Originally posted by: Kongzi
Well I just ordered a IC7 from newegg along with a 3.0ghz and a gig of Corsair TwinX-3200LL. I hope I won't be disappointed. To save myself some headaches can someone give me some quick guidelines as how to get everything up and running smoothly with this board? Would it be a good idea for me to flash to the newest BIOS right off the bat?
I don't know your level of expierence with putting computers together, so this maybe a little basic.
1. Make sure yhat the MOBO is mounted in case properly and securly. Use only the holes referenced in the manual. If you are using an case from an older machine rmake sure there are no standoffs installed that are not used.
2. Try to handle all the componets as little as possible ( they are sensitive to electro static discharge). If you must get up close and personal with everything then a wrist strap you can get at Radio Shack should be used and grounded. An ESD work Pad is also nice but not required. If you handle the cards by the edges and tdo not touch any of the pins or componets you will minimize the potential risk from ESD. DOn't forget the HSF and HEAT SINK Compound on the CPU. Many have taken off the north Bridge fan and small heat sink and replaced the thermal pad with grease and reinstalled all of the above others have used an large aftermarket passive cooler. Unless you plan on OC I wouldn't worry about it. for now.
3. Build a minimal system first 1stick of RAM, VGA card, Hard Drive, one CD drive, if you plan on using SATA make sure you understand the BIOS settings required. Clear the CMOS before powering up. When you turn on power on the PSU you should get a Green LED in the lower corner near the Front Panel Pinout header. When the you start the computer, there should be a red one as well.
4. Once the system loads, enter the BIOS, select auto for speed, adjust the Vdim to 2.7V, and set memory timings to 2,6,3,2. SPD doesn't seem to work right on the IC-7G for now.
5. Go to the onchip periphials and make sure the IC5R is setup to recognize your IDE/SATA installation. If you are going to use the RAID on the ICR5 you need to make sure it is enabled.
6. Be SURE to Save changes and then reboot. enter BIOS again and make sure that the BIOS recognized your HD and CD configuration. Now make sure your other settings are correct, and select the boot order (CD,floppy,HD) is my prefernce. You can do externals drives as well but for now I would stick with basics. Okay once all is done and verified save and relaod again, this time with the windows XP CD installed.
7. If all went well to now the system should want to load XP and possibly reformat HD with NTFS or FAT32. If your hardrdive had previous installations on it, you may need to erase it and do low level initialize. (This might require another computer)
8. ONce windows XP installs, load the drivers in the order, specified in the owners manual.
9. Once all of this is done power down install the rest of your system and periphials. If you are using additional Sound card make sure to disable the on board sound in BIOS. Also there seems to be some funny quirlks with the Audigy sound card. Go to the ABIT-USA page and read the forums area under the MAX Motherboads. I prefer to do things serially for instance memory to max, verify system will run, then additional periphials one at a time to make sure the Windows XP auto install doesn't get confused. Finally or before you do any of this make sure your Modem, NIC, Cable Modem etc... is supported by XP. Most are but you can check at Microsoft web page. The XP install disc also has a neat function that will check these devices. To use it, temporaily install the hardware in a functional machine and then use teh XP configuration check utility to verify that the hardware you want to use is supported.
10. finally once all of this is done then worry about updating the BIOS. Almost any version of BIOS should get you to here, although I heard there were problems with Serial RAID in the 1.3 BIOS. SSo if this is an issue you may wish to go to 1.4 instead. 1.5 is out and seems to be a little faster than 1.4 and somewhat more stable but I nver had any problems with 1.4. Finally stability and burn in testing (level is up to you). I like to make sure MEMTEST can run for at least 8 hours with no errors, PRIME 95 can run at least this long as well. SANDRA Sisoft ahs a neat burn in routine that really excersises the memory and CPU. I run it for at least 20 iterations. Once all of this is done to your level of satisfaction, laod any applications you will use. In my case a few games and Microsoft Office Professional.
Some voltage issue or another, as usual.
Facebook
Twitter