Another "help-me-build-a-PC" thread. (I really need your help, though.)

Any reason why you can't just use VPC?

On even a dual 1.42ghz g4, VPC is about as fast as my 75mhz laptop running windows 98 when it's power saving bug kicks in and it only runs at 33mhz.

Not to mention it screws up the entire computer too (makes it horribly laggy). I admit it's 99% of the time due to my computer's RAM being sucked up, but heck.

Even at it's fastest, VPC is about as fast as a P2 @ 450mhz. NOT fast. A 2500 athlon will make VPC look like a 486, not to mention VPC has no 3d capability.

VPC Win 95 + more RAM? Done the maths?

It's still not fast enough to do maya rendering.. and macs have a bad weakness at any kind of 3d rendering: Some CELERONS will beat dual g5s at it I imagine.

And even if not, you can get more performance out of a machine for half the cost. "SWEET" machines run $1200.

"ultimate" computers, complete with nice brushed aluminum case, dual opteron processors, and whatnot run $2000-2500.. closer to the range of the G5 but in SOME cases a LOT more powerful.

Not to mention that even the $1200 machine will have top end everything. Nice high quality motherboard, radeon 9800, solid athlon or p4 processor, superdrive, solid aluminum case, good power supply, good fans and even a few 'top end' PC motherboards have fan control systems similar to what macs have.

The ONLY disadvantage on the PC Side is you EITHER run windows or BSD/linux/unix. In essence, you can't enjoy wolfenstein at 500fps on the same machine that hosts an IRC server, decent webserver with many vhosts, and is running a KDE compile in the background at the same time... same machine, etc.

That's one of the few edges OS X has. Sadly, microsoft's only way of survival is to be proprietary.

Of course, I could sell my (worth $1100) g4 dual 800 right now, get a good athlon 2500-2700, nice case, some parts to retrofit my other PC to be a server (just a new powersupply and hard drive.. the suckers are noisy), and I'd have a much nicer setup.

But do I want it? Not really. I admit though, my g4 is extremely loud and I hate that part. It also lacks a radeon 9800, lacks SATA, lacks a faster superdrive, lacks a 533mhz or 800mhz bus, oh geez I can go on.

Point said. It'd cost me maybe $300 at most to do this 'switch' and get a more powerful machine. If I sold my g4 and got a G5, it'd cost about (to be fair the 1.8ghz g5 == 2500 athlon) $1400.

Same performance, just a little less elegant. Truth be told I'm afraid the mac lost in that case, but my mom won't let me sell my g4 anyway so I'll enjoy it it was, and still is, a totally awesome machine.

On the flipside, albeit my PC being annoyingly loud (louder then the already loud g4), it's a nice little machine fast enough to play my 'oldschool' games, and all I wish I could afford is a DVI converter for my cinema display + dvi switchbox so I could use that awesome monitor with both my computers ;D

Too bad that's too expensive.

For 3-D Studio Max and gaming? No, sir! If I could, I would, but that's not ever remotely an option. Besides, when I have all the parts, if I want to upgrade, I can just buy a new motherboards and processor and be done with it. Theoretically, anyway, I guess.

Thanks again for the info, dudes, but since we're on processors, why has AMD gone with that naming system again? As I understood it, that Athlon XP 2800+ (2.08GHz) supposedly performs at or better than a 2800-MHz P4? Or am I way off base?

Yeah, the AMD performance rating system for their processors reflects speeds similar to that offered by the Pentium4. While AMD claims their performance ratings have nothing to do with Intel's Pentium - The truth is quite the opposite. That 2.08GHz XP2800 will perform roughly on par with a 2.8GHz Pentium4.


PS, read the 'edit' on my original post about the 2.6 pentium4 HT.


Looks like the Athlon64 platform just went sub-$500


Athlon64 2GHz $404

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...tion=19-103-413


Refurb motherboard $90

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...ion=13-128-200R

OK, some quick clarification from the PC-building experts.

He's almost done building his. Needs a graphics card (9600 Pro, 256MB) and RAM (1GB) and Windoze XP, which he'll take care of in the next two weeks. Everything's set up and ready to go�we installed the motherboard and hard drive, set it to master, plugged in the LEDs, etc. Didn't power it on, of course (we're not completely retarded). All he needs are those components and he's swapping out his DVD and CD-RW from his old machine into the new case. Anyhow, when it comes time to boot her up, what exactly is the protocol?

My assumption:

We boot from the Windows disc (I don't know how, though), and Windows will take care of the rest�initializing the HD, installing, etc. The mobo is just going to automatically recognize the CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives, I assume, since that's the only damn way to install Windows. Will he need to fiddle with the BIOS? He's as clueless�moreso, really�than I am about actually installing Windows. Building the computer was easy, but then what?

MindFad--


You may find you need a power supply in there at some point. And you'd better remember to get a heat sink for the CPU.

Additionally, if you shop around a bit, you should really not have to spend more than about 50�/GB on a decently sized hard disk (possibly inclusive of rebates). Good deals are often posted on the Anandtech boards.

Yes, most motherboards are set to auto-detect hard drives and optical drives everytime you power it on. In rare cases you might have to enter the BIOS setup menu in order to manually toggle the auto-detect feature. Any attached drives, the amount of installed RAM, and the CPU clockspeed are usually displayed at power-on. Check to see if the hard disk and optical drive are reported. You may have to enable this feature in the BIOS menu.


Firstly, you wanna make sure your Windows CD is bootable. I used to know which ones would boot, but lately I forget. I'm thinking that 'upgrade' versions will not boot. Microsoft expects that you'll initially boot from the 'full version', install it, then run the 'upgrade' version installer from within the existing Windows installation. BUT...You don't need to install the 'full version' of Windows AT ALL and it'll be an hour wasted. Ideally, you want to install the 'upgrade version' FIRST, then just let the setup thingy prompt you for a peek at the 'full version' Windows CD. It just wants to verify that you do own a full version copy. Only takes a few seconds to verify compliance, as opposed to an hour if you choose to install the 'full version' first, and avoid the compliance check. Other than the compliance check included in the 'upgrade version', there is zero difference between 'full version' and 'upgrade version' Windows disks.

If your Windows CD is not bootable, you need to create a bootable floppy disk or burn a bootable CD containing system files and CDROM driver. Or you can use an existing Windows installation to create a "Windows Start-up disk" (floppy). Or you can go to www.bootdisk.com and download a suitable disk image. The goal is to provide a bare minimum OS with a CDROM driver. You don't need to do this for a bootable Windows CD.

The motherboard has lots of features for booting. Generally, you choose a priority for each bootable device. Basic choices for booting include CDROM, Hard disk 0, Hard disk 1, floppy, network, etc. If you don't have a floppy disk, you'll want to make sure that 'CDROM' takes a higher priority than any hard disks or anything else. Arrange the boot order to where 'CDROM' is first and 'hard disk 0' is second. It probably won't matter which devices come next. Here's what your boot order should look like, assuming you have no floppy: CDROM, Hard Disk 0, whatever else . The motherboard will look for a bootable CD first (on ALL installed CDROM/DVDROM drives) - if none exists, then it continue to the next device on the list, the hard drive 0 (primary IDE/ATA channel and jumpered to master like you stated)...where your Windows bootloader will (eventually) reside.

Once you power-up the machine for the first time, you want to go into the BIOS (firmware) menu and adjust the date/time, arrange the boot order, and disable any "boot virus protection" (else the Windows installer won't be able to write anything to the hard disk boot sector!! this really sucks, btw, because it's hard to figure out WHY Windows won't install). Generally, all other default BIOS settings should be fine where they are. Read the motherboard user manual and familiarize yourself with the features and settings. The 'default' settings are 'safe' settings - and that means slow and stable. There are likely a lot of performance features, too, but you'll have to enable them manually. Do that later, if you wish, after the Windows installation.

When your BIOS setup options are complete, you're ready to load Windows. If your Windows CD is bootable, you'll get a message after the motherboard POST (power-on self-test) asking if you want to boot from the CD. Usually, for about 3-5 seconds you'll see "Press any key to boot from CDROM" displayed on your monitor. Press a key to boot from the Windows CD. You'll get a Windows menu. Choose "install Windows". If you don't press any keys, the motherboard will skip to the next device in the boot order (hard disk 0). Since Windows will restart the computer several times during installation, it's important that you do not allow it to boot from the CDROM during those restarts...so don't press any keys if it asks - let it time-out after a few seconds and then it'll continue on to the hard disk.

If your Windows CD is not bootable:

Use a bootable CD containing system files. You'll arrive at a commandline window showing just a cursor beside the current drive letter (probably 'D'). Swap the CD for the Windows CD, type 'setup', and press enter - you'll see the Windows setup menu screen.

If you have only a bootable floppy disk or Windows Start-up disk - you want to make sure that floppy drive is listed first and before CDROM and hard disks in your BIOS boot-order menu. Insert the floppy disk, power-on the machine, and it should boot from the floppy disk - leaving you with nothing but a cursor beside an A-prompt. A: is the drive letter assigned to floppy drives. When you see "A:>" then type D: (or whatever drive letter is assigned to your CDROM drive) and press enter. Now you should see nothing but "D:>" So then type 'setup' and press enter. That should launch the executeable named "setup.exe" that is found on the disk in drive D: - which is the Windows setup menu.


Apple offers a built-in "minimal OS" as part of its machine's firmware. This provides the CDROM drivers and other stuff required for installing an OS. It is essentially the equivalent of a Windows start-up floppy disk & a boot manager - without the need for a drive or disk.

Power supply came with the case, heat sink with fan and thermal j�zz (paste) and proc. shim came with mobo. And my bud found a good deal on a western digital at Best Buy for $70 (for 120GB) after rebates. He's psyched.

Spliff: You're the man. That's exactly what I needed to know. About messing with the BIOS, will it take you to the BIOS itself, or are there any special startup key commands to hold down? I'll let ya know how it goes in the next week or so. Thanks again!

There will be a message during the early stages of POST telling you to "Press Delete for Setup", or something similar. F1 and Delete are the most popular keys and will get you into 95% of all BIOS menus - excluding manufactured peecees.

Sometimes the window of opportunity is very short and you press the key too late - simply press cntrl-alt-delete and it'll restart for ya again.


PS, make sure to check for BIOS updates at the motherboard manufacturer's website. Your current BIOS revision # will be displayed during POST. Look for the date, not the numbers. The numbers may look different but the date never lies. Sometimes there are major bug-fixes and sometimes there are minor revisions that merely add newly released CPU speeds - so they are reported accurately, mostly. Don't waste your time if the update includes no bug fixes.

One more thing...

Your first stop after installing Windows and connecting to the internet should be at WindowsUpdate. Get all the current updates, patches, and (WHQL-only) drivers. Install a firewall such as Zonealarm (excellent freeware! www.zonealarm.com ). Then disable scripting in Outlook Express. yay. virus & worm resistant.

Then check for driver updates for your hardware. Most hardware seems to ship with old-ass drivers. Stick with WHQL approved drivers if stability is paramount, but I've had great luck with non-approved drivers. non-beta ones, anyways. Windows, by default, will install ONLY drivers that are WHQL-approved. It will balk at any attempt to load a non-WHQL driver by throwing up a dialog box warning you of the dire consequences of loading a crappy non-approved driver. You must approve the installation of non-WHQL drivers. The WindowsUpdate feature MAY not offer the newest WHQL drivers. You need to check the manufacturer's website to be sure you have the newest WHQL driver.

Why did I use the term WHQL so many damned times? I dunno. Most folks don't care which drivers they load as long as they work well.

aw hell.

While we're on the subject...

The Windows Setup installer will allow you to partition and format the hard drive (aka, physical drive) - and it will let you choose which partition (aka, logical drive) you want Windows files installed.

You have to decide whether to format the drive (and any partitions) as NTFS or FAT32. WindowsXP installer will default to NTFS format and system files will reside on drive C: You can format, add, and delete non-system partitions from within Windows later on (at least on XP Pro).

Non-NT versions of Windows cannot read or write an NTFS formatted drive. Few non-Windows operating systems can read&write to NTFS. That's the only downside of NTFS, in my opinion. If you want to be able to password-protect files and folders you have to use NTFS.

FAT32 offers almost universal read&write support. It doesn't offer much in the way of security or data integrity - but it's still very good and very useful. I retain at least one FAT32 partition in order to "exchange" files between 2 operating systems in a dual boot configuration. If the other OS can't read&write NTFS, then I simply move the data to the FAT32 partition beforehand. Leave a partition of maybe 4GB or so - and format it as FAT32, just in case - if you're gonna be using NTFS or other filesystem formats. You can add another hard drive later, when you add another OS. In place of a boot manager you can change the boot order in BIOS and boot from whichever hard drive (OS) you want.

You can get by with only 5GB for your Windows system partition if you don't install too many applications on that partition. Personally, I use a 40GB Windows partition and just let it ride. Seems to be enough room (Oddly, some application installers won't even work without a C: drive being available). I just keep all my audio/video files on their own partition.

Is it better that Sygate Personal Firewall? (the firewall that I use, and I think it is good).

And what about the Windows XP integrated firewall?

It's probably not as full-featured as Sygate's software - but Zonealarm might offer something competitive that isn't freeware.

Zonealarm is easy to use, non-intrusive (and no ads), and very effective. It's just hard to beat. Oh yeah, it even disables Outlook Express scripting for you. geez. I'm surprised it doesn't cook you breakfast.

XP's integrated firewall lacks a GUI. You'll go nuts wondering why your Yahoo Messenger file transfers don't work, why your network games won't 'network', and why nothing on any network can see you. It's so secure you can't get anything done. Zonealarm ASKS if you want to allow an application's request to access the network. Unlike XP's firewall, which simply declines the request and doesn't bother telling you.

Depending on the type of network setup you choose, WindowsXP's built-in firewall may or may not be enabled by default. I disabled mine.

That case is very...very... interesting. I would never buy a pre modded case. Get a nice chieftec one

OK, folks, we've run into a problem. It ... won't start up, and everything is connected properly (or so we think). We've run over every single pin and setting of jumpers. Everything has power, everything is set up and ready to go, but it won't start.

When we turn the power on in the back, the fans light up for a brief second. Then when we go to power the board up from the switch at the front of the computer, nothing. At first, we realized the connection was broken (pieces weren't connected), so we fixed that still nothing. Checked all of the pin assignments. Still nothing. So we have a box full of nice expensive PC parts, a copy of Halo, WindowsXP, and our dicks in our hands.

Is there some checklist to go over to see what could possibly be wrong? The thing is getting power. But damn! Hard drives don't spin up, fans don't come on, etc. when the power button is pushed at the front. Just that brief second when you close the circuit in the back (with the switch). Sigh. Any help is very, very appreciated. Thanks, guys�let me know if you need some specs.

Two things to try:

One, check where the front panel switchs connect to the motherboard. The black connectors from the panel will have a triangle faintly marked on them indicating pin 1. Look on the motherboard or in the motherboard book to find out which side of that pin block is pin one. Make sure all the connectors are on in the correct location and oriented properly- polarity matters.

Two, remove all accessory cards and cables from the motherboard, only that which is needed to boot: power supply, front panel, graphics card. Make sure RAM is firmly and correctly installed. Ditto for processor.

I really like these guys:

http://jncs.com/

My other advice: go with a good serial ATA for the hard disks. If you want to make sure a disk crash doesn't kill you, mirror them with a good disk controller. Otherwise, I'd go for RAID 0 madness.

If you can afford a dual processor setup, do it. If makes a huge difference. I run Windows apps all the time. I've got this dual 333 box at work that runs some apps like a champ. It would choke if it were a single 333.

Don't forget a good UPS system. I can't tell you how many systems I have to rebuild because of dirty power. It's ridiculous that people pay $1500 putting a killer system together and then plug it straight into the wall "because an $80 UPS is unnecessary."


wolfen

Thanks, dude, but we're past the part-buying. (See above.) I will keep them in mind, though, when I build my own.

Thanks, vmarks. We'll take those steps. I'll report back. Thanks!

first..

Use the 'Clear CMOS' jumper. This resets all BIOS options to default. Move the jumper from the "normal" position and place it in the "clear" position for a few seconds. I reckon this is akin to pressing the CUDA button on a Mac.

NOTE: Some motherboards ship with the jumper set to "clear", not "normal". The motherboard won't POST if the CMOS jumper is set to "clear". Why do they ship 'em this way? Because they're idiots or maybe they like getting a ton of RMAs.

Some motherboards don't do nuthin unless the CPU and RAM are installed. Make sure these components are fully seated in their sockets.

Generally, even a bare motherboard will power-on. No RAM, CPU, or video card. Just plug in the power supply cable and use the power switch or a pair of toenail clippers to momentarily connect the appropriate pins. Motherboards with an onboard speaker might even give you a 'beep code' to identify the error (CPU failure, no doubt).


You don't have to go that far. Yet. Just strip her down to the video card, CPU (and its fan) and one stick of RAM. No hard drive cables or floppy cables, nothing in the PCI slots. make sure the power supply is powered-off AND unplugged. Then reset the CMOS using the jumper. Place the jumper back in the normal position, then remove the battery. Stare at that battery for a few minutes while you have a cup of coffee. You're waiting for some capacitors to lose their charge. Put the battery back in, plug-in the power supply, and power-up the motherboard.

If nothing happens....

repeat above procedure using a different stick of RAM if possible.

If nothing happens....

Pull the motherboard out of the case and lay it down on something non-conductive (Formica countertop, wood floor, a newspaper. Sure static electricity can kill stuff like motherboards, but it's a longshot. I've done it hundreds of times without incident. Wrist straps are for sissies and folks that handle electronics all day long.

Anyways, the goal is to eliminate any possibility thatthe case itself was grounding or shorting the motherboard. try powering it up with just CPU, RAM, and video card. No luck? Unplug the power and pull the lever to release the CPU out of the socket. Examine the pins on the CPU. Look OK? Drop it back into the socket - making sure it's fully seated - and lock it down. Pull out the RAM and reseat it. Try to power it up again.



next....


If you're sure all the jumpers (prolly aren't very many) are in their correct locations, and you're sure the power supply is working (all voltages, all rails) then you got a dud motherboard. It's extremely unlikely that the CPU is faulty or the RAM is faulty...however, there's an even chance of it being either the motherboard or power supply. Borrow a power supply if you can. I've seen way more DOA power supplies than I've seen DOA Asus motherboards. If all else fails, either return it to the retailer for exchange (if possible) or RMA it back to the manufacturer (2 week turnaround).

A no-boot condition on a newly-built peecee is commonplace. hell, about one-third of mine don't do diddily the first time the power button is pushed. But somehow, 95% of the time I manage to bring them to life.


longshot:

Some motherboards 'look' for rotation of the CPU cooling fan before they will allow POST *power-on self-test. Most fans have a 3rd wire (blue, typically) that is used to deliver a RPM signal to the motherboard. If the motherboard doesn't 'see' any fan rotation on the CPU - it won't POST. The CPU fan should have 3 wires and should be plugged into the motherboard fan header reserved for the CPU fan. If this is true in your case, this is not the problem.


next.....



bong hit.