New to building computers

[Koopasm]

I just bought all the stuff to build a computer, but I had a question on the heatsink. The gray sticky stuff at the bottom (phase-change), is it ok if a little of it is scraped off in the corner? What will its effect be?
And is it safe to take off the heatsink and cpu once it has been put on the motherboard already?
Last question, is there a way to add legacy ports to a motherboard that doesn't come with any (Abit AT7)?

Thanks.

 

[XxervioCSO]

the gray sticky stuff is to help the heat transfer from your processor to the heatsink. if a little is gone you should be fine. as long as the majority of it covers the central processing unit.

As long as the computer is off you can take the processor and heatsink off anytime you want and put it back in doesn't matter. this is how you upgrade the processor.

legacy ports that you are talking about i am asuming refer to the sound. according to the abit website on that motherboard it has built in sound. if you use that sound option the CD that came with the motherboard sound give you all the drivers needed to install the right legacy drivers. if you have another sound card you are using then you need to disable the on-board sound in your BIOS and install the sound card drivers for the sound card you have.

 

[Koopasm]

Thanks for the quick reply.

About the ports, I meant the serial ports, for printers, and other non-usb stuff. It doesnt' have any ports at all, and I didn't realize until I took it out of the box.

 

[XxervioCSO]

there isn't a way to install other ports for printers and such unless there is a PCI card you can install with those on it. i'm not sure they even make them but they might. that motherboard is geared more for everything being USB or firewire.

 

[SemperFi]

There are usb converters for parallel and serial I think. The parallel runs about $40. I don't know about the serial I have had my serial ports disabled in the bios for a couple of years.

If you need a serial port for a camera and it has a card you would be better off getting a card reader for usb.

Parallel You should find cheaper elsewhere.

Wow this is just what you need. Ouch :Q Kind of pricey though. You should find cheaper elsewhere.

Semper Fi



http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=1&Product_Id=20651

 

[Koopasm]

Ouch is right ! I bought my mobo for $80. I think I will just get a another mobo. Any suggestions?

AMD 2400+
PC2700 RAM

I would like Firewire, RAID, LAN, USB 2.0, and the serial ports.

Also I would like to OC in the future.

Any thoughts on a mobo that fits that description?

 

[TheCorm]

I have a Dlink USB Hub (DU-HSP I think) that has 3xUSB, 1xSerial & 1xParallel....cost me about £15 over here in the UK, that would due the job 4 ya Although I could not find it @ dlink.com, they must still be around....if not....someone must do a similar product.

Corm

 

[XxervioCSO]

oh ya i forgot about those converters guess my brain shut down after a while hehe

I went with the Iwill KK400-RS and it's worked perfect for me.