The (new) Official PC building thread!

cincyrob,
Get it all set up stock, check with Orthos for a few hours and have at it from there!

If you get hit with one of those Power Supply turning on and off constantly things. Don't panic!! Turn off the PS, pull the plug and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. It will come up in "Default" settings so hit F1, enter the setup and turn the manual settings back on and continue from there!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

CincyRob---you said you were worrying about case wires and such, for what its worth the pins the wires connect to are very small as you've seen, and for anyone with jittery hands (like me) or fat fingers a set of tweezers or hemostat clips do very nicely. It especially helps with the front panel headers when you have a few wires attached and have to go around them to connect your next one.

 

Here is a tip(I just remembered to do it too), take all your excess wires and run them through the other side of the case where you cant see it. I'm sure it will have some openings where you can get the wire to the main case.

 

there is a good amount of space on the back side of this case to hide stuff..lol
the fan wire for the CPU cooler it is pretty long is it ok if i tuck it in ontop of the copper slab that sets ontop of the cpu?you know what i mean???? where the the pipes come out the side and up the cooler in that little space there???


im done here now gonna go home and put it together. ill take some pics as i go.. i like the looks of the mobo setting there with the cooler,mem, and gpu on it(ill take the gpu off before i put the mobo in the case)

edit to add:
ok im home let the fun begin

 

to answer your question, yes in most cases. most memory will perform best at it's rated speed. using DDR2 800 memory, if the cpu frequency is at 400mhz the memory will run at 800mhz (400 x 2) and the fsb:dram ratio will be at 1:1. the memory should also run at its rated speed at the stock cpu frequency. there are other cpu frequencys that you can also choose to achieve a memory frequency of 800mhz, or get very close, by using different memory dividers.

some memory will perform a little better if overclocked but it has been my experience that most memory performs best at its rated speed and timings.

 

You think so? I think my computer is faster because my memory is at 900mhz instead of 800 at the same timings. I don't see how slower memory speed would help when your computer is perfectly stable at overclocked speeds.

 

The fan on the heat faces towards the drives so it blow thru the fins out the duct and the rear fan on the case sucks it all out..i know greens..we was here at work tonite looking at the setup..i think he's gonna skip the hold brace and just run with the four pin locks.i did'nt know wher on the cpu frame where it locks into..

 

somebody here will always disagree regardless. in my experience the memory I have used had better benchmarks at it's rated speed or as close as I could get it to its rated speed, whether that be slightly overclocked or slightly underclocked, than it did when it was significantly overclocked.

 

If it has a brace then use it or risk breaking stuff in your PC. I don't know what HSF you guys are talking about, but if it had a back plate it probably needs it.

Where is LP these days?

EDIT: Mort, I'll try it out to see what happens.

 

ok im done for the night. i cant figure out where all the little wires go. power led+ power led- AC97 HD audio i even got a 6 prong plug from the PSU i dont have aclue where it goes.

with the PSU on the and the 12v plug at the top of the mobo it barely reaches.

i think i might have bit off more than i can chew.....goodnight all, thanks for all the help. i know i will need more.

 

I am using an a8n32 deluxe with one xfx 6600 pci-e video card hiper 580 watt psu and one 512 stick of off brand memory. after assembly there is no video. tried different pci video card in regular pci slot nothing. removed memory and powered up still no video but a series of beeps. put memory back still no video. if I leave it on for a few minutes the cpu heatsink is warm to the touch. removed cpu fan, cpu and examined pins on cpu looks ok. cpu is a64 x2 3600 purchased new from newegg. disconnected hd and optical from ide's 1 and 2 powered up still nothing. reset cmos still nothing.stumped. no memory causes beeps, cpu gets warm no picture what so ever what should I try next?

 

I feel like the real world "i can see them as i use my computer" benefits you get from overclocking memory and messing with the timings is really not worth the trouble. I've been messing with my new rig's memory stuff, and I can't tell the difference. What benchmarks would show me whats really going on?

 

you might wanna check out your motherboard's manual to see how your board expects the memory to be installed. Some motherboards like having certain sticks of memory in certain slots, or in pairs, stuff like that.

When I saw one 512mb stick of an off-brand memory it kinda jumped out at me, thats what I'd check out if I was having problems.

 

@ hydro_x86

you nailed it. in the manual it says to put a single stick in slot b1. well guess what in slot a1 fires right up. can't believe I took all this apart to just move memory 1 inch and solve problem

 

Overclocking my memory seemed to do naff all for my performance at all. It was dropping the latency that bagged me the extra score in Sandra. 3Dmark couldn't care less though, so I'd never have noticed the effect in games.
Rob: Check the manual, it should tell you where they all belong. The short length of the 12V connector to the top is to be expected, it's always a tight fit in cases with the PSU at the bottom. As for the six pin connector, its for use with a high power graphics card. Since you're not using one, you don't need it.

 

ok question about the Front audio. which one do i use? the HD audio or the AC 97? i guess its my choice. the HD audio has a plug as does the AC97, but the AC97 split off it has a bunch of single connectors. i dont see any place to plug all of these in. so i assume(yea i know) those are optional.

question 2
my fans. the exhaust fan on the back it has its red plug to goto hte mobo but it is pluged into a connector that goes the the PSU. do i unplug that like i did and plug it directly to the mobo?
then the front fan it has the same setup but if i unplug the conectorit wont reach anything. do ijust use it and plug it into the PSU(it has the piggy back type to plug into something else also)

question 3
the usbheaders. i have the one header pluged in like it should but i have a plug that has 1394 marked on it does it go into the second usb header?

thats really where im at i have it all hooked up other than these few things. i just wanna make sure i got it all plug together right.

 

I have personally never gotten AC97 to work on front panels on the GA-965P-DS3 and the GA-P35-DS3R.

 

I've never used the front audio connectors on the P35 board, but it's fairly safe to say that there's one block of pins you need, and that's usually it.
You can run the fan either way, but if you attach it directly to the power supply, it will run at maximum speed all the time. If you attach it to the motherboard, you will be able to control its speed (and therefore its noise) using software, be it the motherboard's BIOS or programs like speedfan. It's not that common for a fan to have both connectors, but it does sometimes happen, I guess you're fortunate.

The plug marked 1394 is firewire, don't confuse it with USB!

 

so the firewire i wont use then right? seeing i dont see a plugin for it on the mobo. as for the audio i have the HD audio pluged in right now and not the AC97.so i dont need to worry bout that also..cool norrowing things down here.. thanks guys

ive been looking in the manual on the power led header it has a 3 pin spot for this. i only have 2 wires markd pwr led+ and pwr led- which spot do i use for these? i right now have them pluged into the closest to the edge of the board.

 

ok answered my own question there looking harder at the manual.
the + goes in pin 1 slot and the - goes in pin 2 slot..i dont have a 3rd pin so i dont need to worry bout that.

guess i need to check all the plugins make sure i got the +/- right.