SUPER COMPUTER!!!!!!!!!

[hifimaster]

Hi All
I am building my first super computer
-Abit Kt7-raid (might be KT7a-Raid I dont have it yet but my Dad said it has red RAID connectors)
-AMD Tbird 1100 Mhz
-Dual 20 gig Western Digital Ata/100 7200rpm (RAID 0)
-256MB Kingmax pc150 sdram
-Annihilator 2 Ultra (64mb DDR @ 460mhz)
-Coolermaster ATC-201(Very Nice)ATX case W/400 Watt psu
-Sound Blasters Live Platinum 5.1
-Sony 19in Trinitron Monitor

Anyway I need know a few things:
1)Dose the KT7a-RAID have red connectors for the raid system and the KT7-RAID have blue connectors?

2)Should i update the bios or install windows (98SE) first?

3)What are some problems I should look out for with this configuration(Besides "SB16 DOS emulation&quot?
Thank You ,Dan

 

[monotone]

The Kt7-raid has red connectors. The board will probably come with the UL bios, i would upgrade it to WW before doing anything else (better raid support).

Update:
At Abit's site the Kt7-raid has blue connectors, and the Kt7a-raid has red connectors, but my Kt7-raid also has red connectors, possibly because it's revision 1.02. I guess you'll have to wait and see.

 

[HellRaven]

<< 2)Should i update the bios or install windows (98SE) first? >>


I would probably flash the bios to a newer one with upgraded Highpoint RAID controller files in it since RAID has been a bit touchy with most people on the highpoint controller in the KT7-Raid.



<< 3)What are some problems I should look out for with this configuration(Besides &quot;SB16 DOS emulation&quot >>


I would HIGHLY suggest you check out This very good KT7 FAQ. They are having a few problems since some retard renamed their index.html to faqindex.html today but there is alot of info there. Good place to go if you have any problems.

Updating to the latest Via 4-1's after initial installation is a must. I also installed the Via USB filter since there were reports of some possible problems with USB (I didn't have any).

If you also use Win2k there is also a download that fixes a few problems win2k has with Athlon/Duron systems within win2k.

Install latest drivers for all cards of course.

 

[730]

I think that you should save some money on your cpu, get 1000MHz instead of 1.1GHz and overclock it and spend your saved money on a SCSI hard drive. No software I am aware of right now will use anything close to the power of 1GHz+ and the bottleneck of most systems is the hard drive so your config looks good, but if you want it to be a super computer, then you definately need scsi.

 

[SuperFreaky]

Just making sure you've had the pleasure...

 

[ToXiCRaGE]

its all nice that u have but i wouldnt go with WD HD. Get Maxtor 7200 rpm ones.... better than WD

 

[fir3wir3]

I hope you dont want to overclock on that board

 

[zippy]

I wouldn't go with Western Digital either- their more recent hard drives have absolutely horrible seek times! Their 30GB, 7,200 RPM, ATA/100 model (probably just a larger version of the one you are getting) has a 15.5ms seek time- that is absolutely terrible! Even the first 7,200 RPM IDE drives had MUCH lower seek time (9 or 9.5ms generally).

Get some IBM 75GXPs or Maxtor Diamondmax + drives. <smacks lips>

 

[Shu8]

you should definetly go with an ibm 75gxp hard drive. i've had problems with WD hard drives. you can find them online for the same price you can get the WD's.