The (new) Official PC building thread!

Lp: Just a few points about raptors
Noise: Quieter than a 160GB IDE drive, quieter than a 250GB Barracuda when seeking
Heat: Runs cooler than both the 250GB Barracuda and 400GB Samsung drives I have
Power: Uses about 2W more than normal hard drives (2W, less than 1% of your PC's total power consumption, who cares?)
Dependability: Earlier 37 and 74GB Raptors are very reliable drives
Price: You've got me there, although they still beat SAS and Flash drives on that basis

As for the drive noise, I use a noise-reduction bay for both my PC's internal drives, not just the Raptor. The main area they reduce noise is the seek, which is why I find it alarming that the 7200.9 drive when seeking is still by far the loudest component in my PC.

REAM: It's 2560x1600. 1920 would be a 4:3 resolution. Perhaps you're thinking of 5.1Mp Digital camera photos?

 

Tongues? Female Connectors? We still talking about computers here?

I'm so immature...

 

hydro x86,

You're more than welcome! As you've probably noticed, it's not all that hard to put together. It's good that you put caution first! Many people don't! That's why after a while when reading reviews at Newegg, after a while you can easily figure out who the idiots are! LOL!!
My personal preference is for the motherboard to control my CPU cooler fan as I've found it works best for me. If I run the fan at a steady controlled speed, it just doesn't work as well, even at full speed! I would strongly recommend that you put the 3 prong female plug from the fan directly on the CPU fan header and set the control in the bios by setting the Smart Fan Control Method to Legacy and the Smart Fan Control to Auto. You will find these controls in the PC Health Status section of the setup. I've tried it all different ways, and overall this seems to work the best as the fan speed is then controlled by the temperature of the CPU! Just remember, you have to select the method or the control part won't work!

Good luck with the new build!

@abuzar1,

LOL!! If you look carefully at any 3 or 4 pin fan header (not molex!) on just about any motherboard you will see a little piece of plastic sticking up. If you look at a 3 pin fan plug you will see the grove it fits in. I guess you could call it a guide but I've always called it a tongue. In the future I'll try to remember to call it a guide! Don't want to be accused of corrupting the minds of the innocent youth of the World! ROFLMAO!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Sonofabitch! The Tuniq doesn't fit in the Stacker because of that giant fan panel on the side of the case. It's removable but without it there's only two fans in the case, three if you include the fan inside the cooler. Needless to say I'm pretty pissed right now, looks like the case wasn't THAT big huh azubar? haha...

Looks like I gotta get another cooler, how good is NewEgg's return policy once the stuff has been opened and installed?

 

@sam

So sam your saying Raptors are known for being...
Quiet...Cool...and Power Conscious...
Nothing says that like having multiple 10,000rpm spinning platters.. and of course...I am assuming that the high rpm's must make them last longer...because...the H/D's Internal Fan...makes them...cool them selves better...LOL..

Come on a 7200.9 seagate...with what...a 2mb buffer...How Old is that thing?..

 

hydro x86,

I know I'm going to catch all kinds of hell for this, but get a Freezer 7 Pro, put it in and be happy! I have a Dr. friend of mine who has the same CPU as you that's overclocked and the freezer 7 works fine in his and you have a much better case than he has! They're inexpensive and they work. My first high dollar CPU Cooler was a Zalman 9500 that eventually lost it's cooling fluid. I replaced it with the Freezer 7 and sent the 9500 to Zalman for warranty replacement. When I got the new one, I did some extensive testing on 3 different platforms and the Freezer 7 was the better of the two! No, it's not a Tunig Tower, but it cools well enough and heat has never been an issue. Not with a P4 Prescot, a D-940, an E4300 or my present E6750. All were overclocked and two of them were in Cheap Inferior $15 cases that had totally inferior cooling. I put a Freezer 64 in my AMD 4000+ and overclocked it to 2.8GHz and again, temperature was never an issue even when it spent a year in a room with nothing to cool it but a swamp cooler in 110+F heat. I swear by them! Just set the SmartFan Control Method to Auto and the SmartFan Control Mode to PWM and it's set! It fits too! LOL!!

It's 82F in here right now, my computer has been on since 7 AM and I just got done watching a DVD



I rest my case!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Anyone have the gift of the magi when it comes to BIOS? I am really stumped. I can reach Bios but everything I try ends up a dead end? Help please

 

mphsbelle,

What's your motherboard and exactly what do you mean by "dead end"?

If it's a GigaByte than you need to press Ctrl + F1 in order to set at and have the seetings remain when you re-boot!

Best Regards,
theone

 

hydro_x86, my name isn't azubar lol . I'm just playing, I know it was just a typo. Can't you just take the Fan panels off? You should have gotten a Thermaltake Armor case, they look better anyway.

 

I have an Intel Media Center MB and Q6600 processor. I press F2 during boot up as per specs and enter BIOS. I go to Boot First and select DVDRW drive as 1st and HD as second. Exit and restart and screens come up faster than I can read and then it tells me media xxx failed; check cable." Duh, what? I have already tried to install OS and it does start reading the disc, so I am somewhat confused. Thanx

 

mphsbelle,

It sounds like the media itself is damaged then! Silly of me to ask as I'm sure you tried to clean the disc? Are there any scratches in the label side of the Disc? You would be surprised how many people don't know that a scratch in the label, even a pinhole can cause media failure as the actual information is just below the label, not on the reverse (shiny) side! The fact that it does start to read the disc means that the drive is addressing properly. If you have more than 1 Optical drive try installing from the other one. Just select it from the boot menu (F2) If it does the same thing then I would suspect that the media itself is at fault.

See if you can borrow a boot CD from someone and try it and see what happens. If you can get hold of a 98 Boot Floppy it would make it a bit easier as you can easily enable CD support which should allow you to chec the disc, boot from it and enable CD support, then put the media in the CD/DVD and see if it will read it. At this point it more than likely won't!

Exactly what media are you trying to install? I know this sounds dumb but it would help me help you a lot better.

Best Regards,
Theone

 

I am trying to install the OS, XP. But it reaches a point where it tells me that there is no hard drive. I think that I fixed that with the last BIOS entry, but now it is telling me that the media xxx failed, check cable. I have checked all of the cables at least 3 times as I have had to change MB twice, once by choice and once by non-compatability. So I can install and unstall and reinstall in a blink of an eye; I'm ADHD so I recheck everything. At this point, everytime I reboot, it flashes these screens and then tells me that the media xxx has failed, check cable and there is no disc in the unit. Is doing the BIOS work this hard or because this is my first build am I running into everything? Thanx again

 

mphsbelle,
Check in the bios and see if it shows that the hard drive is installed. I know this sounds like something stupid but check the cables and power to the hard drive. If your setup allows, click on the hard drive and press enter and see what it says. The problem could be the hard drive. I've seen this error message in the past on older Dells. If you had a 98 boot disk you would be able to verify the hard drive is at least present.

Best Regards,
theone

 

Thanx, Theone, I will try that tomorrow and see what I find. I have two hard drives installed, I will chack the one and then the other. I have a list now to start with and check everything, one at a time. I will let you know tomorrow what I find out. The flashing screens give me pause; sounds stupid, but maybe I will hook up video camera tomorrow and film the start up and then at least I can pause and see what the screen is telling me. Would it be easier to uninstall (remove from MB) the extra optical drives and extra hard drives and just start with one of each? Also, I have an old DVD-ROM drive in the basement; would it be better to hook it up instead of the DVD-RWs? Also, should I go to the various sites (Intel)and download updates to the BIOS? Seems I remember reading something about that?

 

Hey do you guys know if you can buy solar cells and try to power a PC with it?

 

I believe tomshardware did one...

 

I don't know what to buy though. Is there a Guide that focuses on the solar part of the project. I've been trying to find a clear concise guide to no avail.

 

Here you go...this is for a notebook...
http://www.global-merchants.com/home/computer.htm
another one...
http://www.sierrasolar.com/prod_store/LAP_laptop.html

 

Yeah I was thinking on a bigger scale. I have an acre backyard and it's just grass.

 

Here you go...
http://www.partsonsale.com/desktopcompsol.html