Building a new PC? Look here first.

[Nightwatch]

Great News, so the PC now is in full action

You're welcome, buddy. You're just being very polite, I just offered some very general ideas that we all know, but thanks anyway. Also, let's see if you'll find posting by a PC is easier than posting by a mobile phone

[VINTAR]

As humble as you may be, i Couldnt have done it without you guys. Just need to finish the case mod and she's ready to go.

[Grump642]

That's what friends are for! Glad it worked out so well.

[VINTAR]

Finished fitting all but one of the fans. Just need to finish the case cover and put a fan on that. Ive taken a few pics, ill post them one of these days. Where has ket got to these days?

[nandersen]

Congrats on your new hardware Vintar

Now post a list of the components that you ended up buying

[VINTAR]

OK so this is what I bought :

Gigabyte EP45 UD3R mobo
Intel Q8300 2.5 cpu
Coolermaster cpu cooler (Huge bugger, just fits in the case height wise )
Forsa Nvidia 9800 GT 600/900 (Which I have clocked to 650/999 so far without a problem will try further)
Matrix trinity case (you guys wont know it, its a locally made one, nothing special, I modded it bigger myself)
Thermaltake tough power 650w psu (with 4 x 12v rails)
2 GIGS transcend DDR2 800 @ 5 5 5 18 (Whatever that means , going to buy 2 GIGS more)
2 x 120mm thermaltake fans with red LED`s
2 x 80mm thermaltake case fans wit red LED`s
OCZ thermal paste for cpu cooler
Still going to get 22" samsung LCD

CPU idling at 29c, pretty cool base to start with for O/C`ing
75 FPS average in Fallout 3 so far with GPU running at about 40c

Only problem I`m having is the sound not working ingame. Anyone have an idea what I can try? Or should I reinstall audio drivers?

Pics to follow, I have them on my mobile and will have to transfer them.

[nandersen]

CPU idling at 29c, pretty cool base to start with for O/C`ing
75 FPS average in Fallout 3 so far with GPU running at about 40c

Wow, that's definitely COOL!

[EggChen]

Only problem I`m having is the sound not working ingame. Anyone have an idea what I can try? Or should I reinstall audio drivers?

What OS? Vista?
If so most soundcards will not work with Vista and you have to use onboard audio.

Or...

When you say sound does not work in games, does it work in other apps? Do you switch to a USB headset for gaming? If so, it may be the drivers for that.

[VINTAR]

Nanderson, yes, very cool. Let the overclocking begin eggchen, i am using onboard sound with normal earphones not usb. Ill try reinstalling audio drivers from the mobo disc tonight and see what happens. I connected the harddrive from my old tuter last night and was copying everything across, i suspect that i overwrote my drivers.

[VINTAR]

Forgot to say i am running old xp. Service pack two i think

[audioave10]

You should have Realtek Audio. See about getting the latest driver from their website. Make sure it is specific to your mobo.
It might be an update & newer than on your mobo disk.
Nice system...

[nandersen]

Now my turn

Got my upgrades delivered earlier today so I decided to do the build right away. Sorry for the blurry pictures taken with my cell phone - I hope that they show something useful anyway.

First the old HW config for comparison:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/old_hw1.jpg

What was in the mail:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/upgrade_kit1.jpg

Now, there's also the SSD that I got last Friday:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/ssd1.jpg

Closeup of the new MB - really cool looking if you ask me:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/the_gene1.jpg


Disconnected the old MB and removed it from the case. A magnificent specimen, isn't she?
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/old_mb1.jpg
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/old_mb2.jpg


Unpacked the new MB, read the manual and prepared to install the CPU:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/cpu_install0.jpg

The CPU looks pretty much like the old C2D and installing it was very natural.
Socket protective plate removed:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/cpu_install1.jpg

The CPU install procedure is as easy as it was for the C2D. All falls in place and locks nicely:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/cpu_install2.jpg

Finally the stock cooler - again the same story as with the old one. Four clicks and it's ready:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/cpu_install3.jpg


Now the RAM. First one kit:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/ram_install1.jpg

Then the second:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/ram_install2.jpg

Note the DIMM sockets on the GENE - the latches are on only one side to ease access with a VGA installed. To understand why it's useful just look how big and bulky the VGA is:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/big_vga1.jpg


With the MB ready I prepped the case. The old MB is a full sized ATX board so I had to move a couple of screws to allow the new MicroATX board to be installed:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/case_prep1.jpg

Installing the new MB - as you can see there's definitely a difference in size compared to the old one:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/mb_install1.jpg

Now, here's a very inconvenient thing about the board: the placement of the SATA connectors. The VGA blocks access to them. I usually don't need to disconnect these once the system is configured so I can live with this but it's definitely not a good thing. Probably the size of the board made it necessary to place the connectors there.
Here's the board with the VGA in place as well as my old Raptor that I replaced with the SSD (used it to see if Windows would boot):
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/vga_install1.jpg
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/vga_install2.jpg

After connecting power cables and the diagnostic add-on they call "LCD Poster" I decided to power on and see what it does. Note that I didn't yet connect the case connectors for power button, speaker etc. There's a handy power button on the board itself.
Here's the board with power connected - the power button lights up urging me to press it:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/test_run1.jpg

Did it run? Yes and no. Yes to the hardware part. No to the OS which produced a brief BSoD and rebooted.
Diving deeper into the BIOS settings revealed that the SATA controller was in IDE mode. Changed it to AHCI and tried again.

BINGO! Win7 booted in low graphics resolution and started detecting new hardware. It took a couple of reboots and I was running again. I shut it down and replaced the Raptor with the new SSD which the Raptor was cloned onto last Friday. Repeated the Windows 7 hardware detection.

Here's a system info screen:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/win7_sysinfo.png

A refreshed windows Experience Index:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/win7_perf_score.png
- as you can see my VGA is currently the bottleneck.

Here's what the task manager shows with a few applications and STALKER SoC started:
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/win7_taskmgr.png


Overall I'd say the build was a success: The build took 2 hours or so and I was running Windows on it after no more than 3 hours.
It took me some time to get RivaTuner to work: apparently the bus ID or something like that changed and my fan profiles were invalid. After renaming the device key using regedit it worked again.

For now I'll run with stock/auto settings. OCing can wait - I can definitely see a performance increase so no need to hurry

[audioave10]

Looks nice...you would get more OCing with a better cooler, I
think (unless that's better then the C2D coolers).

[Grump642]

Did you go with the Gene MoBo for a reason? Considering its size, I mean.

[nandersen]

Did you go with the Gene MoBo for a reason? Considering its size, I mean.

Yes! One very good reason: PRICE
My buddy at work went with the P6T Deluxe which is a full-sized board but a bit more mainstream.
This is, after all, a Republic of Gamers branded board - but it's cheaper than the P6T deluxe!

[VINTAR]

Congrats Nanderson on the new hardware i sorted out my audio problem last night. Seems that the mobo automatically sets front audio jack to hi definition audio. Converted it to two channel and voila. I also notice that my harddrive is set to ide mode. You think it would give you the option of sata, but it says ahci and somethiing else. What is ahci and should i be set to that? Everything is running though.

[nandersen]

AHCI is the "real" SATA. IDE mode provides none of the advanced SATA features like hardware accelleration, native command queueing and hot plugging (I probably forgot to mention some).

Short answer: Use AHCI

Be prepared that your windows won't boot and you'll have to:
1) revert to IDE mode
2) boot windows
3) download the drivers for your SATA controller chip and install them
4) shut down and change to AHCI again

Yes, I think that most modern boards default to hi-def audio. Not sure why this is a problem though... newer Windows has support for High Definition Audio codec?

Now a bit off-topic: look what Windows 7 tells me when I try to use a RAM drive as a ReadyBoost device
http://zhat.dk/pics/pc/win7_readyboost.png

[VINTAR]

Sorry cant read the png clearly on my mobile. I noticed something strange last night when using cpuid. It says on the top that my cpu is a Q9300. Then a few lines down it recognizes it as a Q8300 (which it is) it then continues to say that the multiplier is set to x7 and running at 2.5 (366x7) yet the bios says the multiplier is at x6 and running at 2.0mhz? Is this normal. I mean i dont see why i buy a 2.5 cpu and be expected to change the multiplier to have it run at stock speed.

[nandersen]

That's odd... but if you need to fiddle with the BIOS you might as well try a slight OC.

I ran my 2.66GHz C2D with stock cooler at 3GHz by setting FSB to 375MHz, CPU multiplier to 8 and RAM multiplier set to 2. It ran perfectly stable and only a couple of degrees warmer than at stock settings. I suspect that you could try something similar and see how it behaves.