Building my first computer

[Azbec]

I have read mechBgon's guide a couple times. I am sure it will help me a lot but I have a few questions still.

Lets see here is what I am working with:

Thrmaltake Tsunami VA3000 case with 400w Thermaltake Powersupply
Epox Nforce3 MoBo
AMD 64 3200+
WD 74g 10k Raptor
DDRAM 1 gig Consair value pack
ATI Radeon 9800 pro 256 bit 256 memory
Going to go pick up a floppy drive at Best Buy Thursday (anything I should avoid?)
Sony CDRW/DVD combo drive
MS XP home

I recieved my case today from Newegg.com, hopefully the rest will be here on Wed. I am already overwhelmed with all the wires in the case. My first question is about the 2 120mm fans I have in the case. They have a four pin and 2 pin wire coming from them the wierd thing ( at least to me ) is the four pin has a male end and also a female end split off of it. Am I correct in guessing I can string the 2 fans together like X-mas lights? Hook one up to the power source then the other one to the other end?

Second question, I have read mechBgon mention several times about worms infecting a system when upgrading windows to service pak 2. I use a hub on a cable connection ( I imagine many of you are cringing ). What is the easiest way to protect my computer during this vulnerable time? i was thinking of buying a firewall at Best Buy.

Third concern, I am fairly confidant I can get it all put together and running but the bios set up intimidates me. If the MoBo's manual is lacking in how to information is there a good site or a guide on bios set up?

Any input is greatly appreciated (remember I have already bought the components so don't rag on me if I made a bad choice I agonized over it for days on what to buy). Sorry for the poor grammar and spelling mistakes.

Azbec

 

[amdskip]

Yup, hook them fans together and then to a power source. Try to be neat about it though so that it does not affect air flow.

Hub on a cable connection? Use a router on a cable connection and the router will also act as a firewall but it will not stop a virus from affecting your machine. A hub will not work unless you get multiple ip addresses from you ISP. Download any updates you can ahead of time and burn them to cd. Do not hook up the internet until these updates are installed and you've rebooted.

The motherboard manual should be plenty good for you.

 

[Azbec]

You assume I have CD burning avaliable to me . I don't, my no name cdrw drive quit on me. Any other suggestions? Yes I am getting multiple ip addresses from TimeWarner. They don't seem to like it but I get it /shrug.

 

[amdskip]

Surely you can burn a cd somewhere. I would highly advise purchasing a router too.

 

[mechBgon]

Yeah, here is a router I got for my little sister: Netgear RP614 which you can probably also buy locally. That would be protection from worms while you get going. I saw recently that the average time to infection for an un-firewalled raw WinXP installation is something like 20 minutes these days, so it seemed like it was worth emphasizing the preliminary protection stuff :Q

You could also order a Service Pack 2 CD-ROM from Microsoft for free. I did, and it came in about three days Here's where to order it. It fixes the holes the worms are looking for, plus it enables WinXP's firewall by default.

If you have any questions as you go, feel free to post them in the Forums, and/or send me a Private Message if you have a question about my guide Welcome to the Forums!

 

[Azbec]

Ok, the power supply has these linked lines too but they have a couple that have 2 4 pins and 1 smaller 4 pin. Sorry if this all seems elemental to you all but I have never dealt with a powersource before so it is intimidating. I am imagining that I will need to use at least one on my Video Card. I don't have to worry about capping off the ends I don't use or anything like that do I? Thanks for that link mechB, I will check into that. Ohh, did I miss it or does your quide not cover speading grease on the processor? I am a little worried about that too.

 

[boomerang]

Another option is to install your new burner temporarily in the old system. Download and burn SP2. Slipstream it too if you'd like.

You could download your motherboard manual now and give it a look over. But, you may have already received your remaining parts by now.

Where the PS connectors go will be self evident once you get going. That's a good question about capping off the ends but it's nothing to be concerned about.

Opinions will vary, but whatever thermal compound or pad is applied to the processor at the factory will work just fine. They wouldn't apply somthing that would lead to the processor burning up. Warranty costs and all.

 

[shamgar03]

I built my first computer this summer, so congratulations, its definately a fun experience. You probobly won't have alot of problem with the power source, just because nowadays nothing thats not supposed to fits fits. If it is 3volts it has a different shape then 12 volts etc. The thermal grease definately worried me when I did mine. I actually way over applied the first time I put it on, so I basically had to pull it off and clean the heatsink and the processor then restart. There was also a bit of discrepency in the directions on applying between my ocz thermal grease and the AMD specs for putting thermal grease on an AMD64 processor. To be honest, I get the feeling it isn't rocket science. The key is blobbing like 3 grains of rice worth in the middleand then putting the heat sink on. The fact that two flat surfaces are coming together will spread the grease. I doubt they will give you a pad, just because from what i've read pads are going out of style so to speak. They are easy but not as efficient. Once you get your computer into the bios, just check the temperature, I think my processor temp was like 31 degrees C after it got to idling, it probobly shouldnt be more thank 36 when its idling. Just set up the bios and then come back and double check the temp. Good choice on the MoBo, I got the Asus A8v and I am pretty bitter. Besides the pci lock not working, they have terrible documentation. I don't know about epox, but what I did was wrote down the terms that I didn't know the meaning of and then went somewhere and googled them. You may find a good bios guide site that way. Anyway, hopefully I was a little helpful. Oh and floppy disks don't matter too much...for some reason mine won't work right now but ah well. I got some cheap 8$ one from newegg, and I plan on getting around to looking up the problem. If you plug it in wrong, the light comes on the front and won't go off, it doesn't mess it up, but it won't work. Anyway good luck, and have fun.

 

[Azbec]

I have to go to work so real quick..

I onced over the directions for my cpu and heatsink and it doesn't say anything about thermal grease and none come with it. It did say something was already applied at the factor. Is this new? Is this adequte?

I will read more about it at work tonight. But you all put it in more understandable terms it seems.

again sorry for the poor spelling.

Azbec

 

[mechBgon]

As far as I know, the bottom of the retail-boxed Athlon64 heatsink has a coat of top-quality thermal grease already applied, protected by a plastic cover. So you just remove the cover and latch it down... *squwooooosh* ...there ya go

 

[Azbec]

Couple more questions:

1) My MoBo manual has this chart for setting up memory. It makes a distiction between Double-sided DIMM type and Single-sided DIMM type. It says if I am using only 2 DIMMs that I need to have one of each single and double. First off, I can not figure out what type of DIMM I have. Here is what I find on newegg.com

Corsair Value Select Dual Channel Kit 184 Pin 1G(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 - OEM


Model# VS1GBKIT400C3
Item # N82E16820145480
Specifications:
Manufacturer: Corsair
Speed: DDR400(PC3200)
Type: 184 Pin DDR SDRAM
Error Checking: Non-ECC
Registered/Unbuffered: Unbuffered
Cas Latency: 3
Support Voltage: 2.5V
Bandwidth: 3.2GB/s
Organization: two 64M x 64 -Bit
Warranty: Lifetime

I have 2 512 sticks, do I need to worry about which slots to put them in?

2) I have an WD raptor hard drive so I will be using the SATA wires for that. Are all IDE cables the same? My MoBo came with what they call a HDD drive cable. It looks like an IDE cable to me. I was wanting to use it on my CD/DVD drive. Let me know if I need to buy a diffrent one.

3) In my bios I have 2 spots for IDE drives that I can enable. Do I just enable the one I am using for my CD/DVD since I am using SATA for my Hard Drive?


Ok going to go to sleep, will start putting the machine together tommorrow after some sleep. Sorry for the noobie questions.

Azbec

 

[mechBgon]

Since your CPU has a single-channel memory controller, it shouldn't matter too much which slots the RAM is in. I'll download the manual for your motherboard so I can follow along, though... which model of EPoX did you get, exactly?

The ribbon cable will work for your optical drives just fine Plug the colored plug into the motherboard (usually it's color-coded blue, sometimes red). The motherboard's plug will be further from the other two, if they forgot to color-code them. The motherboard ought to auto-detect your optical drives, so you shouldn't need to go and configure its IDE stuff yourself.

For the SATA drive, it'll use that narrow cable that's similar in size to a USB cable. If it's plugged into an SATA fitting that the nVidia southbridge is controlling directly, then typically you can proceed with Windows Setup just as if it were a regular ATA drive. I hope it works smoothly like that because it can be a real hassle if it decides to put up a fight like some motherboards do.

If you get Windows installed onto the hard drive but the motherboard isn't trying to boot from it after the initial Setup routine, then go into the BIOS and set the second boot device to SATA and see if that corrects it.

So anyway, post which exact motherboard you got and I'll get the manual to better educate myself on it

 

[Azbec]

EPoX "EP-8KDA3J" nForce3-250Gb Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 754 CPU -RETAIL


Model# EP-8KDA3J
Item # N82E16813123219

Specifications:
Supported CPU: AMD Athlon64 Processors
Chipset: NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb
FSB: 800MHz (Hyper-Transport)
RAM: 3x DIMM for DDR400/333/266 Max 3GB
IDE: 2x ATA 133 up to 4 Devices
Slots: 1x AGP 8X/4X(1.5V), 6x PCI
Ports: 2xPS/2,1xLPT,1xCOM,SPDIF Out,1xLAN,8xUSB2.0(Rear 4),Audio Ports
Onboard Audio: Realtek ALC850 8-Channel Codec
Onboard LAN: Gigabit Ethernet
Onboard SATA: 2x Serial ATA 150
Form Factor: ATX


Thanks so much!!

Azbec

 

[mechBgon]

Hmm, I got the supplement that tells about the memory and I see what you mean. They seem to say that you won't get DDR400 speeds if both DDR400 modules are double-sided, which seems a little strange. I have the similar Asus motherboard, the K8N-E Deluxe, and it's running two double-sided DDR400 modules at DDR400 speeds. Maybe they've addressed that with a new BIOS release by now.

If you did want single-sided DDR400 modules, I believe these Crucial ones here are single-sided:

http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=20-146-541&depa=1

 

[Azbec]

How will I be able to tell the speed my memory is running?

 

[gwai lo]

www.cpuid.com or the BIOS

 

[mechBgon]

You can get a free utility called CPU-Z from www.cpuid.com and your CPU-Z memory panel would ideally look like this picture if you have it at DDR400 (200MHz frequency x double-pumped).

 

[Azbec]

So far so good, loading Windows now. Only thing that seems amiss is my HDD light isn't doing anything and another light that I am not sure what it is is always on. None of my manuals where clear on how the plugs where suppose to go so I went with what felt like the path of least resistance.

Other thing is partitioning my HD. I do not understand it at all. I didn't make a partition for windows. How much is this going to affect ( or is it effect) my performance? A link explaining partions and what they are good for would be wonderful. I did some searches on the forums bet everything was way over my head.

Azbec