After months of research, purchases, and seemingly never-ending questions here on Hexus, I'll finally be building my own PC for the first time (final part comes tomarrow; building will start the day after Christmas). Below is listed every component I've purchased:
Case: Raidmax Smilodon ATX mid-tower w/ 1x120mm fan, 4x80mm fans
Video Card: eVGA GeForce 8800GT Superclocked
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5
Motherboard: Abit IP-35 Pro
Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Optical Drive 1: LiteOn DVD-RAM (and all other formats) Lightscribe Burner - SATA connection
Optical Drive 2: LiteOn CD-RW Burner 52x32x52x - IDE connection
Floppy Drive: Sony Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive
Hard Drive: 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA 3.0GB/s in RAID-0 configuration
RAM: Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB(4 x 1GB) 240-Pin SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Kit
PSU: Antec NeoPower 650 Blue ATX12V / EPS12V 650W
Keyboard: Saitek PK02 2-Tone USB Standard Eclipse II
Mouse: Logitech G5 (2007 7-button reissue) USB laser mouse
Monitor: Samsung 226bw 22" LCD monitor (S-panel)
Operating Systems: (Dual Boot) Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit, Windows XP Pro w/ SP2 & all hotfixes through July
I was hoping you kind folks here could give me any tips or anything for doing this, because frankly I'm a bit overwhelmed at the prospect. I've looked at a couple of how-to guides, but I was hoping for some more specialized adviced geared towards what I'll be using, etc. I also still have a couple of questions that I haven't found answers too.
1. About Arctic Silver 5...I've heard two ways of doing this and don't know which is really right: the instructions on their website say to use a verticle line down the middle (not using too much), then set the HSF directly on top and slightly rotate it about a degree to the left and right. But many of the PC build guides (and both of my close mates who have done this before) say to use a sandwhich bag to smooth a layer onto the entire top of the heatspreader, then mount the HSF. Which is right?
2. I've heard how you have to load SATA drivers when installing XP, but I was wondering if this still has to be done if the XP disk I'm using has SP2 (and most of the post-SP2 hotfixes) slipstreamed in? If you do still have to load SATA drivers, whats the proper way to do this? And will Vista require the SATA drivers to be loaded too when I install it?
3. Whats the proper way to setup RAID-0 with this mobo and with XP, and then with Vista?
4. Does the IP-35 Pro ship with the newest BIOS, and if not, should I go ahead and flash it to the newest version before installing Windows?
Thats all I can think of at the moment. Aside from those questions, I'd also like to hear anything else I should know; the easier this is for me, the better. And I'd hate to do soemthing stupid that would make me troubleshoot for hours, or render a part useless, if I can avoid it.
I'll appriciate any imput at all from you guys!