About to buy -- need sanity check :-)
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Will do! It might not be until next week, depending on when the stuff gets here and when I have time to try putting it together.bookman wrote:Let us know how it went. I am personally interested because your system is very similar to the one I intend to build.
If you're curious, the final system specs were:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8GHz, 512KB L2 Cache 939-Pin 64-bit Processor
CPU Heatsink: Thermalright Heatsink XP-120
CPU Fan: Nexus "Real Silent" 120mm
Mobo: ASUS "A8N-SLI Deluxe" nForce4 SLI Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU
- Zalman NB47J passive heatsink for the mobo.
Case: EverCase Black ATX Mid Tower Case, Model "E4252BB-81"
PSU: Seasonic S12 Series 430W
Case Fan: Nexus "Real Silent" 120mm
HD: SAMSUNG 160GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model SP1604N
RAM: Mushkin Blue Dual Pack 184 Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
DVD/CD-RW Drive: Plextor Model PX-712SA/SW-BL
Video Card: Gigabyte passive cooled GV-NX66128DP 6600
Floppy Drive: NEC 1.44MB Black Internal Floppy Drive
I chose Arctic Silver Ceramique for thermal paste.
Not sure if you'll be making a purchase in time, or if you're buying from Newegg, but they have a coupon code for $10 off the mobo if you buy it by 3/18: "NEWASUSSAVE10".
Carl
system done (sorta)
Sorry for the delay in posting this; there was a mixup with the video card (I was sent the model with the fan instead of the passively cooled one) which was very frustrating.
But the system is now together and, as far as I can tell, is working fine. For the most part, the it's very quiet. It's not completely silent, but I didn't expect it to be. The fans (case fan, CPU fan, and PSU fan) have a low hum to them. Overall, it's much more quiet than my old PC, which was the goal.
The main disappointment is the hard drive. I'm not sure if my expectations are too high in this regard, but it's louder than I thought it would be on seeks (at idle it's very quiet). I posted about this on the "Silent Storage" forum. I'm not sure if I got a bad drive, or installed it unoptimally, or the level of silence I expected was unreasonable. I'm thinking tonight I'll remove it from the case mounting and place it on some foam to see if it's the installation.
Also, the DVD/CD drive is not quiet. It's quieter than some drives I've heard, and seems pretty speedy. But I knew this component was going to be the loudest, so it's OK; I'm not going to be using it all that often. And I think there's some sort of quiet setting I can enable, but I haven't figured it out yet. I was up really late last night fiddling with things; I'll play with it more tonight.
Installing the motherboard heatsink was a bit of a pain. Getting the existing fan off the motherboard was difficult; I ended up having a friend help me cut off the plastic bits that stick into the motherboard as I pressed them in further. The NB47J was a little tricky to line up everything just right, and seems a bit loose (I can twist it slightly). I'm not sure if I tightened up the screws all the way, but it's not easy to get it off again and check. Fortunately it does seem to be transferring heat, as it's very warm to the touch (but not so warm I can't keep my fingers on it). My advice is to make sure you put the black pins into the metal arms correctly, then line them up while attached to the heatsink. When you've got them lined up right, make sure you remember to tighten the screws.
The CPU heatsink has never gotten hot, as far as I can tell. I figure this is either because it's doing a really good job, or I installed it wrong and the CPU is slowly frying itself. I haven't yet installed the software to check temps.
My last piece of advice is to install the drivers that come with your motherboard. You'll avoid spending two hours trying to figure out why your ethernet isn't working, as I did last night.
Total build time, for hardware, was about five hours for me. I've never done it before, so someone experienced could probably do it faster.
If anyone has specific questions, I'll do my best to answer them. I'm very grateful for all the help and advice I've gotten here.
Carl
But the system is now together and, as far as I can tell, is working fine. For the most part, the it's very quiet. It's not completely silent, but I didn't expect it to be. The fans (case fan, CPU fan, and PSU fan) have a low hum to them. Overall, it's much more quiet than my old PC, which was the goal.
The main disappointment is the hard drive. I'm not sure if my expectations are too high in this regard, but it's louder than I thought it would be on seeks (at idle it's very quiet). I posted about this on the "Silent Storage" forum. I'm not sure if I got a bad drive, or installed it unoptimally, or the level of silence I expected was unreasonable. I'm thinking tonight I'll remove it from the case mounting and place it on some foam to see if it's the installation.
Also, the DVD/CD drive is not quiet. It's quieter than some drives I've heard, and seems pretty speedy. But I knew this component was going to be the loudest, so it's OK; I'm not going to be using it all that often. And I think there's some sort of quiet setting I can enable, but I haven't figured it out yet. I was up really late last night fiddling with things; I'll play with it more tonight.
Installing the motherboard heatsink was a bit of a pain. Getting the existing fan off the motherboard was difficult; I ended up having a friend help me cut off the plastic bits that stick into the motherboard as I pressed them in further. The NB47J was a little tricky to line up everything just right, and seems a bit loose (I can twist it slightly). I'm not sure if I tightened up the screws all the way, but it's not easy to get it off again and check. Fortunately it does seem to be transferring heat, as it's very warm to the touch (but not so warm I can't keep my fingers on it). My advice is to make sure you put the black pins into the metal arms correctly, then line them up while attached to the heatsink. When you've got them lined up right, make sure you remember to tighten the screws.
The CPU heatsink has never gotten hot, as far as I can tell. I figure this is either because it's doing a really good job, or I installed it wrong and the CPU is slowly frying itself. I haven't yet installed the software to check temps.
My last piece of advice is to install the drivers that come with your motherboard. You'll avoid spending two hours trying to figure out why your ethernet isn't working, as I did last night.
Total build time, for hardware, was about five hours for me. I've never done it before, so someone experienced could probably do it faster.
If anyone has specific questions, I'll do my best to answer them. I'm very grateful for all the help and advice I've gotten here.
Carl
more...
I'm updating this thread mostly for people that might search the forum at a later date. Just a couple of things:
I updated the motherboard BIOS to version 1006 and then started getting annoying warnings at boot time about the CHIP fan and CPU fan not working or performing below a given threshold. It took me a while to realize that the CHIP fan was the chipset fan, which I had removed and replaced with a heatsink. So I disabled this warning in the BIOS. The CPU fan alarm was set to go off if the fan was running at under 1200 rpm. Asus PC Probe told me that fan was at ~1000 rpm, so I changed the warning (again in the BIOS settings) to go off at under 800.
One notable thing that happened was that when I first updated the mobo chipset drivers (using the CD that came with the mobo), my Plextor SATA DVD/CD drive stopped working (it would lock the computer up when I inserted a CD). I updated the firmware of the drive, but it still didn't work. So I disconnected the drive and downloaded the latest nForce drivers (v6.53) from nVidia's website. Afer a few reboots, I reconnected the drive, and it started working again.
But now one of my ethernet ports isn't working (the nVidia one, not the Marvell one). I'm not sure how to fix this. When I try to re-install the drivers, the installer freezes up partway though. Apparently you can only install them once . I've e-mailed Asus about it (as nVidia doesn't give tech support for mobos).
Anyway, hope this helps someone out there.
Carl
I updated the motherboard BIOS to version 1006 and then started getting annoying warnings at boot time about the CHIP fan and CPU fan not working or performing below a given threshold. It took me a while to realize that the CHIP fan was the chipset fan, which I had removed and replaced with a heatsink. So I disabled this warning in the BIOS. The CPU fan alarm was set to go off if the fan was running at under 1200 rpm. Asus PC Probe told me that fan was at ~1000 rpm, so I changed the warning (again in the BIOS settings) to go off at under 800.
One notable thing that happened was that when I first updated the mobo chipset drivers (using the CD that came with the mobo), my Plextor SATA DVD/CD drive stopped working (it would lock the computer up when I inserted a CD). I updated the firmware of the drive, but it still didn't work. So I disconnected the drive and downloaded the latest nForce drivers (v6.53) from nVidia's website. Afer a few reboots, I reconnected the drive, and it started working again.
But now one of my ethernet ports isn't working (the nVidia one, not the Marvell one). I'm not sure how to fix this. When I try to re-install the drivers, the installer freezes up partway though. Apparently you can only install them once
. I've e-mailed Asus about it (as nVidia doesn't give tech support for mobos).Anyway, hope this helps someone out there.
Carl
The latest (and probably last) update:carl wrote:But now one of my ethernet ports isn't working (the nVidia one, not the Marvell one). I'm not sure how to fix this. When I try to re-install the drivers, the installer freezes up partway though. Apparently you can only install them once
Asus tech support was not very helpful. They told me to uninstall and reinstall the drivers. I did that, and it still didn't work. Then they told me to contact nVidia. But nVidia's website explicitly says that they only provide support for DVD encoders, and to contact the motherboard manufacturer for support. So I'm having second thoughts about buying a mobo with an nVidia chipset.
Asus did send me an RMA (rather than contacting nVidia for me, which is what I asked them to do). But I'm not going to take apart my machine and send my mobo to them. They'll probably just send me another one which'll not work, and then I'm without a computer for several weeks. I'll just live with the problem. Fortunately I still have one working ethernet port.
Also, I mentioned that the CD drive is loud, and it is, but Plextor provides software ("Plextools") that allows you to control read and write speeds (and even the speed the tray goes in and out!). Using this I was able to get the drive to be very quiet, but in the end I prefer the speed and set it back to normal.
Carl
It's been a while since I posted, but wanted to let people know that I resolved the problem of the ethernet port. Thanks to bookman's advice, I posted on Anandtech and found out that others experienced the same issue. Turns out it's the latest version of nVidia's firewall. Disabling it makes the port work again.bookman wrote:Sorry to hear about the non-functioning port. Do you have the latest ASUS drivers downloaded? There are a lot of posts on this mobo in the anandtech forums - maybe the answer is there.
Hope this helps someone!