The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

You'll notice that none of the hard disk manufacturers have really produced much in the way of SSDs, because it's more in their area, the manufacturers of most of them produce RAM and other solid state electronics - OCZ, G-Skill, Corsair and Intel.

 

I wonder if someone could help me with what may seem a couple of stupid questions..

So I got a Coolermaster Cosmos (I also bought the additional HD cooler attachment and another 120mm Coolermaster fan)and Corsair 620w PSU last Jan, and now finally have time to build this system up (my wife has been rather unwell over the past year and looking after her is of course more important).

I also have an Abit IP350 Pro Off limits motherboard, 4 gigs of Crucial Ram, and a juicy P4 Quad 2.6 gig cpu along with a Seagate 200 gig IDE drive for use as the C drive, and 2x1terrabyte Sata 2 Samsung drives for leeching.

Now, the last build I made (would have been my 4th)was in Japan, which I brought over here, which was based on one of the first generation of single core Pentium 4 chips, and things seem to have changed a bit since then!

Firstly, I currently have the psu in the bottom of the case, it has a huge fan on it, the writing on the psu is the right way up, and this fan is pointing straight down into an air duct, in previous builds, this fan would have been sucking air from the cpu, and blowing it out the back of the case. Is this ok? should it be upside down?

Secondly, I have not turned the beast on yet, do I need to make any bios adjustments for the ram, psu or cpu? I don't want to blow anything up, I do not want to overclock anything, so can I just make the usual bios changes for boot sequences, then install windows and be a happy bunny?

Sorry for the stupid questions, I just don't want this thing overheating or blowing up on me, can't afford any disasters...

Thanks for reading ; ]

 

No such thing as a P4 Quad, I assume you mean Core 2 Quad.
With your case, the PSU mounts the right way up at the bottom as there is a vent to feed it. In cases where there is no such vent you mount it upside down so it takes air from the case. Your setup is better, as it means the PSU gets cool air from the floor, not the warm air milling around in the case.

 

Ah yes, you are right, the box does say Core 2 Quad, my mistake.

Thank you for clearing up my puzzlement regarding the PSU, much appreciated!

 

kita24, unless you have changed the default settings in the bios it should be just fine to put the new hardware in and turn it on.

Can some one recommend good, free defrag program? None of my drives have ever been defraged so besides being long over due it might just solve some of my problems too.

 

I love this utility

http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html?Str=download

 

LOL, that's the one I was thinking of using after a bit of research, but figured I should ask anyway since I know next to nothing about defraging. Thanks for the advice oman7.

 

omegaman7

wow you were right the HAF is big case.when looking at the pictures of it. it doesn't seem that big but finally having it in my hands i can truly see its size.

 

wassup people just droppin to say hi..did new hardware install today of some new fans and a hard drive need more storage a new Wd Caviar Green 500Gb...I wanted a 1Tb but money was short...I get one in a couple more weeks or sooner here's a few pics to share

 

bigwill68

nice hardware upgrades

 

No prob buddy

@redice, Yah...people who come over literally drop their jaw LOL! The HAF is money WELL spent!!! I must admit, Before it showed up, I was wondering if I made a mistake! I dont regret it in the slightest!!!

 

I was considering getting a HAF but I don't really like the lettering and pattern on the side. If it weren't so expensive I'd love to have one anodised. That said it has stacks of options regarding cooling, the side fan (and by the looks of it, the front one as well) can be replaced with four 120mm fans instead, which I think will do a better job, as the 230mm fans actually only have 190mm fins, which means at 700rpm they're limited to about 80-90CFM at best, not the 150 CM claim (and with almost dead silence, four S-Flexes at 1100-1200rpm could push that 150CFM).
The big bonus is that it's one of the cheapest full towers out there, certainly the cheapest high-end full tower I can see. Very tempted to click the buy button, but know I shouldn't...

 

omegaman7

lol well i am sure that i will have some jaw droppers as well

 

eparker, the motherboard is right out of the box, so fingers crossed all will be fine ; ] thanks for the advice!

Am hoping I can now run Azureus and Emule at the same time, both downloading to their dedicated 1 Terrabyte HDs, should be enough to fire and forget for a month at a time...

 

Yah...I was STRONGLY considering that myself. Noise is of no consequence to me The computer does ALOT for me, so I dont mind giving it the, "Royal Treatment!" Besides, more than anything, I LOVE experimentation!

 

OMG!!!I may appear somewhat silly to some of you, but my computer just blew my mind!!! I just installed Grand theft auto: San Andreas(paid for it), via backed up ISO image, from My Raptor Drive to my Sata WD 500GB AAKS drive in under 3 min! The two drives seem to keep up well with each other(The FALS is about the same). I was also running nero Showtime!!! Though showtime only averages 1% cpu usage! The install only used one core! Both my drives and processor just blew my mind away And the i7 is even quicker? Man o man!!! I imagine GTA IV will require a little more however! I'll be picking that one up REAL soon!

 

GTA 4 whores CPUs like you wouldn't believe, because unlike most games the CPU renders the majority of the graphics effects, not the graphics card.

Just took the plunge and ordered a HAF, should be here tuesday. I refuse to abandon my old case though, eventually I intend to try and build a silent main system to use for desktop, light games (the ones that don't really work with crossfire, or remotely need it) to cut the power consumption, and to have a system to drag around more easily than the 15kg heffalump that is the HAF. That will have to wait until I've sold my remaining surplus stuff though. I'm dirt broke at the moment, as I have a 1KW Corsair HX, an X38-DS4 and X48-DS5 I will need to get shot of!

 

Yah...thats what I heard. I heard about something called securerom on it as well! And that it installs very undesirable...Garbage!!! Its almost tempting to wait for...eh hem, a different version!

Mmmm, I think the install was soo quick because there really wasnt that much decompression to do.

 

A different version?

 

Ummm...eh hem, a better version
I updated post above