGA775 Conroe P35 DDR2 1PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 SATA RAID Sound GBLAN Motherboard
Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX Triple 12V 50A 24PIN ATX Modular Power Supply 120MM Fan 2X PCI-E
AuzenTech X-FI Prelude 7.1 Sound Card PCI 32BIT Eax 5.0
Thermalright ULTIMA-90 6 Heatpipe Cooler LGA775 AM2 CPU Heatsink *Fan Not Included*
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120MM Cooling Fan 1600RPM 28.0DBA 63.7CFM FDB
nGear Flash Card Reader 3.5IN Internal USB Black CF/SM/SD/MMC/MS/XD 18IN Cable Seperated Connectors
Corsair PC2-5300 1GB 1X1GB DDR2-667 200PIN SODIMM Memory
Galaxy GeForce 8800GT Overclocked 600MHZ 512MB 2.0GHZ DDR3 PCI-E DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out OEM Video Card

Shipping & Handling: $43.73
Shipping Insurance: $35.81
SUBTOTAL: $1,273.10
PST(7%): $89.12
GST (6%): $76.39
TOTAL: $1,438.61
Click to expand...

The CM690 only has 5 hard drive cages, you have 7 hard drives if I counted correctly?
 
MetalDwarf said:
laptop ram and flash card are for the girlfriends EEE PC ;)

So, parts should arrive next week sometime. my next question is what OS should I go with?

I've always run XP, but I did play with Vista during Beta.

Should I stick with XP or go with Vista? If i go with Vista should I get 32bit or 64bit?
Click to expand...

If you're planning on getting 4GB of RAM in the future, go for Vista 64bit. If not, Vista 32bit is fine.
 
Danny Bui said:
If you're planning on getting 4GB of RAM in the future, go for Vista 64bit. If not, Vista 32bit is fine.
Click to expand...

I have 2GB ram, 4 is probably going to happen at some point. so 64bit it is.

is 64bit actually any faster or is just just about the ram?
 
MetalDwarf said:
I have 2GB ram, 4 is probably going to happen at some point. so 64bit it is.

is 64bit actually any faster or is just just about the ram?
Click to expand...

Supposedly it is. Haven't had a chance to try it out myself.
 
It's Here!

parts arrived at my office today, I am off work at 5 and will start the build as soon as I get home.

Pics to follow
 
oh and on a side note, my dad got a new laptop over the weekend. he recruited me to transfer all his stuff from the old to the new. so i got a chance to play with Vista for a day or two.

NUTS TO VISTA

*GIVES XP A HUG*
 
MetalDwarf said:
oh and on a side note, my dad got a new laptop over the weekend. he recruited me to transfer all his stuff from the old to the new. so i got a chance to play with Vista for a day or two.

NUTS TO VISTA

*GIVES XP A HUG*
Click to expand...

superfetch >>>>>>>>>> prefetch


vista is the future
*waves hand around*
 
I got the parts home last night at 5pm, and started building immediately. The gf doesn't get home till 7:30 on Wednesdays so I had 2.5 hrs of uninterrupted build time. It is almost all put together.

All that remains is for me to sort out the mess that is my various RAID arrays. The old computer has the OS on a 2x320GB RAID=0 (640GB). I want the new rig to run the OS on a new 2x500GB RAID=0. The current strategy is that I've emptied the 500GB drives and I have the 640GB raid's used space down below 500GB. I'm going to transfer all the stuff from the 640GB raid to one of the 500GB drives, break the 640GB raid and install all the drives (2x320gb and 2x500gb) into the new computer. Once there I'm going to transfer all the stuff back off the 500gb onto the 2, now independent, 320gb drives. Then format the 500gb used as an intermediate and build the new 2x500GB RAID=0. FAR too much work for what its worth but I'm a sucker for punishment and disk performance.

IF ANYONE KNOWS A BETTER WAY PLEASE TELL ME!!!!

Anyways, here is a bit of a run down for the build thus far. All the parts arrived, less the 8GB SDHC card, it's back ordered but thats for my gf's Asus EEE PC so no big deal.

Case: Coolermaster CM690
Overall a very nice case. The layout is good, I like to look, and the "feel" is also very good.

Pros
I LOVE the PCI card locks and the 5.25" drive locks LOVE EM! including screws in the drive rack is also a nice touch. I replaced the blue LED fan in the front with a non-led fan, I'm not a big fan of the BLOOOOOOO. Installing the new fan was easy as pie except for removing the front of the case (see note below). I don't have fire wire on the new mobo so I hid the front panel firewire cable/header under the top of the case where you can also put 2x120mm fans.



Cons
I do have some complaints. I don't want to sound negative about the case, I really like it, it is just easier to nit pick then to complement sometimes.

1) The Front Panel audio cable is RIDICULOUS! there are jumpers and wires and shit everywhere, I know they are trying to be helpful by allowing 3 different hookup types but seriously its a mess. I am hoping that I can just use the block HD Audio connector and cut the rest off.

2) When installing a 5.25" drive you have to forcefully pry the front of the case off. The first time I did it I honestly thought I was going to break the case, it needs a latch or something. Just ripping it off is scary.

3) When I installed my flash reader into the case you have to remove one of the drive bay covers and replace it with a 3.5" cut out one. The drive covers are held in place with little clips, to take the cover off you push back on the clip and the cover pops out (I will post pics later) when I did this one of the clips broke off :mad: so now its unsecured on the right side. It still looks and functions fine but it kinda sucks that it broke so easily. FYI when I did the same for my DVD drive it worked fine no breakage.

4) On my Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R there are motherboard tray mounting holes on the far right of the board. There aren't motherboard tray standoffs there on the case, so the right edge of the motherboard is a little unsupported.

5) This might not be an issue to those of you with all SATA hard drives, but I have 3 PATA drives that aren't yet ready to go out to pasture. The 3.5" drive bays are very nice but they do not work at all with PATA drives. The drive cage wraps around the back of the drive far enough that it blocks the 4 pin power connector as well as the outside pins on the PATA connector. Again, I will post pics later, but basically you can't use a PATA drive in the 3.5" drive bay section. Luckily I had three 3.5" to 5.24" adapters so I was able to mount the drives in the 5.25" bays, this unfortunately has led to my cabling being a huge mess.

Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX Triple 12V 50A 24PIN ATX Modular Power Supply
Beef #1: The 4pin ATX cable is too short and was very hard to run to its location on my motherboard. The ONLY way it would reach was to go directly under the motherboard (between the board and the tray)

Beef #2: The 6-pin GFX Card power connectors suck. The locking latch they use does not work on the gfx card side. Maybe this is a problem with the Galaxy 8800GT I have, I don't know. The connector on the card side has a latch that is too wide to fit into the notch on the gfx card. Also due to the squeezing that the latch is doing it pushes the connector off the socket on the card. Not happy, I will have to work something out.

Thermalright Ultima-90 Heatsink
I haven't tested temps yet.
Issue #1: The fins on this thing are RAZOR FUCKING SHARP. I have tiny cuts all over my hands from installing it and from accidentally brushing my hand against it while doing the rest of the install. Seriously oww!

Issue #2: The included install guide is crap. Go online and look at the guide there. The fan clips confused the hell out of me for a while, but I eventually got it.

Galaxy 8800GT
As I mentioned in the power supply section the notch for the 6-pin power connector doesn't fit. It is either too narrow on the graphics card side or the latch on the corsair side is too wide. I don't know which. Either way it doesn't lock.
 
MetalDwarf said:
1) The Front Panel audio cable is RIDICULOUS! there are jumpers and wires and shit everywhere, I know they are trying to be helpful by allowing 3 different hookup types but seriously its a mess. I am hoping that I can just use the block HD Audio connector and cut the rest off.

4) On my Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R there are motherboard tray mounting holes on the far right of the board. There aren't motherboard tray standoffs there on the case, so the right edge of the motherboard is a little unsupported.

Thermalright Ultima-90 Heatsink

Issue #1: The fins on this thing are RAZOR FUCKING SHARP. I have tiny cuts all over my hands from installing it and from accidentally brushing my hand against it while doing the rest of the install. Seriously oww!

Issue #2: The included install guide is crap. Go online and look at the guide there. The fan clips confused the hell out of me for a while, but I eventually got it.
Click to expand...

1) just cut off whatever you're not using... thats what I did. If I happen to need the other connectors, I'll just move the pins around on the connector to fit my needs. :p

4) this is because gigabyte is using a non-standard sized PCB -- I'm assuming to save money. Their other higher-end boards are a full ATX size. I simply put standoffs (with liquid electrical tape to prevent shorts) where I could to help support the bottom of the board when I plug in the ATX power connector and other stuff.

#1) How are you cutting yourself? I just think you're not being careful enough, lol. I've installed almost a dozen of these, and have never cut myself (along with many Ninjas and Tuniqs as well). Its not like I have thick skin either, lol.

#2) I don't think I relied on the guide that much. Its pretty straightforward, I thought. These things are much easier to install than the stock Intel HSF, lol -- at least in my opinion.
 
*UGH* what a nightmare

I got it all built, go to install windows and I run into all their weird ass problems, stuff corrupt, raid issues, crashes all very random and annoying. I suspect a hard dive problem so I break my raid and run western digitals drive test suite. The test takes 6 hours over 2 drives. One of the drives has a problem. I zero the drive, another 2 hours, and retest, another 3 hours. The drive passes. I rebuilt the raid, reinstall windows for the third or fourth time in as many days. I'm STILL getting problems, things are getting corrupt when I download them, drivers aren't installing right, and once I get everything sorta working I try and install Bioshock and it says the disk is corrupt. ARGH!!!

So frustrated, I tested everything I could think of, different drives, different cables, ran all sorts of component tests, memtest, windows memory test, everything I can think of, it still acts flaky as hell, corrupts randomly, locks, crashes, and just generally doesn't work right. So so so frustrated.

Anyways, last night in anticipation of sending everything back, I pulled one of the sticks of ram and low and behind the source of my week of computer hell is found. The sticks passed every test I could throw at them but with one gone everything suddenly works. It seemed to magically work after i pulled the first stick, I haven't swapped to test the other stick but I will assume it is the culprit, and the other stick is fine. I've already got an RMA number they will be going back today.

*sigh* another week without a computer.
 
Damn, sorry to hear of all your troubles with this PC.

Maybe the RAM weren't getting enough voltage. Try upping the voltage to the whatever the RAM manufacturer states. Also, not to nitpick but, you should've ran memtest+ on each stick of RAM separately because sometimes testing multiple sticks will yield false negatives.
 
Danny Bui said:
Damn, sorry to hear of all your troubles with this PC.

Maybe the RAM weren't getting enough voltage. Try upping the voltage to the whatever the RAM manufacturer states. Also, not to nitpick but, you should've ran memtest+ on each stick of RAM separately because sometimes testing multiple sticks will yield false negatives.
Click to expand...

i will double check that when i get home, I just assumed it would get the right voltage auto-"magically"
 
i am not 100% sure yet but i think it was the ram voltage, if i have my figures correct, ddr2 spec voltage is 1.8V the ram modules i have are speced at 2.1V i have upped the voltage in bios by 0.3V and so far so good. i hope that solves it. the gf needs the computer to do her homework so i cant test it. im posting this from her eee pc (aww its so cute!) anyways once she is done i will post again with my results. and maybe if i ever get around to it some pictures

im also thinking about rearanging my apartment to better accomodate my speaker setup with my home theatre and the pc. since both run through the same reciever and speakers but the computer is on the wall to the left of the tv everything sounds twisted 90 degrees when using the computer. (ie: the front left speaker for the home theatre is the front right speaker to the computer. the rear left speaker to the home theater is the left speaker to the computer) i really need to not live in a batchelor apartment...
 
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