My first Pc build alone and so far so good - but questions

[Barrichello]

Hello all

Well my first ever install is going well so far i think.

Many of you have been a great help in recommending the parts etc and was wondering if i could trouble you one last time with a question now im putting the Pc together.

I have installled my Asus P5B and E6600 Core duo set up and im at the bios preparing to install windows.

I checked my temps in the bios and i think its looks good 30c for cpu and 21c for chipset, do they seem ok to most P5B/E6600 owners?. Im using a Arctic cooler pro7 instead of the one that came with my CPU and i heard that it should keep the cpu cooler

Anyway my main question so far is i have come to the install part of Windows and the target drive is showing as 131069MB instead of the 150gb i was expecting for my 150GB Raptor Enterprise drive. I was thinking that maybe once in windows it will show as 150gb once i have installed it? or am i doing something wrong or omitting something?

any advice greatly appreciated as always

regards

[Clunk]

Temps are fine, nice and low.

That is the correct size for the drive...from wikipedia

"There are two slightly different definitions of the size of a gigabyte in use:

* 1,000,000,000 bytes or 109 bytes is the decimal definition used in telecommunications (such as network speeds) and most computer storage manufacturers (such as hard disks and flash drives). This usage is compatible with SI. Quotes from Seagate: "The storage industry standard is to display capacity in decimal"[1], and "One gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes when referring to hard drive capacity"[2], and similar quotes are found on the websites of other storage manufacturers.
* 1,073,741,824 bytes, equal to 10243, or 230 bytes. This is the definition used for computer memory sizes, and most often used in computer engineering, computer science, and most aspects of computer operating systems. The IEC recommends that this unit should instead be called a gibibyte (abbreviated GiB), as it conflicts with SI units used for bus speeds and the like. HP states that Microsoft normally adheres to this definition [3]
"


so dont worry

[SuicidaL]

had this on a WD drive i brought, was 250gb but showed 232gb...isn't it something to do with the way its marketed? eg 100gb= 100,000,000,000 bytes but a from the beginning 1mb = 1024kb and so on, so a bit of a discrepancy there.....could be wrong and have been before.

[SuicidaL]

clunk beat me

[Barrichello]

wow - cheers for the fast responses

Wikpiedia seems to explain it all. It wasnt that disk space was a issue for me as i will be using my old large 250gb ide drive slaved, but good to learn something new about official sizing etc

The drive has completed formating - and XP pro happily installing now. Well Fingers crossed for rest of install. I just need to remember to flash the bios to revision 0804 as it seems to have a fix for my x1950pro ATI card which i know from reading people have experienced problems with.

sure i will be back to bug you with more questions later - but so far so good for a "Virgin" PC builder

[redsky009]

nice one - you can update your My System now

[Barrichello]

nice one - you can update your My System now

Updated


Its 2.20am and im still up loading on all my updates/apps/games.

I have been playing World of warcraft on this new build and even though its not a crazy fps intense game the difference with this new PC is quite simply amazing. The PC seems so fast/fluid compared to my old P4 set up. I dont appear to get any graphical lag like im so used to. Imsure the fact that i have 2gb instead of 512mb is also a factor as well

I have been keeping a eye on pc probe all the time and my cpu seems to stay below 40c and mb 32c.

Im going to take Clunks advice from before - about letting this build settle in for a while before i contemplate overclocking. Tbh it seems so fast now to me i cant imagine the speed difference if i go to 3.2Ghz.

[Clunk]

Updated



I have been keeping a eye on pc probe all the time and my cpu seems to stay below 40c and mb 32c.

Im going to take Clunks advice from before - about letting this build settle in for a while before i contemplate overclocking. Tbh it seems so fast now to me i cant imagine the speed difference if i go to 3.2Ghz.

Those temps are excellent, but do be aware that if you increase the voltage at all, they do shoot up quite rapidly.

Dont just let it settle in, get this and run it overnight, or if possible, for 24 hours and that should give you a good idea of if it is stable or not If it runs overnight with no errors, you should be ok to move on to overclocking.

[Barrichello]

Those temps are excellent, but do be aware that if you increase the voltage at all, they do shoot up quite rapidly.

Dont just let it settle in, get this and run it overnight, or if possible, for 24 hours and that should give you a good idea of if it is stable or not If it runs overnight with no errors, you should be ok to move on to overclocking.

I ran that for some 5 hours today - and no errors shown.

i used the "blend" stress test for CPU and ram. I checked temps during the day and the highest i can remember seeing that it hit was 46c. 46c on 1 core and 43c on the other - is that normal?

Is the "blend" one the best to do? or should i use another test when i do this tommorow for a longer period?

cheers for help clunk

[Clunk]

Yep, 3c difference is pretty much normal, it can vary. And yep, the blend test.

[Barrichello]

Ok good news - i have left my pc on for around 14 hours with the blend test and i got no errors at all that i can see - after checking the PC at the end of it it the CPU was at 45c on 1 and 42c on 2. Hope this means that i can take my first step into the world of overclocking. Im not looking to go to mad on my E6600CPU, but anything around the 3ghz mark would be good if possible with my set up. If you have any tips on how i do this from the bios that will be great, i hear that there is certain multiplyers that u need to go by depending on what core duo you have?

[Clunk]

make a note of all your bios settings before you start, just in case you need to reset the cmos and lose them all. If you already entered the ram settings manually, you can try my settings below, they were on an older bios, but should give you an idea of what works.

[Clunk]

oops, or you can go up bit by bit and test with orthos in between, sup to you really, but keep an eye on the temps because the auto setting for the vcore actually can adjust the vcore quite high (1.55v or so) depending on the fsb. You can always set the vcore to 1.4v and see what it can do at that fixed voltage

[Barrichello]

thanks for your help clunk - unfortunatly i did not get a chance to give this a go as my x1950pro has started playing up with the same reported issue other people have been happening (oh joy)

I will bookmark this though and give it a go once i am all sorted