The (new) Official PC building thread!

Rob: A little funny thing, when I first had my PC electrical safety tested so I could take it to LANs, it only just passed with a high reading on current-to-earth, which was odd, and when I took it back home after the event it stopped working altogether. Eventually I found out it was the cable, and in testing it, it made a loud crackle noise whenever it was connected to power (regardless of what was at the other end). Turns out when I took the plug apart, the live wire had almost completely frayed to nothing! Suffice to say, a new cable and a retest later, it passed with flying colours! That isn't the only cable that came with that Hiper PSu that was duff either, a molex splitter they gave me fried two of my hard drives. Lesson to be learnt, if you have a Hiper PSU, replace as many cables as you can!

 

@Sam
i'm crossing my fingers for now..lol i havent moved the case in the last 3 hours and its running at 3.6ghz. its been restarted 4 times and even turned off for 20 mins or so and then back onno double booting so to say. im gonna stop and pick me up another power cable and go from there.

it wasnt makeing a loud cracking sound but i did hear it when i was pushing the case backwards. i tried to wiggle it where it plugs into the PSU and it didnt do anything when i did that. so im thinking somewhere along the cable might have a bad spot,and when it gets a krink in it, it causes a little surge????only thing i can think of...

 

Nice picks rob!!

herrick if you want ASUS I would have NO problems picking any of these, even the open box item.

linky to ASUS mobos for Intel

If Gigabyte is your preference then rob linked a good one.

linky to G-byte mobos for Intel

I have the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P and love it but if I had it to do over again I'd go with an upper end mobo (X38 i'm sure) NOT much really gained but there's more goodies in the BIOS and heck it's the newer chipset.. of course the X48 is coming out and that's the new chipset. lol.

I like the Q6600 personally, just try to get the SLACR model which you should from the EGG.... You can OC that cpu 15%-20% easy and get it to 2.8-2.9 and have a fairly fast Quad and be able to do anything you want or need to. DVD RB Pro with Hank's Encoder (which can use all 4 cores) will crank out a BIG conversion in less than 45 minutes.... gotta love that!!

RAM is personal preference... I like Mushkin, OCZ, Corsair, Crucial and G.Skill. If you don't want to OC your RAM much then go with DDR2 1066 but if you decide to OC it will go beyond DDR2 800. Of course 800 is cheaper and you can find some GREAT deals but if you've got the money jump on the 1066. my 2 cents on that. (hope that makes sense....lol)

link for 1066 RAM (my picks but you will have to check with compatibility on mobo....should be ok)

link for 800 RAM I would normally choose cas4 RAM but that Mushkin will run at 4 just fine. Mushkin is good RAM but most of the fellas here push Crucial or Corsair. the GM has Crucial and Mushkin 1066 RAM and they're both good quality and run at rated speeds with NO issues....

....gm

 

Rob is that same CPU in the link I sent about...the link had a Q6600D whats the D about?

 

its the same CPU herrick i think the"D" is just something tigerdirect puts on there. ive never heard of a Q6600D.now that dont mean there isnt one..lol

as GM said the mem part of it is your own personal prefference. jsut look at the reviews and go to the manufacture site and do a little reading. and of course ask in here cause there is a wide range of memory type that we all have or have tried. so word of mouth would be my desideing factor..and it was for me getting the crucial ballistic.

i like the ASUS Striker Extreme board but thats just to much for a board IMO.

 

if you have a hiper replace the whole PSU asap. after they stopped using CWT, and started using a PSU maker that clearly makes toilet products (hiper psus are sh!t), i wouldnt touch them with a 100 meter pole.

and when your mains wire is on the mains, and turned on, and then you plug it into the psu, it should make a crackle. that shows it is a working cable. but when already connected, then it shouldnt crackle.

 

I dont think that g-byte is SLI...need mobo to be sli so I can use my Vid. cards

 

cincyrob,
The main thing with all the X38 motherboards is the chipset just isn't mature enough. Intel discovered some minor glitches with the X38 chipset and halted shipping the chips for a while. Now the bios revisions have to catch up. I would give it 3-6 months before I would invest in the X38. It's not the MB manufacturers fault that Intel kept everyone in the dark. No reports yet as to what the problem actually was that caused Intel to stop shipping the chipsets in the first place.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Well poop I forgot that. lol. How could I???

link to the EGG for SLi mobos that are worthy.... some are out of stock unfortunately.....

....gm

 

Sam, where would have sold the stock heatsink? They go for 10 bucks on ebay. At least I DID save money. 20 bucks isn't chump change, it all adds up.

Do you guys think I should just get another batch of Crucial Ballistic 800mhz chips or this one?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227231

My last batch wouldn't clock to 1066mhz so I was kinda disappointed.

 

Shaff: Didn't know they ever used CWT. Mine's a model from June 06, what's that likely to be? Also, said cable was a) not connected to anything at all, and b) made the noise continuously.
Herrick: SLI unfortunately means nvidia chipset, and nvidia chipset means not as good as Intel chipset. You'll have to accept a sacrifice on some levels for that.

Abuzar: Despite the name, I wouldn't rate OCZ memory for huge overclocks. I'd actually buy PC8500 memory if you want to guarantee it'll run at that speed... Memory's so cheap now, there's no excuse.

 

Been fiddling with my airflow in my new build and have now managed to get the following idle temps:-

New Idle Temps

Compared to:-

Old Idle Temp

Now even under full load my Motherboard temp doesnt get any hotter than the old Idle temp, and the cores top out at about 58c each.

All this was achieved by taking the side intake fan off of the header and onto the PSU (I dont think it is a PWM fan and it was getting slower at 100% speed every time I rebooted - was down to only 285RPM at 100% speed under speedfan when I decided to move it) - it now runs at a constant 1100-1200RPM which meant that I could turn the PSU fan down from 1800-2500RPM to 1100-1700RPM (depending on load) thus reducing its noise and Ive also found that if this is too fast it impedes the motherboard temp, but doesnt really drop the CPU temp much. However the side fan does make a bit of noise (not a lot granted but it is the noisiest thing now) and Im thinking of getting one of these to replace it:-

Hiper fan

Unless of course someone can recommend a better quiet 120mm or 140mm fan from the same site (I have other things to buy from there and will get free postage).

Good news Rob (fingers crossed) - my last PSU was crackling before it died on me so be careful

 

im pretty sure they stopped using CWT in 2k5.

and from what i ahev seen, OCZ clock very nicley, nothign compared to balistix (but then you pay a premium for them, as OCZ are dirt cheap, esp for decent OCers)

so long as you are getting 800MHz mem and not pushing ur FBS to over 450 they will do fine, esp for the price.

 

sammorris

What would you go with? how much better is the intel chipset and will I know the differance?

 

Nice idle temps Pepp, though the cores seem to be a bit on the warm side (for idle anyway, those'd be great temps for load!)
The Hiper fans are alright, but rather mediocre in the face of Scythes. Never underestimate the value of a good fan.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=533395
Herrick: I'm very biased because both of the two motherboards I've had were nvidia chipsets, and both died within a year. It's not just that though, from what I've seen the Intel chipsets tend to get the better overclocks as well.

 

Cheers Sam - Ive been reading up around the web and supposedly Intel have said theres an issue with the core temps in the e8xxx chips, might be something to do with the Tjunction being reported as 105c I dont know. Also The CPU temp is the one reported in BIOS and is nice and low - Especially as my room is 24c

As for the fan if stats dont lie the hiper is better.
Hiper - 20dB - 59.12CFM
Scythe - 20.1dB - 49.00CFM

 

The stats do lie, trust me. Hiper are much like Thermaltake in that they way overhype their fans. The Scythe is unquestionably the better option.

Shaff: The new Hiper Type-R MK IIs are ChannelWells. If their fan controller wasn't stupid they'd be worth having - they get uber hot under load and are quiet, which seems mad since they have one of the most powerful fans ever made in them... They put the Silverstone FM121s to shame, both in noise and in airflow!

 

abuzar1,
Just keep in mind that the Ballistix outsell the Reapers by about 3 or 4 to 1. There has to be some reason as their the same price! The Reapers are also a bit on the tall side too! I would stick with the Crucials! They are a known Quantity to you!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Good point Russ on the height of the RAM.

boozer I still feel that if you go with the "name" brand stuff you can't go wrong. You know as well as the rest of us that 1066 is gonna get you farther on your OC than 800. Just spend the extra $20 or so and do it!! Ask Russ (ross...lol) about that...

.....gm

 

Ahh, but it's a Quad core. I'll be lucky to hit 3.6Ghz with my kind of cooling. That's only 400FSB, so I don't need memory that fast.

I'm just worried about the rebate since I've ordered three of those sets in the past three months.