Old geezer building a pc

[Blitzen]

For a PSU something like a Corsair HX520W(if you need modular cables) or a Corsair VX550W(which is not modular) should fit the bill well.

The Liberty is a little less powerful than the Corsair (although still more than capable of running a good system) but the build quality of the Liberty is far superior.

If you are concerned about the quality of the modular cabling then the Corsair unit wont be for you.

(dont worry Mike....i wont again )

[staffsMike]

The Liberty is a little less powerful than the Corsair (although still more than capable of running a good system) but the build quality of the Liberty is far superior.

If you are concerned about the quality of the modular cabling then the Corsair unit wont be for you.

(dont worry Mike....i wont again )

Lol I won't either.. *whispers* but the modular cables are fine

I read that the liberty was a fair bit noiser than the corsair which swung it for me but this on silentpcreview so they do get quite picky about noise. The two PC's i've built that were required to be silent or as near as makes no difference I've used corsair and been very happy. My PC which I don't require to be uses an OCZ which i'm also very happy with.

400W is more than enough for what you need so the enermax liberty would be fine, corsair VX 450/550, HX 520w , they are are all good in my eyes. Just depends what you want and how much you want to pay for it.

[dangel]

I heard if you wrap modular cables in tinfoil and only build the machine during a full moon it's fine.

Honestly, modular make little or no difference - aside from being a darn sight easier to live/work with.

[Blitzen]

Lol I won't either.. *whispers* but the modular cables are fine

I read that the liberty was a fair bit noiser than the corsair which swung it for me but this on silentpcreview so they do get quite picky about noise. The two PC's i've built that were required to be silent or as near as makes no difference I've used corsair and been very happy. My PC which I don't require to be uses an OCZ which i'm also very happy with.

400W is more than enough for what you need so the enermax liberty would be fine, corsair VX 450/550, HX 520w , they are are all good in my eyes. Just depends what you want and how much you want to pay for it.

I have used both like i said and there is no audible difference.

The only fan i can hear (very slightly) on mine is the 200mm in the top of the case.

[Webby]

Working on the basis that the is no point in spending money on something you don't need I would go with the 400W Enermax liberty (cheaper than other options and still modular) as I suggested in my previous post if you are getting the case and PSU separately, without a high powered graphics card (for playing games) the power draw will never even get close to exceeding this. My System (see link under my name) only draws 140W from the wall at full CPU load (running F@H) and that is with a big graphics card sucking some juice even at idle, factoring in PSU efficiency of ~85% 120W supplied from the PSU. So I think you would be hard pressed to exceed 300W with the system you are suggesting in fact I would expect you to be much closer to 200W.

[OldRoy]

Thorsson
Re drives: 3 in a RAID 5 array (os/apps, data). 1 scratch (Photoshop, panorama tools) which ideally would be a Raptor or more ideally solid-state. And possibly 1 or even two others as data backup, fed by a robocopy script (I'm old...).

I may even order on the basis of the above discussion as soon as tomorrow, if I can stump up the conviction needed to spend this much money. Forgive my ignorance but eSata - faster?

[Thorsson]

eSATA is used for external disks and is much faster than USB. I would tend to use this for backup myself. Your RAID is fault tolerant so what you really need is an external backup that can't be taken out at the same time if some disaster hits your rig (IMO).

[Shooty*]

I still think you could make do with a 486.

Or a PDA.

But I'm outvoted

[OldRoy]

With the 486 I could actually go back to my Nikon F3. In fact I wouldn't even have to switch it on, Shooty! I could even dig out my BBC B (with co-processor: the dog's...). The fact that I'd have to massage the mb every day before it booted isn't a big problem really. And the £2K I spent on that Mac SE should have been the last time I needed to buy a new computer - 1Mb of ram and a 20 Mb hd should be enough for anyone. Never owned a PDA unless you coun't the first Nokia "Communicator".
Meanwhile.
I remembered about eSata a bit later. It's a bit of future-proofing and faster externals would't hurt.
Now, what sort of case fan do I need? Obviously quiet is good. Is it dependant on the case chosen? (finding it difficult to make my mind up).

[Thorsson]

There have been whole threads dedicated to case fans, but a good case usually has OK fans. You definitely want to get 120mm fans. After that it's a matter of trading airflow for silence. Roughly speaking 1200rpm is almost silent, 1600rpm is quiet, and ~2000rpm you really start to notice. Scythe & SHarkoon are good from experience. A number of people like the cheap Xigamech at Scan.

[OldRoy]

OK Folks, I just received the bundle. More or less as above. Overspec ps (a deal) and Antec 182 case (heavy!). Scan forgot to put the thermal paste in though.
Expect questions: I'll try to make them reasonable intelligent questions if I can. I'm going to set up to the default clock speed initially. BTW I got 4X1Gb Corsair ram. I understand that this means I can use the ram in dual-channel mode as all 4 slots are populated but can someone tell me if this is (a) a Good Thing and (b) Easy to set up?
Old Roy
Afterthought.
Is there a thread that provides a basic set of steps for a build of this kind - pre-overclocking? I'm thinking particularly for the initial BIOS setup. I haven't yet looked at the manual for the mb but I'm not expecting too much from it.

[MSIC]

I'll be in & out of the house today but will keep checking as much as i can and helping with pointers.
4 x 1 Gb sticks is fine, just put them all in, nothing to worry about (ironically, trying to find the two channels out of 4 slots is sometimes not obvious, but you dont have to think about that).

Don't even think about overclocking right now - as far as i'm concerned there is no "pre-overclocking" stuff that is different to setting up a regular PC (once you have bought your bits). Just get it up and running first, with no overclocks.

[Webby]

You may find that it wont post with 4 sticks of RAM easy to sort though, start with 1 stick of RAM and enter the BIOS and then up the memory voltage a notch, turn it off stick in the rest of the memory and away you go! The Corsair RAM assuming it is XMS2 is good up to 2.1v if your motherboard has +0.1v increments it will start at 1.8v so you need to go up to +0.3v.

Hopefully that should help if you have the problem

[OldRoy]

Thanks MSIC
Call me a fool by all means, but after an hour of struggle I can find no way of mounting the guide rails on the Samsung optical drive so as to make it fit. Even with the rails fitted in the most forward position - toward the drive front, The spring levers hit the lugs on the case with about 2cm of drive poking out of the front. I wouldn't have expected this to be a problem! How hard can it be? Puzzled...

[OldRoy]

Webby - the ram is corsair XMS2-6400.

[Webby]

yeah it is fine up to 2.1v then

I would help with the DVD mounting problems butr not having a P182 I don't know what to suggest