My new system's partially described in my sig. I've finally got my system hardware together and working, and I've formed a few impressions.
P-180 case:
The top was pure-black plastic which was somewhat disappointing, but it goes well with my LCD. The pull-out rings for the HDD enclosures makes installation easy. Good ventilation seperating my PSU from the CPU and a heat duct over my card. Having my heavy PSU on the bottom lowers the center of gravity, which should reduce issues with tipping in potential earthquakes, etc. Its mostly silent except for one thing, described later. It came with 3 120 mm fans instead of the 2 specified, which is cool. However, the last 80 x 25 mm fan wouldn't fit over my graphics card, and apparently the last 120 mm fan wasn't necessary as I have my HDD on the lower enclosure. Pretty solid.
ASUS A8N-E:
Decent chipset, Revision 2.0 board. Unfortunately it acted like revision 1.0; I had to flash a BIO update because it incorrectly identified my Manchester CPU as an old Clawhammer. Easy to update and change stuff. Unfortunately, I must have one of the bad chipset fans; it is running at no less than 8,800 RPM which is why my P-180 emits noise I can hear from 20 feet away on the front side. I'll need a new one since people who've had this fan on this board are having it crap out on them within a month of use.
CPU:
Not much to say so far. Its indeed the dual-core Manchester. BIOS rated its heat at 36 C idle without cool'n'quiet, I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's under 40 C which is good.
Corsair 2x1024 PC3200C:
No problems, although my ASUS book says the board won't take 4 GB of it (yet). Correctly ID'd.
ATI X800XL:
Not much to say yet in performance, but no problems so far. I'm pleased that it worked right from the start without trouble, and I also like that it doesn't need an extra power connecter.
Sound:
I just picked up an old 7.1 SoundBlaster. No comments yet, as XP's pre-installation is still formatting my drive.
PSU:
Abolutely silent. Marvelous work. Supposedly the S-12 500 is a behemoth for a PSU, but it fit perfectly within the PSU cage for my P-180. Not too big, not so small that it left any space.
LCD:
Decent so far. I'm pleased that this, with my ATI card also worked without extra drivers, all this right out of the box.
Wiring:
Internally, the wiring is somewhat of a mess. My CPU power cord is stretched over the ATI card because its too short to be routed around any other way. My DVD ROM and burner are using an interface I forget what it's called, not IDE, but the tags specified it for HDD use which is funny. The dual CPU/extra PCI power/other power cords are bundled neatly on top of my PSU without blocking the intake, some others are tied down and have plastic snakes. Also had to tape the front-panel sound wiring together and tape the rear-exhaust fan controller to the side of the fan to keep them from banging all over the circuits and side panel. other than that, it's relatively neat, and I will be glad for the day that I can get SATA optical drives. In fact, it would be nice for all interfaces to be USB/SATA-based (IEEE 1394's close enough even though I'm not using it).
Windows XP Professional 64:
If you're getting the OEM version then don't bother with using the manufacturer's pre-installation CD. THis CD want 32-bit drivers whereas the actually XP-64 installer wants the 64-bit RAID drivers to bootstrap the SATA driver installation. Other than that, I've got no other impressions other than that it's STILL partitioning my drive.
Hopefully I'll get more to post later.
P-180 case:
The top was pure-black plastic which was somewhat disappointing, but it goes well with my LCD. The pull-out rings for the HDD enclosures makes installation easy. Good ventilation seperating my PSU from the CPU and a heat duct over my card. Having my heavy PSU on the bottom lowers the center of gravity, which should reduce issues with tipping in potential earthquakes, etc. Its mostly silent except for one thing, described later. It came with 3 120 mm fans instead of the 2 specified, which is cool. However, the last 80 x 25 mm fan wouldn't fit over my graphics card, and apparently the last 120 mm fan wasn't necessary as I have my HDD on the lower enclosure. Pretty solid.
ASUS A8N-E:
Decent chipset, Revision 2.0 board. Unfortunately it acted like revision 1.0; I had to flash a BIO update because it incorrectly identified my Manchester CPU as an old Clawhammer. Easy to update and change stuff. Unfortunately, I must have one of the bad chipset fans; it is running at no less than 8,800 RPM which is why my P-180 emits noise I can hear from 20 feet away on the front side. I'll need a new one since people who've had this fan on this board are having it crap out on them within a month of use.
CPU:
Not much to say so far. Its indeed the dual-core Manchester. BIOS rated its heat at 36 C idle without cool'n'quiet, I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's under 40 C which is good.
Corsair 2x1024 PC3200C:
No problems, although my ASUS book says the board won't take 4 GB of it (yet). Correctly ID'd.
ATI X800XL:
Not much to say yet in performance, but no problems so far. I'm pleased that it worked right from the start without trouble, and I also like that it doesn't need an extra power connecter.
Sound:
I just picked up an old 7.1 SoundBlaster. No comments yet, as XP's pre-installation is still formatting my drive.
PSU:
Abolutely silent. Marvelous work. Supposedly the S-12 500 is a behemoth for a PSU, but it fit perfectly within the PSU cage for my P-180. Not too big, not so small that it left any space.
LCD:
Decent so far. I'm pleased that this, with my ATI card also worked without extra drivers, all this right out of the box.
Wiring:
Internally, the wiring is somewhat of a mess. My CPU power cord is stretched over the ATI card because its too short to be routed around any other way. My DVD ROM and burner are using an interface I forget what it's called, not IDE, but the tags specified it for HDD use which is funny. The dual CPU/extra PCI power/other power cords are bundled neatly on top of my PSU without blocking the intake, some others are tied down and have plastic snakes. Also had to tape the front-panel sound wiring together and tape the rear-exhaust fan controller to the side of the fan to keep them from banging all over the circuits and side panel. other than that, it's relatively neat, and I will be glad for the day that I can get SATA optical drives. In fact, it would be nice for all interfaces to be USB/SATA-based (IEEE 1394's close enough even though I'm not using it).
Windows XP Professional 64:
If you're getting the OEM version then don't bother with using the manufacturer's pre-installation CD. THis CD want 32-bit drivers whereas the actually XP-64 installer wants the 64-bit RAID drivers to bootstrap the SATA driver installation. Other than that, I've got no other impressions other than that it's STILL partitioning my drive.
Hopefully I'll get more to post later.
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