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Looking for advice on my first SFF

G

GameDad

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 12, 2005
Messages
1,576
I am going to build a SFF, and have mostly picked out the parts, which are:

ASPIRE X-QPACK-GN/420 Black/Green Aluminum MicroATX Case 420W Power Supply

pqi TURBO 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory

ASUS A8N-VM CSM Socket 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 1GHz FSB 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor

HITACHI Deskstar T7K250 0A31636 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

I have seen a lot of comments on this forum about the qpack, and most of them good, what i would most like would be some advice on the MB, i have never used ASUS, mostly MSI or Abit, and would like your opinions on this MB, or ASUS in general. and any other advice you would care to give me would be greatly appreciated. :)
 
I think it will be a couple days before anybody has the asus board up and running in their machines.

Give a look to the Biostar TForce board, it is probably the most solid board right now, however it doesn't have some of the features of the Asus board you are talking about.
 
I was going to move my current NEC 3510 dvd burners into here, but have been seeing some posts about size, does anyone know if they fit into the qpack ok, or will i need to get a new dvd burner?
 
I believe Im currently running one in my main tower... If no one answers you by this evening Ill swap it into the QPack Im building to see if it fits correctly or not....

Skids
 
The motherboard supports dual channel on the RAM, with one stick you'll be running in single channel. Since the mobo has 4 slots for RAM I'd consider splitting that stick into 2x512mb which gains you dual channel and you still have 2 slots left for a future upgrade. Other than that it looks like a nice setup.
 
That would be great, with all that i have heard about sizes of drives, i would like to know for sure.

As for memory, I was planning on getting a second stick, in 1 or 2 months, that way I would have 1gbx2. and if I can manage it, even sooner.

Thanks for the advice tho, and keep it coming, I am gonna start ordering parts this weekend :D
 
GameDad said:
I was going to move my current NEC 3510 dvd burners into here, but have been seeing some posts about size, does anyone know if they fit into the qpack ok, or will i need to get a new dvd burner?
Click to expand...

If it is the same size as the newer 3550, and especially if your using the original power supply it will fit.

Im using the NEC 3550 with a 430W S12 powersupply and the drive just barely makes it, no room to remove the cables once they are in, but it does fit
 
I had a similar setup using the Plextor 716-SA DVD burner. It's 170mm (6.69") deep and fits with a standard ATX power supply (Zalman 400A-APF) 140mm (5.51")
There was about a 1 inch gap from the PSU to the DVD burner.

check these pics # 20, 21, 22

Link to pics
 
Well, I finally got parts ordered, and from 4 different vendors, here is what I ended up getting, and what I paid and where.

Mother board------ASUS A8N-VM CSM-----------ZipZoomFly-----------$92.00 + free shipping
HardDrive-----------Hitachi SATA2 250GB---------NewEgg----------------$108.01+ 3.49 ship
Memory-------------2x1gb PQI 2-3-2-5---------------NewEgg----------------$215.11+3.83 ship (-$20.00rebate=$195.11)
Floppy---------------Samsung---------------------------NewEgg-----------------$7.25 + 2.50 ship
PSU------------------X-connect 500watt--------------Tiger Direct-------------$59.99 + 8.99 ship (-$30.00rebate=29.99)
CPU------------------Opteron 170-----------------------Chief Value-------------$406.99 + 7.54 overnight ship
Case-----------------X-Qpack Green-------------------Jab-Tech-----------------$89.95+12.99 ship

Also from jab-tech I picked up a couple of Vantec north and south bridge iceberg fans, and some 90 degree molex connectorz, PSU vibration dampener, and some other misc stuff, I hope to have everything on or before the 6th. When I start putting it together, I will post some pix,


I cant wait!!!!!!!! :p :D :p :D
 
I'm also going to be building my first sff system in january, and am looking ath the qpack housing. What video card are you going to be using with your setup??
 
for about the next month or so, i am just going to be using the built in video of the motherboard. after Dec 30(payday!) I am going to get an EVGA 7800GTX, one of the ones with 256mb, there are about 4+ flavors of them, i am probly going to get the one reccomended here by v99, but would surly like to get the other :D

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=985966
 
......I ordered the case, MoBo, processor, HD, floppy, and ram on 2 Dec, most items were delivered by the 6th, and I put it together with some items that I already had, such as the NEC 3500 DVD drive.
......The first obstacle that I ran into was the coolers on the MoBo, I had purchased 2 vantec iceberqs hsf’s from jab-tech. If you have seen these, they are fairly nice, but they are round, and slightly larger than the chips are, consequently, with the placement of items on the MoBo, it was not possible to use these on either the north bridge or the south bridge :mad: .
......The installation of the processor was simple, as was its heatsink fan, which seems to be fairly effective.
......The memory installation went smooth also.
......Installing the hard drive was simple, but to save yourself some time, I would recommend that you install your 3.5, and 5.25 drive bay items first, as the HardDrive bracket covers some of the screw slots to those areas.
......The slide out MoBo tray works well, and is very helpful to have. Especially when you are trying to fit other things into the case, and routing cables, it helps to be able to partly pull out the tray and move things around.
......I then installed the x-connect PSU that I already had received the week before. No problem putting it in, but routing cables was difficult, especially the MoBo power cable due to their stiffness. But I persevered and got them in.
......I then went to install the NEC drive, and saw that I would have very little room between the drive and the PSU, and even though I had gotten some right angle molex connectors from jab-tech. There would be no fitting these two together :( , even with right angle connectors, because of the stiffness of the cables from the x-connect. So I made the decision to use the stock PSU until I got the video card that I was going to use. This gave me plenty of room for the drive.
......At this point I had a working system, and installation of the OS went smoothly, not even needing a driver disk for the SATA2. Installing winxp 32bit took about 20 mins. However the formatting of the drive was kind of different, for some reason windows refused to use fast formatting, and that took about 45 minutes.
......I tested the system at this point by playing some game (huh, isn’t that strange, use a PC to play games :) ) I play City of heroes / villains online, so first I loaded that up and tried it using the onboard 6150 graphics. Not a good idea, the game ran, but the video, even with very reduced setting was choppy and stop motion. However, one thing to the good was that I noticed that I had a VERY fast zone time (zone time is the time it take the game to load the next area you are moving into, including graphics and architecture). Also when I got tired of playing, and I quit the game and used the quit to desktop option, the transition was virtually instant. I also play Anarchy Online, so I next went and loaded this and tried it. No problems with graphics here, the game ran smoothly and quickly, again with very fast zoning, and exiting. I used this system as listed above for the next week surfing and email, word processing and spreadsheets, watching video and picture files with no problems of any type.
......On Dec 16th I ordered the new optical drive and the 120mm fan, these both were delivered on the 21st of Dec, I installed them on the 23rd, noting that the ASUS drive is about an inch and a third shorter than the NEC. And the fan fit very well, definitely cooling the machine much better. Before I made these changes the CPU temps were about 29-30 c, and the HD temps were about 25 c, after I put this fan in, the CPU temps went down to about 24-25 c, and the HD temps to about 19c. A very good change. Again I sent the next week testing and checking out this machine, with no faults found except for the graphics trouble in high requirements games.
......On Dec the 30th I ordered the PSU and video. I got the 7800gt instead of the GTX due to financial concerns, also with the idea in mind of using EVGA’s wonderful step-up program in march, to go to the GTX, possible the 512mb version even. I got the PSU from xpcgear, because although the price was the same, NewEgg wanted 7.99 for shipping, and xpcgear had free shipping. Due to the holidays, these items did not arrive until the 6th of Jan. I had them both installed within hours. This is where I encountered the 24pin MoBo power and 4 pin MoBo 12v problem described below, fortunately a quick review of the manual provided by ASUS solved this problem. Once the system was up and running I installed the video drivers and went to town, I played COH/V for 7 hours on 1600x1240, with max setting on all sides, and encountered no problems, everything played VERY smoothly. I then got some sleep and First thing the next morning installed the Quake 4 that came with it, again at 1600x1240, with max refresh and aa and fsaa and everything maximized, and played as smoothly as before for too many hours. On Sunday, I played several other games, and these, switching back and forth, and encountering no problems or errors. Also the only change I noticed with the temps was that the CPU seemed to have stabilized at 25 c, instead of fluctuating.

Below are listed comments on the individuals parts

Case-----------------X-Qpack Green-------------------Jab-Tech-----------------$89.95+12.99 ship
I have to agree with several of the comments that I have seen on this forum, this case seems flimsy, it feels flimsy, however I think that is because it is so light weight. But I had no problems with it, and once filled with parts, and sealed up it felt very sturdy. Besides the PSU, which I will talk about below, the only thing in this that I changed was the 120-mm exhaust fan. I replaced it with one from 3dcool.com, that was the SilenX Ixtrema Pro 120x38mm 14dBA Fan and 72 cubic feet per minute, and with rubber grommets for fastening the fan to the case. It was a little expensive, but with as quiet as it is, and the amount of air it pushes through, I thought it a worth while investment.

PSU------------------ Enermax Liberty 500W--------- xpcgear.com----------$109.99 free shipping
I was going to use an X-connect 500watt that I got from Tiger Direct for $59.99 + 8.99 ship (-$30.00 rebate = $29.99). But the physical size of the unit and the extreme stiffness of the cable made change my mind, and I am glad I did, because the Enermax is working out great. And it is somewhat modular. i.e. the main power cables are permanently attached, but the drive and video power cables are modular and come in a separate Velcro pouch to keep them in. a nice package altogether.

Mother board------ASUS A8N-VM CSM-----------ZipZoomFly-----------$92.00 + free shipping
Some thing to note for those of you like me who didn’t know it. This MoBo has a 24 pin main power header, and it also has the auxiliary 4 pin 12v power header, if you have a 24 pin cable on your PSU, you must still connect the 4 pin line to this MoBo for it to boot. This caused me a few minutes of worry until I read about this in the manual. From jab-tech I picked up a couple of Vantec north and south bridge Iceberq fans, but am not able to use them, because of the placement of capacitors on the MoBo, I am still looking for a north and south bridge cooling solution.

CPU-----------------Opteron 170 With stock hsf----Chief Value-------------$406.99 + $7.54 overnight ship
I have not yet overclocked this, but even at stock speeds it rocks, this is just amazing!!! 

HardDrive-----------Hitachi SATA2 250GB---------NewEgg----------------$108.01+$3.49 ship
It is fast, very fast, no problems, I even installed windows with no driver disk, it recognized and installed the SATA2 with no problems.

Memory-------------2x1gb PQI 2-3-2-5---------------NewEgg----------------$215.11+$3.83 ship (-$20.00rebate=$195.11)
Despite what I have seen in several reviews on NewEgg, this memory has performed flawlessly, and clocks out at the listed rates with no problems yet.

Optical Drive-------ASUS DRW-1608P2 BK DVD burner---NewEgg------$38.99 + $3.67 Shipping
I bought this 2 weeks after I put this rig together, and did so because of possible space problems, I had originally installed an NEC 3510, which worked great, but was long. And when I originally built this rig, I tried to use this with the x-connect PSU, and there was no space at all between the two, so I decided that I was going to need a different PSU and drive both. I had not seen very many good reviews about the lite-on that everyone here was recommending, but had seen some one mention that the ASUS was short too, so I thought I would give it a try. And with it now in place, and the liberty PSU, I have about and inch and a half between them, it works well, and has given me no problems.

Video ---------------EVGA 7800GT CO (Part Number: 256-P2-N517-AX)----NewEgg----$319.99 + $5.00 shipping
This runs everything I have asked of it at max res with no problems. What else is there to say?

Floppy---------------Samsung---------------------------NewEgg-----------------$7.25 + $2.50 ship
It works, nuff said

Also in use with this system:
----------------Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer 2.0
----------------Microsoft Natural keyboard pro w/built in usb hub
----------------The Claw gaming controller (http://www.claw.com.au/) (the best gaming controller :) )
----------------Tripplite B006-004-R 4-Port Desktop KVM Switch (USB)
 
After noticing how short the Qpack was I checked out all the dvd drive lengths and PSU lengths to make sure I would have enough room :p Glad things worked out in the end, kind of a long post though... I read ur.... gigantic block part, skipped the rest.
 
I just wanted to make sure That I included everything that might be of interest to some one else new who is building an SFF, and some helpfull hints too
 
FYI, to enable 3.0gb/s you'll have to download Hitachi's "Feature Tool (v1.99)" on this page .

You'll have to have a floppy hooked up to your system if you don't already. *joy* I've done this on my system, and I assume if you take the drive out to put in a non-SATAII system you'll have to do this again and disable the 3.0gb/s setting.
 
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