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First Time Builder - Need Links, Advice

C

Catcher

Junior Member
Well, my wife and I have decided to take the plunge
How could we call ourselves geeks, after all, if we haven't
even built our own machine.😀 Parts are ordered and on the
way thanks to Russ over at Compucheap What we need right now are
links to sites with some fairly up-to-date information on
building your own box and, of course, advice from the
celebrated Anandtech Forum staff. 😉 List of parts follows:

Duron 700
MSI K7T Pro 2-A (We'll take our chances here)
FOP 32-1
IBM Deskstar 75GXP 45 GB
256 MB Crucial PC 133 SDRAM
ATI Radeon 32MB DDR
SB Live! Value
Winmodem (For a short time, hopefully broadband later🙂)
Enlight 7237
Enermax 350W PS (No "whisper" version left:frown😉
Dual boot Win 98SE and RedHat Linux 7

P.S.: Maudib, you better be one of the first in line with help,
you're partially responsible for this😉
 
It's only scary the first time....serious tweaking and overclocking is another ballgame. Nice system....have fun.

Super6
 
Ground yourself often, and no drinks nearby. Attachment of the heatsink will probably be the most nervewracking step.
 
Bolomite: Fortunately, Russ will be mounting the heatsink
for us for FREE! What a geek! I knew about the problems with
heatsinks and the Atlon-based CPUs and decided we really
didn't need the pressure on the first build (nor did the
Duron😉). Anyone got links for things like flashing the BIOS
and updating drivers? I'll stoire them away until after we
get boot. Thanks all.
 
You are planning to overclock that badboy correct? Or else I think it's useless to have the FOP-32! It's LOUD!

Building your own box is so simple - any idiot can do it 😀

If you've never mounted a motherboard before that will probably be the most difficult part. Just make sure it's seated properly so it doesn't short out (mistake on my first build).
Other than that it's just "connect the dots"...plug in the wires (damn, they can only go one place!) and you're set.
hmm, nice components btw...nice case 😀 same as mine.


 
I strongly suggest that you spend some time on AMD's website. They have good info on the build up steps of Durons and Athlons. Also, spend some time planning how your system will use IRQs. Understand which slots share and which devices you have don't like to share. The time spent is well worth it, instead of just swapping slots and hoping that all is well.
 
Not too far from the machine I setup a few months back. Do the linux install first - that way you can mount your fat partitions and tweak stuff if you get into trouble later. Also make sure Redhat 7's version of XFree has support for your Radeon card - I think anything after 4.0.1 should be ok.
These are the only real snags I remember - the rest of the build was a no brainer 🙂
Good luck -
 
Thanks to all who have answered so far. Parts are on order.
We'll be using a nice, large, round oak table in the kitchen with no open drinks in the vicinity. We're not planning on any real tweaking or overclocking yet, just an inexpensive system that we will be able to upgrade for the far future. Russ assures me that the FOP 32-1 is no loader than the two case fans I'm getting
kami but thanks for the heads-up. I should have rememberedthat from the reviews:disgust:

Rotorvator:Should I install Linux first if there's a question about Radeon drivers? I think it's 4.0.2 that has the Radeon support. If 4.0.1 doesn't have the XFree support will it just keep me from doing a GUI until I get 4.0.2 in? Hrmmm...Time to do some Linux surfin'

I'll update everyone on how it's going after the parts arrive (hoping for this weekend).
 
"Rotorvator:Should I install Linux first if there's a question about Radeon drivers? I think it's 4.0.2 that has the Radeon support. If 4.0.1 doesn't have the XFree support will it just keep me from doing a GUI until I get 4.0.2 in? Hrmmm...Time to do some Linux surfin'"

W/o the radeon drivers, you'll be able to use the SVGA server for unaccelerated 8 bit color X. Which is usable, but you'll definitely want the support long term.
HTH
 
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