Newbie Build - Can you Help ?

[Blitzen]

People phone up making stories (or telling the truth) that their mobo died and they could not get a replacement so a new one had been given and Microsoft allow them to re-activate

Not always.
Microsoft have been very strict with Vista and rightly so.

If you think you may need to transfer, then get retail.

[watercooled]

Premium is where it's at iirc. Home basic is missing a few things like aero, volume shadow copy, scheduled backups, bitlocker, media center, fax and scan etc...

Not major things but everyone always recommends to spend £20 more and get home premium.

Yeah, they might not be any major differences but there are features you might miss, especially if you've used Premium before. In my opinion, it's £20 extra worth spending. If you really need to save every penny, give Linux a try or download the Windows 7 Beta.

[PaulBrum]

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-g...g-it-together/


This looks like a pretty good beginners guide - will be reading this tonight

Paul

[moogle]

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-g...g-it-together/


This looks like a pretty good beginners guide - will be reading this tonight

Paul

Missing a few bits but like you said it's quite good for a beginner

[Ciber]

At the risk of sounding stoopid - whats a swapfile ?

Paul

swapfile = pagefile = virtual memory

It's something windows uses to store files to help performance. Having it at the beginning part of a hard drive, the fastest part, will make your PC faster. Even better if it's on a seperate hard drive.

[watercooled]

This might sound obvious, but I wanted to be sure - is the beginning of the HDD as shown in drive manager the actual start of the drive, or is it back to front? Also, is the start of the disk at the edge or the centre of a platter?

[matty-hodgson]

This might sound obvious, but I wanted to be sure - is the beginning of the HDD as shown in drive manager the actual start of the drive, or is it back to front? Also, is the start of the disk at the edge or the centre of a platter?

the start of a disc is the outside of the platter and it's the actual start of the disk.
if you ever do a full disk check using HD Tune, you'll notice the difference as it works it's way into the centre of the disk. my 1TB started out at about 120mbps scanning and worked its way down to around 55mbps at the centre of the disk.

[watercooled]

Yeah that makes sense - more bits because of a greater distance from centre pass the head more quickly. Got a bit confused thinking of optical discs which start at the centre. Gets a bit more confusing with multiple platter drives, though.
Sorry for thread hijacking btw - I've moved other questions to a new thread. Good luck with your build!

[PaulBrum]

Wel, the EBuyer delivery has arrived, Hard drive, RAM, GPU and DVD drive.

The rest is coming on Monday

Question: the Hard Drive and DVD drive came with no cables - will I need to buy these seprately, or will the Mobo be supplied with the necessary ? Will the processor come with a stock fan, will I need some thermal paste ?

Paul

[staffsMike]

The mobo will almost certainly have at least 2 cables so that will be fine.

Black editions of old didn't come with coolers but like i said in another thread (maybe yours..) my 9950 came with a stonking great stock HSF

I'd wait and see. If it does come with one then you wont need thermal paste, just a bit of elbow grease to get the blooming thing on.

[moogle]

Question: the Hard Drive and DVD drive came with no cables - will I need to buy these seprately, or will the Mobo be supplied with the necessary ?

Most mobos come with at least 2 sata cables (I'm assuming you got sata ones ) and ide ones sometimes.

[Pob255]

Most mobos come with at least 2 sata cables (I'm assuming you got sata ones ) and ide ones sometimes.

Yep the normal load is 2 sata cables, 1 ide cable, 1 floppy cable, IO back plate, manual, driver cd
Other stuff as well depending on the motherboard.
eg if it's a crossfire motherboard it normally comes with a crossfire connector.

Stock heat sinks normally come with some paste pre applied

[watercooled]

I got 4 S-ATA cables with my mobo - two straight and two right-angled and all latching type. Also got 1 floppy/1 ATA but I've not used them.

[PaulBrum]

Ok, the build has commenced and (suprise, suprise!) I've got a couple of queries re the power leads.

1)

I’ve got a Xigmatek 650W modular supply. Hardwired from the unit are 4 cables:

1. 24 pin main power cable
2. 4 pin CPU power cable
3. PCI-E (6/8 pin) cable
4. Ditto.

It’s clear to me where 1 and 2 connect, but what are 3+4 for?

Presumably, 1 can be used for my graphics card power (HD4850) even though I will only be using 6 of the 8 pins (is this ok?)?

Is the other cable just left dangling about unused?

2)

The PSU comes with a couple of SATA cables – each with 3 SATA connectors (i.e 3xSATA termination points on each cable) – presumably I use one of these cables to directly power both my hard drive and DVD drive and I’m ok to leave one of the connectors unused?

I’ve noticed that the SATA power cables that were included with the Mobo terminate with a 4 pin (molex??) connector – should I be using these instead?

Help appreciated………………….it could be a long night

Paul

[staffsMike]

They are fine being left unused. So if you only need on PCIe.. leave the other.. tuck it away somewhere.

Use SATA power on your SATA drives but molex would be fine. Either or, not both.

[PaulBrum]

Cheers Staffs, so I'm ok to use the PCI-E from the PSU direct to the graphics card, just using 6 of the 8 connectors?

It looks like this cable can be used like this as 2 of the 8 connectors are separate.

And one SATA power connection (to the PSU) will be enough to power both the DVD and Hard drive?

Sorry if all this seems really obvious, but I dont want anything exploding

Paul