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mr_gobbledegook

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Sep 3, 2001
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Hi am going to be building by first PC soon. I would like the following advice mainly to do with BIOS setup and software installation. Spec of my new PC is detailed at the end of this post:

1) What ratio / frequency should I be using to utilise a 1000MB/s Hypertransport bus?

I dont undertand the Clock ratio and CPU frequency settings and how this works.
Motherboard manual says CPU Clock frequency can be set to 200-400Mhz and CPU ratio set to x4 800MHz ~x20 4000MHz.

2) Are there any options I should enable that are otherwise by default switched off ? i.e What should the the CPU temp warning be set to ? and memory timing settings ? (even though there was no mention of this in the manual).

3) I only have Windows XP SP1. I hear it cannot detect hard drives >34GB. Therefore how do I go about formating the hard drive and installing Windows ? Do I just install Windows and then SP2 then format the remainder ?

4) What order should I install software? I think the following makes sense:

- Windows XP
- Windows XP SP2
- Motherboard drivers
- CD-RW / Video card drivers

Any other comments to do with building a PC are welcome.

My spec of my PC is:

AMD (Winchester) Athlon 64bit 3000+ 939pin 512kb L2cache 90nm
Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 SKT939 NFORCE4 PCI-E DDR400 RETAIL BOX
2 x Crucial 256MB DDR PC3200 400MHz 184pin Memory Module
Samsung 52x32x52x16x Int IDE DVD/CD-RW Combo
Maxtor 6B160M0 Diamondmax 10 160GB 7200rpm Serial ATA150 8MB Cache
Sapphire R9250 128M 64-bit DDR PCI VGA/TVO/DVI-I
500w Power Supply Silver With Dual Fans

<A HREF="http://www.giga-byte.com/Download/Download.asp?DownloadPath=/MotherBoard/FileList/Manual/manual_k8n_ultra_9_e.pdf" target="_new">Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 manual</A>

<font color=purple>Ladies and Gentlemen, its...Hammer Time !</font color=purple>
 
Sapphire R9250 128M 64-bit DDR PCI VGA/TVO/DVI-I
Click to expand...
Why would you build a nice A64 system and cripple it with a 64-bit memory bus PCI video card???

You want a nice 6800 Ultra PCI-Express video card.

Also, you will want to put in 2x512 RAM, minimum these days is considered to be 1GB.

Systems Running F@H:
AMD: [A64 3200+] [XP2800+ x2] [XP2400+]
Intel: [P4 2.8 x4] [P4 2.0] [P4 1.8] [P4 1.7] [P4 1.6 x2] [P4 1.4M] [Xeon 1.0] [Cel 1.0] [P3 ??]
 
Explaining the timing would take too long. You dont have to set anything for CPU or memory, as the BIOS will recognize the CPU and read the memory SPD for the timing and adjust them as they should.

Temp warning.. well, the higher you could... they are innacurate anyway and you wont want to be bothered for nothing by various alarm.. If you carefully read the instruction to put the CPU and HSF in place, you should not have any problems with overheating.

Windows SP1 support way higher than 34 Gigs.. I think it should see all of your drive.. But you should definitively make 2 partitions. one for system for easy reformatting and reinstalling and another one for personnal datas that wont need to be formatted in case you'll have to reinstall windows.

CDRW dont need drivers, you need burning apps to burn cds, unless you are happy with XP burning capabilities.. Your order is good anyway.

Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 SKT939 NFORCE4 PCI-E DDR400 RETAIL BOX and Sapphire R9250 128M 64-bit DDR PCI VGA/TVO/DVI-I
Click to expand...

Listen.. you are listing a PCIe motherboard with an PCI videocard.. As one said, get a PCIe video card. If you are not gaming, the Radeon X300 is something nice and cheap.

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LMAO i like how you think man :evil:

<font color=green> Woohoo!! I am officially an <b> Old Hand </b>!! </font color=green>
<i> <font color=red> One new Firefox fan </font color=red> </i>
<pre> Always remember to keep testicles away from live wiring </pre><p>
 
Thanks for the advice. I decided to go for a cheap video card card because I wont be doing anthing stressful on the system i.e 90% of the time will be doing web surfing, so is fit for purpose.

Will probably upgrade to a good PCI-e card when I upgrade to the next version of Windows and get a Dual core Athlon64 in 1-2 years time :)

I'm on a tight budget but but could probably afford 1GB RAM.

Also is 500W a bit of an overkill ? The case I am going to buy comes with a 350W anyway. Though a 500W would be safe bet incase I upgrade and get a Dual Core or DVD Burner, PCIe Vid card.

<font color=purple>Ladies and Gentlemen, its...Hammer Time !</font color=purple><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by mr_gobbledegook on 04/17/05 11:58 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Are you buying these separately or is it bundled hardware w/out the OS?

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.aspx?member=120067" target="_new">My System</A>
 
Buying these separately, through a relative who has got good contacts with some suppliers. The total price of the system including mouse/keyboard/standard speakers and 17" TFT is going to be around £550 (with 1GB RAM).

<font color=purple>Ladies and Gentlemen, its...Hammer Time !</font color=purple>
 
That's 1014.41$ US. You didn't mention the 17" LCD Display.

You're building from the ground up? That 9250 is gonna be your bottleneck. And the PSU if it's a cheap one.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.aspx?member=120067" target="_new">My System</A>
 
Well the PC I got now (using right this minute while posting this) is 5years old, and lets just say the components are your basic cheap type and they have NEVER failed !

I'm not worried about the video card as you can see from my current setup I can perfectly surf the web fine using a 3dfx Voodoo 3 !!

Just for humour my current setup is:
(very reliable I might add !)

Windows 98
K6-2 @ 300Mhz
6GB Hard disk
3Dfx Voodoo 3 Graphics Card
x36 CDROM drive
15" CRT monitor
160MB RAM
NETWORK CARD
SOUND CARD
56K Modem

This is going to be one major upgrade ! WOO HOO !!

<font color=purple>Ladies and Gentlemen, its...Hammer Time !</font color=purple>
 
That is a major upgrade. :lol: But I still don't see why you want to cripple a system like that with a 9250??? :frown:



<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.aspx?member=120067" target="_new">My System</A>
 
Actually he should keep the VooDoo. Or is that card AGP?

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.aspx?member=120067" target="_new">My System</A>
 
Didn't VooDoo Banshee come out before VooDoo 3?

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 
1.) 1000MHz bus is 200MHz x5
2.) Nothing in particular. If you have a RAID board but you're not RAIDing multiple drives, turn off the RAID feature for the main controller and disable any other/unused RAID controllers.
3.) SP1 doesn't have a size restriction with current drives. It was before SP1 that drives were limitted to 127GB. The smaller size you're thinking of is for FAT32 partitions, rather than NTFS, and the 40GB limit still applies to FAT32, unless you format using a 9x disk (which has a 127GB limit for FAT32). So as long as you format in NTFS, any size drive will work with SP1.
4. Instal XP SP1, then the motherboard drivers, then the video drivers, then the sound drivers. CD-RW doesn't require drivers, XP has what it needs for that. Writing software (not drivers) is recommended.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 
VooDoo Banshee had integrated 2D, I believe the 3D accelerator was a light version of the VooDoo 2.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>
 
I don't believe the amd k6-2 even has an agp slot, at least my old 333mhz k6-2 didn't have one. I had a voodoo 3 2000 16mb pci card on that beast(if you can even call it that)

that system is still in use today even. gave it to a friend when I upgraded about 2 years ago. all she uses it for is web surfing and junk like that
 
I couldn't tell you. My first K6-2 mobo and don't ask me the name of the board 'cause I can't remember it...had a Matrox Millenium II PCI video card with 4MB. I've still got it lying around unless my wife threw it out with our last move.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.aspx?member=120067" target="_new">My System</A>
 
Actually my very first was a 486 platform where you had to enable IRQ settings and onboard video controller through jumpers. That was nice.

The first one I cracked open on my own was an Intel-based AN430TX mobo. This was one of the first mobos to support 90-200Mhz Pentiums and MMX. It was also outfitted with ATi's Rage II 64-bit and a whopping 2MB of SGRAM. One thing I liked about it was the integrated Yamaha soundchip.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.aspx?member=120067" target="_new">My System</A>
 
Yes the Voodoo 3 is an AGP card. I got a VIA chipset motherboard. Still going strong baby !

<font color=purple>Ladies and Gentlemen, its...Hammer Time !</font color=purple>
 
My K6-400 runs my ventrilo server with its voodoo3 in an AGP slot! Plays Diablo2 and Quake3 pretty darn good!

"If youre paddling upstream in a canoe and a
wheel falls off, how many pancakes fit in a doghouse? None! Icecream doesn't have bones!!!"

"Battling Gimps and Dimbulbs HERE at THGC"
 
Glad to hear it! Not too many systems running anymore with the Voodoo cards.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.aspx?member=120067" target="_new">My System</A>
 
The Voodoo 5 is one of the fastest PCI cards of its time. Too bad 3dfx delayed on it. According to reviews this was the card that broke 3dfx becuase of its delays.

Good luck in finding one. :smile:

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.aspx?member=120067" target="_new">My System</A>
 
Well you're looking at either the 5500 or 6000 which is more rare. I've got two 5500s (AGP) w/ the dual CPUs I'm watching in ebay right now. One ends at 2030 tonight GMT + 1 hour. I wanna know how much it goes for. The other one comes with the complete package as he bought it. It still has 8 days. Both are used but in excellent condition.

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