Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: FireOf59 on March 29, 2006, 10:18:55 PM
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Ok, like so many others, I'm building a new PC. Hopefully the last one I'll need for several years to come....
I cant find too many posts (and Ive read a LOT of them lately) that mention things to avoid, pitfalls, parts, etc.
Anyone care to share any of the experiences they've had that they wish they hadnt?
All information greatly appreciated, as I'm NOT a PC pro...
Fireof59
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There are 3 threads on this first page alone that go over lessons learned. The AMD-64 sticky at top for one documents issues faced when using dual core instructions for AH.
What kind of machine are you looking into? I'm on the 3 year plan also and just built 1 last week. Give me some guidence into what you are looking at.
Wolf
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1) make sure you always release any static electricity before touching electronic parts . ( just touch the inside metal framework of your case ).
2) Make sure you have an even application of thermal grease between the cpu and the heatsink . (no bare spots) It doesnt take much thermal grease to cover the cpu , start with a pea sized drop and go from there.
3) Always put your IDE Harddrives on a different ide chain than your cd drives . ( if your using SATA it's not an issue) .
4) Make sure you have every power plug plugged in . The smaller 4pin connector is the one most people forget.
5) Try and keep as many free slots open below your video card for better cooling.
6) Make sure all the standoffs in the case are tight , and dont skip any open holes in the motherboard for mounting.
7) if your video card requires a power cable , try and use one from the power supply that has nothing else drawing off it .
8) Take your time and double check everything , 5 minutes can save you 3 days waiting for new parts .
Good luck
38Maw
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Thanks 38; Printed and will keep for assy.
Wolfala,
Saw the threads about the Dual Core..now staying away from that headache.
So far, I have a dual fan "lanboy" ATX case (dont remember the exact type; paperwork on desk at work)
got a 500 Gig, 7200 rpm, 16 meg Cache HD.
Thats it.
After hearing from Skuzzy a few weeks ago, looking at 2 Gig ddr mem, 500W ATX Pwr Sup, Nvidia 7800GTX vid card, not sure bout the rest.
I got time so I'm getting the best of everything I can afford; one piece at a time.....
Whats a good Intel MOBO and process or combo?
What else do I need besides cd/dvd?
Thanks for the help folks; just posted this a few mins ago....
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Originally posted by FireOf59
Thanks 38; Printed and will keep for assy.
Wolfala,
Saw the threads about the Dual Core..now staying away from that headache.
So far, I have a dual fan "lanboy" ATX case (dont remember the exact type; paperwork on desk at work)
got a 500 Gig, 7200 rpm, 16 meg Cache HD.
Thats it.
After hearing from Skuzzy a few weeks ago, looking at 2 Gig ddr mem, 500W ATX Pwr Sup, Nvidia 7800GTX vid card, not sure bout the rest.
I got time so I'm getting the best of everything I can afford; one piece at a time.....
Whats a good Intel MOBO and process or combo?
What else do I need besides cd/dvd?
Thanks for the help folks; just posted this a few mins ago....
Fire,
I'll share my experience with ya - and for starters - the AMD thread offers solutions which when you get toward the bottom and page 2 provide a solution that works. Which in 99 % of the cases, is running AH in Windows 98 compatability mode with 1 of the CPU cores turned off.
Now - onto the meat. You wanna build yrself a box. Easy enough, you want it to be large enough to fit an ATX formfactor with some extra space if you have bulky items inside. Some companies don't comply with the ATX standard, such as in video cards - so you want to allow for some overhead.
The CASE
Especially with the new line of processors needs a lot more cooling then in previous generations of PC. I've built a lot of computers, and as the processors got more powerful heat became my worst enemy. And because my case was too small, ended up destroying some components b/c of it. (3 video cards, 2 motherboards, 1 ram chip, 1 CPU and a HD.) By the time I got smart about it, I practically had my own coffee cup with the RMA departments. Since my case was tightly packed to begin with, my method was somewhat crude...and draconian - which involved cutting the ends off a 120mm fan and shoving it inside and securing it down with duct tape. The heat problems vanished at that point. I took no chances with the latest system built last week, which start out with 2 (120mm) and an 80mm fan.
(http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/CoolerMaster/ProductImages/633_3.jpg)
(http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/CoolerMaster/ProductImages/633_8.jpg)
For most users this is overkill, because if you look at the 2nd picture there are provisions to have 3 (120mm) fans up front, which attach to 3.5 HD bays - plus the 120mm at back, plus the 80mm exhaust up top, and there is even another damn fan on the detachable panel in the 80mm range which can be thrown on for cross flow.
You are probally thinking, ok - cooling, is no small ****. Well, your right - it isn't anymore. The chief cause of component failure on PCB's is heat related, and as the chip making process squeezes more stuff into smaller space, resistance builds up, heat rises, and the methods to disperse this excess grow.
The lesson learned - GET a case that is large enough to grow - and has plenty of provision for cooling and not some 1/2 assed jury rigged solution that is learned after 1/2 a dozen RMA's.
MOTHERBOARDS:
(http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/13-127-232-04.JPG)
The motherboard is your foundation. Without it, you don't see any porn or play AH. ABIT is highly respected in the gaming community because it doesn't break, and is user friendly for overclocking and tinkerers alike. This is my MB, which runs on an AMD X2 4400 processor. I choose AMD because my previous machine is AMD, and AMD has for years constantly outperformed Intel on all things gaming and simulation related. Which is important for you to consider in your purchase. If you look closely at the picture, you notice 2 long black slots and 2 shot black slots - and 2 white slots. The 2 long black slots are the 16bit PCI express slots. The 2 short black slots are shot PCI express, and the white slots are PCI.
The Processor
(http://www.amdzone.com/pics/cpus/athlon64/4800+/4800_small.jpg)
(http://www.amdzone.com/pics/cpus/athlon64/4800+/testbench_small.jpg)
When you look at the size of the chip compared to the radiator it needs to house - you gotta ask yrself. How much power is flowing through that to need such a hugeass fan? Well lets see...
Approximate Transistor count: 233.2 million
Approximate Die Size: 199mm2
Nominal Voltage: 1.35-1.40V
Max Thermal Power: 110 W
Max Ambient Case Temp: 65 degrees Celsius
Max Icc (processor current): 80A
Makes sense to me - 110W thermal is ALOT for such a small piece of silicone. And that is why the heat sync has such a huge footprint.
POWER SUPPLIES
Its hard to argue, with all of that power going to the processor alone - let alone any perhipherals you may have - you will need a lot of power. Generally speaking 500 watts is a good baseline to make sure you don't overtax yrself. I choose Antec because its reliable and has a ****load of connectors.
(http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/17-103-931-03.JPG) (http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/17-103-931-05.JPG)
DVD Writers
It goes without saying, you want something that can write DVD's in dual layer and be capable of writing CD's also. The one I got does all of that, and doesn't break the bank either - especially at $40.00
Link (http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827152058)
Hard Drives
There is a lot of talk about SATA and RAID enviroments. Sure, my motherboard has SATA and RAID capability, which offers speed and of course redundancy - but there is a price to pay, of course in equipment. Some decent drives are out there - but don't consider less then 300 GB - and usually a pair of them. I got 2 of these and they work beautifully. link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822140166)
RAM
2 GIG is the new minimum. 90% of what is out there you will end up with 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 in the 1 or 2 GB variety. RAM prices are always fluxuating, and many manufactures offer rebates. Here if what I got. 2 GIGs for 150 bux after rebate is hard to argue with. link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227210)
The Video Card
This is a touchy subject - you've got 2 choices - NVIDIA or ATI. I've owned both. The current top of the crop is the NVIDIA 7900 GTX which - to put it bluntly is ****ing huge. The 7900 at top left and its sibling the 7900GT. The difference lay in how much current is being put through, the GT is around 500 mhz, and the GTX at 650 or so. The architecture is the same between them - but the GTX has 512 MB ram, the GT has 256 - coupled by the slower clockspeed - which allows for a smaller cooling unit and overall footprint on th e motherboard. I had an ATI Radeon 9600, then ebay'd an ATI Radeon 9800 for 65 bux. After I built this system last week, now there are 2 7900 GTX's - which brings up another point, and this goes into the lessons learned part of the paragraph.
Card review (http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTAwMSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==)
Double wide cards, like the 7900 GTX take up a lot of space. And if you look upstairs on the motherboard image, that is 4 slots - which leaves me with only 1 PCI slot at the bottom. But for my purposes, that is ok - because the MB has sound, GIG ethernet, 1334, optical, and enough USB on the system board and front panel for me not to complain too much. But if you wanted to add something - keep that in mind with the MB you choose and make sure it has enough slots available for what you want it to do.
Read this article to see what I mean.
(http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_7900_gt_gtx_performance/images/02.jpg)
Here (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/03/28/abit_an8_32x/1.html)
I guess thats it - if I think of anything else i'll add stuff. But this took like 2 hours to write so I hope it helps.
S!
Wolf
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Nice write up wolf !
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Most important bit of advice is spend the time to make sure all your parts and pieces are truly compatible, BEFORE you order them.
Putting it together is an easy afternoon.
balsy
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Wow Wolf,
Thanks for all the time you put into this. I wont take too much more of your time but have a couple of real quick questions.
1. Got a great deal on a smaller tower; sounds like I need to return it and get a larger one? This one already has a fan in front and back, so thought it would be good. Whattya think?
2. What model was the mobo? I dont think I saw one...
Thanks again for all the help....
Fireof59
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Hope ya dont mind , but i'll chime in here . What size fans does the case have Fire? Does it have a side panel fan? With the higher end hardware air flow is very important, even with my water cooling setup i still run 6 80mm case fans .
If you look at the motherboard above between the two black pci-e slots it will give you the name and model number . That one is an Abit A8N 32X . Good luck , if you have any issue's with the build feel free to drop me a line @ rukkee@toast.net . Once you build one , you'll never buy a shelf pc again 8) 38
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Fans are 120mm; lo speed; 1 in front bottom; 1 in rear top. Case is aluminum (My IT guy said that disspates heat much easier)
Says it handles std atx style mobo...
Fire
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Remember its not only the wattage of the PSU but the amps it delivers.
Look at the pic earlier of the Antec one -
2 x +12V rails @ 19 amps each.
Good supply there.
MINIMUM of 16-20 amps on the +12V rail or rails to run the latest video cards.
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I strongly recommend intake fans that run across the hard drives, and speed controllers on the fans. Many cases with good cooling sound like vacuum cleaners until you slow the fans down, and good cooling across the hard drives is cheap insurance against hard drive failure.
Other things I look for in a case:
tool-less, vibration isolated hard drive mounting. It's out there, but you gotta look for it. A close second place are vibration isolation mounts that you have to screw onto the hard drives.
At least one 120mm or 2 80mm intake fans, at least one 80mm or 120mm exhaust fan. Optional is a side fan blowing directly on either the vid card area or the cpu.
Get a cpu cooler that blows air sideways instead of directly down towards the cpu, and make sure the airflow is towards the back case exhaust fan. This alone can drop case temps 5 deg with zero noise increase. The downside is that components near the cpu such as mosfets, memory, and other components, don't get the benefit of cpu fan airflow. Consider a very low speed 80mm fan blowing across the memory/mobo if your cpu fan blows sideways instead of down towards the cpu/mobo since it only takes a little airflow to really cool those components down a lot.
I mentioned it already, but fan speed controls are great.
Did I mention fan speed controls? Yea. They're great.
Don't buy the low-end of last-year's tech. Socket 754 is low-end AMD, and both socket 939 and 754 are "last year's tech". Go for socket 939, good memory, and either a GOOD last-year vid card or a low-end this-year vid card. For example, don't buy an nvidia 6600 vid card. Get a 6800 or better, or go for a lower end 7xxx series card when the "new" factor wears off and prices drop.
Nvidia chipsets are the best for AMD mobos.
Onboard sound can be decent and a way to put off spending $100+ on a premium soundcard until later.
Buy retail cpus and use the stock heatsink/fan at first. Only replace it with aftermarket air cooling solutions if the retail solution is too noisy or insufficient, and even then do a LOT of research first or you'll spend hundreds on cool looking copper pieces of crap that don't work any better than the retail HSF.
If you buy an LCD monitor, realize that there are as many opinions as there are reviewers. Check online forums for real user opinions and decide what you want the monitor for. Great gaming performance, great DVD/video playback, and great color fidelity almost never go together at a reasonable price point so get your priorities straight before buying an LCD monitor. Those 6ms "gaming" LCDs are total crap for color quality. Consider a dual-display setup with one "slow" and one "fast" LCD if you need both good color reproduction and fast gaming response times.
A good CRT will almost always beat an LCD for price and image quality (at least until you get to the $1,000 price range for LCDs), but a 19" or greater monitor is too heavy to move more than once a decade. Again, check your priorities before buying.
DVI is usually better than VGA monitor connections.
Dual layer DVD burners are cheap, so don't waste money on a basic DVD or cdrom drive.
Serial ATA is here to stay even if sometimes it's a pain in the butt to get windows to install onto a SATA drive. Make it work and you'll be better off in the long run.
RAID 0 is fast but probably not worth the effort/cost.
WD Raptor 150 10k rpm SATA drives are the fastest on the market, and with one of those you don't need RAID 0. If you're rich, Raid 1 might even be a good idea when using drives that are this fast because you may not notice the raid 1 performance penalty when using a really fast HD.
There are combo floppy drives with memory stick slots and they only cost about $25. Highly recommended as you get built-in memory stick slots and the floppy drive all in one external 2.5" slot. Great for HTPC applications.
Itunes has all the functionality I used to love from the waaay old realplayer, so don't be afraid to go with an iPod.
Make sure your speakers are compatible with your soundcard. I bought my digital 5.1 speakers waay back when aureal made the best soundcards on the market, but then Aureal went out of business. Now I have a nice soundblaster audigy2 card but it's not completely compatible with my speakers so I only get true 5.1 surround during DVD playback. Everything else is 4 speaker "surround" only, no center channel.
Aluminum cases are nice. Less of a pain to lug around. Make sure they're built well however, as some will bend too easily.
As others have said, don't cheap out on the PSU. You don't need to go overboard and get a gigawatt unit, but definately do some research and check the 12v rail specs and cooling configuration before buying. Any decent psu will use thermally controlled fans to keep the noise down.
One 120mm fan is usually better than 2 80mm fans, especially when looking for a decent quiet PSU. Only extreme overclockers and inexperienced builders need super high airflow through their power supply so a typical PSU should be QUIET.
Video card fans can be really noisy, even on non "ultra" cards. Consider a zalman or other aftermarket vid card cooling solution if your vid card makes a lot of noise. But don't buy an enthusiast solution unless you plan on overclocking... Get one that specifically lists lower noise as a feature.
You NEED a broadband router. If you don't know why, you don't need to know. Just get one. When you get it, make sure you read the instructions long enough to figure out how to change the default password, and either turn OFF the wireless or turn ON encryption. Again, if you don't know why, don't worry about it. They're cheap, so just do it.
Did I mention that fan speed controllers are nice?
Google toolbar is nice. Google desktop search is potentially very evil. Google reserves the right to take and store anything touched by their tools, and the US courts recently ruled that Google MUST turn over anything they have stored upon request by the US government. Since google desktop indexes not only your filenames but the contents of every file on your computer, that means that the government can, without notifying you, demand that google turn over the index file from your computer generated by google desktop. I personally find this to be an unacceptable situation, so I don't use google desktop.
Sony does not belong in or anywhere near your computer, as they have proven that they cannot be trusted. Avoid like the plague.
Anything that mentions "starforce" should be avoided in the same manner you would avoid injecting yourself with a syringe labeled "aids and syphillys concentrate".
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Really appreciate everything everyone has done to put in their advice. It's been a tremendous help.
Ordered everything else from New egg; but cant find the 7900 GTX w/512 anywhere. every vendor I can find is out of stock.
Any other ideas for places to shop.... ( I REALLY am getting excited about this thing....better than killing Storch.. :-)
Fire
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For the 7900 GTX
http://www.futurepowerpc.com
Got mine from them - little over 500 a pop.
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Thats It; I think I have it all coming soon, now.
Thanks very Much to all that helped with advice.
Wolf, Thanks for the last place; Ive tried every site I could find; even considered Compusa and they were out.
Now the wait..... :D
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Yea only had a minor snafu with them when PNY located in parsippany Jersery sent 70 units out to the wrong address when it was supposed to be going to Great Neck Long island, so I lost a week of time there. But they refunded the shipping, PNY took the hit with that and they both work beautifully.
What does yr final config look like?
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Now The WAIT
Man, i hate that part . lol
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Leasons learned ?
Well, 5 days ago my Power unit broke :(
1) Buys a new power unit.
- Now the PC gets power, but does not boot up :(
2) Buys a new MOBO.
- Ok, up and running, but have to re-install XP.
- 20 hours of testing and installing I even get into the game, riding in BatFinks Spit, in 60FPS :aok
Now comes the Leasons part I guess..
- Insertting the old soundcard and TV-tunercard and Track-IR + Joystick.
(Yes all at the same time)
- Having lots of trouble trying to install, and keep getting the strangest CRC error. Windows start to crash randomly. And finaly PC reboots randomly :mad:
Originaly somthing broke my powerunit and mobo, and I insert stuff from the old MOBO to the new one. Big suprice, I break the new MOBO :cry
I wonder if one has to think twice or maybe three times, before re-using stuff from a PC that has broken down ?¨
I dont know what to do with the TV tuner card. If I try to use it, I might break yeat a third mobo.
Or maybe it is the sound card :eek:
Soon I have to give up and call Dell I guess.
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Wolf,
As I said before, I'm not a PC pro, but I'll try to lay out what Ive ordered so far:
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium 939 NVIDIA Mobo
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ ClawHammer ! Ghz HT 939 Proc
Corsair XMS 2GB (2x1 GB) 184 Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (pc3200) Mem
ANTEC TP2-550 ATX12V 550W Pwr Sup
Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro 7.1 Channels PCI Sound Card
16x DVD+-R DVD Burner
Thanks to your link to a vendor I'd never heard of; I also have the 7900 GTX w/512 coming also.
I cant help but think I'm still missing something, or not getting enough of something.
Whattya think?
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Originally posted by FireOf59
Wolf,
As I said before, I'm not a PC pro, but I'll try to lay out what Ive ordered so far:
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium 939 NVIDIA Mobo
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ ClawHammer ! Ghz HT 939 Proc
Corsair XMS 2GB (2x1 GB) 184 Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (pc3200) Mem
ANTEC TP2-550 ATX12V 550W Pwr Sup
Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro 7.1 Channels PCI Sound Card
16x DVD+-R DVD Burner
Thanks to your link to a vendor I'd never heard of; I also have the 7900 GTX w/512 coming also.
I cant help but think I'm still missing something, or not getting enough of something.
Whattya think?
Fans...fans...fans.
U got fans?
Hard drive?
How about fans?
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Sorry, forgot to mention the HD; I already had that
500Gig, 7200 rpm, 18 Meg cache SATA Interface
(already found that on sale at CompUSA near my office)
For Fans, the case has a front bottom mounted 120mm lo speed and a rear top mounted 120 mm lo speed;
Should I put more in?
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Wait and see. So long as there is a provision for more fans, I might have 1 on the side of the case for cross flow if the case allows it. Send me a link to yr case so I can get an idea of how its configured.
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http://www.antec.com/ec/productDetails.php?ProdID=08005
Wolf,
Not good at links but above is a copy/paste of the address to the case I got. Please let me know if you think this wont provide the airflow I need. I dont wanna blow the thing up from saving a few bucks on the case.
Thanks Again,
Fire
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For now that looks ok. See if the fans are speed adjustable in the bios. On the ABIT boards, they have a setting when the cpu and things get more use - the fan speed increases to compensate. That case should work ok. Also the power supply will have a fan blowing down from up top. And with the positioning of the front 120 mm fan, it'll be blowing right on top of the video card - so that should work out.
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That case should have plenty of cooling unless you aggressively overclock. I'd start with the fans on low and see how that works. Make sure the hard drive is mounted in a slot that gets direct fan airflow instead of right at the top or bottom.
If you keep the cables neat so they don't block airflow, that should be plenty cool. If your heatsink blows air sideways, try to get the airflow going towards either the rear exhaust fan or power supply air intake.
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When you get XP up and running...give this video a look through.
http://38.118.213.221/fdiriymksb+/personal/m/mihapodb/angry_build-1a.wmv
Its about 30 mins long.
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Originally posted by Wolfala
When you get XP up and running...give this video a look through.
http://38.118.213.221/fdiriymksb+/personal/m/mihapodb/angry_build-1a.wmv
Its about 30 mins long.
Addendum to this address:
http://files.filefront.com/Tweak_XPwmv/;4299655;;/fileinfo.html
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I have that case "Lanboy", I like it very much. It is very quiet.
The big fans are very silent :aok
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i'll add one thing here ... your system looks great so far (ive got the same mb on my work pc.. it runs like a rocket ship )
so here it is ..
SIDE CASE FAN ... install this one so it always blows inward onto the cpu fan .
keep it far enough away from a crt monitor that it doesnt suck in heat !!
i can feel mine move air from 2+ feet behind my case and its fairly quiet and runs a very decient temp for being oced hard .
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Wolf are you running 2 cards/SLI ?
Were you able to make a "profile" to run Aces in it?
Just curious. Those cards (GTX) are awesome, read a lot of good things about them. Whose brand did you go with? Asus? MSI?
I wish nVidia made the cards and not just the chipsets!
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Originally posted by LePaul
Wolf are you running 2 cards/SLI ?
Were you able to make a "profile" to run Aces in it?
Just curious. Those cards (GTX) are awesome, read a lot of good things about them. Whose brand did you go with? Asus? MSI?
I wish nVidia made the cards and not just the chipsets!
I'm running both 7900 GTX's in SLI. Not sure what you mean by making a 'profile' - Nvidia drivers enable the SLI stuff from the getgo. If you mean putting Anti Aliasing and all that crap up custom for AH? I've fiddled with it a little, but not too much - something to do tonight I guess.
I went with PNY for the card. Ran about $500 a pop from futurepowerpc.com over in Great Neck Long Island. Had a few from PNY and their warrenty is really a good selling point - 3 years basically.
Wolf
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I thought you had to create a profile for any games that were not native SLI
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Thanks to all who replied, especially Wolf, who put SO much time into explaining details.
I now have all the parts and will hopefully have the new machine up and running by this next weekend.
One question, where do all these connectors go to??? :D
Actually, right now, waiting for Monday so I can get in touch with ASUS Tech support. Seems I have a square 4 pin +12V Connector on the mobo that the Pwr supply doesnt have the connection for. Got everything else plugged in...
Too bad there isnt software out there that you can plug in all your pieces and it customizes instructions for the whole thing.....
Thanks Again To All,
Fireof59
Seems now the only excuse I'll have for getting shot down is my flying :aok
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Originally posted by FireOf59
Thanks to all who replied, especially Wolf, who put SO much time into explaining details.
I now have all the parts and will hopefully have the new machine up and running by this next weekend.
One question, where do all these connectors go to??? :D
Actually, right now, waiting for Monday so I can get in touch with ASUS Tech support. Seems I have a square 4 pin +12V Connector on the mobo that the Pwr supply doesnt have the connection for. Got everything else plugged in...
Too bad there isnt software out there that you can plug in all your pieces and it customizes instructions for the whole thing.....
Thanks Again To All,
Fireof59
Seems now the only excuse I'll have for getting shot down is my flying :aok
Strange,
I looked on your PSU's compatability matrix, and your MB is listed as being compatable.
link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Compatible.asp?ItemList=N82E16817103932)
Unless asus did some changes to the MB and didn't tell anyone about it - call and ask if that connector is necessary or just a redudant feature. I looked at the user manual and couldnt find any info within it to say if it was or was not.
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Pg 2-26 of the manual mentions the 4-pin connector req'd for the mobo to boot up. It's a little confusing on the 20-24 Pin main power connector. Either way, the psu doesnt have an output with the 4-pin square connector.
I'll contact ASUS support tomorrow and ask them. I suspect I need a jumper from one of the existing outputs...
Thanks for all your help. I read, printed and took in all the advice that people put up here in response to the question.
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Unbe****ing lievable. If you got yr PSU from newegg, i'd call them up and tell them their compatability matrix is off and you need to do an exchange for a PSU that will work on the MB.
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Called Antec, one of my "8-pin" connectors is really 2 4 pin connectors, clipped together (did that make any sense?)
ANYWAY, I got everything up and running. working on getting it on the internet now....
Thanks for EVERYTHING; The help was a tremendous benefit to gettting this done...
Fireof59
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Originally posted by FireOf59
Called Antec, one of my "8-pin" connectors is really 2 4 pin connectors, clipped together (did that make any sense?)
ANYWAY, I got everything up and running. working on getting it on the internet now....
Thanks for EVERYTHING; The help was a tremendous benefit to gettting this done...
Fireof59
Yep my Thermaltake is the same way , except the weren't snapped together out of the box so it wasnt an issue.
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Originally posted by FireOf59
Called Antec, one of my "8-pin" connectors is really 2 4 pin connectors, clipped together (did that make any sense?)
ANYWAY, I got everything up and running. working on getting it on the internet now....
Thanks for EVERYTHING; The help was a tremendous benefit to gettting this done...
Fireof59
All I can say is...wow.
Keep me posted.
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Wolf, (& Others that helped with advice)
Thanks Very Much!; The new PC is up and rocking..
Will be returning the sound blaster as the sound system on the mobo gives me all the sound I need. I'm not an audiophile so dont see the $$ for that being worth it, unless there are more advantages than that.
Got my CH stuff all set up, copied my config files from the old machine, and got into AVA tonight; averages around 75 fps, with Hi-Res pack (Speaking of, do I need to do anything other than install the pac to use it?)
Still need to get the TRack IR working before Squad Ops tomorrow night, lest some sneaky bastage creep up on my 6, unseen....:lol
Thanks Again, All; It's been an interesting experience I hope to not go through again soon....
Fireof59