My new Rig

Shaid · Mar 5, 2005

Hi Everyone,

I just gotdone ordering all of the parts for my new system and just wanted some feedback on what you guys thought. I still may order a power supply but am waiting to see what the p/s I get with my case can do.

Here's my system
AMD 64 3000+
DFI NF4 Ultra-D mobo
2x512 mb pc3200 kingston ram
HP lightscribe DL DVD burner
standard back floppy drive
X800xl vid care
160gb SATA barracuda HDD w/NCQ
A-Top Silver/Black Gaming Case with 450w p/s - seen here - http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-105-113&depa=1

Whole Rig w/shipping, tax etc. ran me $1040 which is a bit more than I wanted to spend but I guess that's life. Thoughts?

pat · Mar 5, 2005

You can have a cheaper burner from NEC or BenQ. The PSU in the case is probably cheap and I definitlvely dont recommend cheap PSU with newer computer component, unless you are ready to deal with instability and parts failure... So you better order the better one now

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

Shaid · Mar 5, 2005

Yeah, I already was leaning toward just getting a new p/s but I just wanted to see what actually came with it. I'm sure you're probably right. On the burner, I know I can get a cheaper one but I really wanted one that came with lightsribe and that is why I got that.

Rugger · Mar 5, 2005

Have fun installing! Too late to comment on setup really...Day late, dollar short and all that

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Guest · Mar 5, 2005

Just don't use NCQ with that HDD...unless you're running a server or something

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Rugger · Mar 5, 2005

Why?

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Guest · Mar 5, 2005

Since its'd designed to work best in multi-threaded environments with high random I/O workloads, using it with low I/O workloads can actually decrease performance.

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pat · Mar 6, 2005

I peronsally don't believe in generic PSU breaking your computer.
Since that rig only uses up to ~400W so with 450W generic shouldn't be a problem.

So, how do you explain that the generic 450w was not even able to start my Soltek 754 nforce3 board with an A64 3000+ and an AIW9600xt and that the same machine is now running great with a good 300w psu??

Just tell 2 of my friend who were killing HDD one after another and fix that by buying a good PSU.

I tell you, having power on the edge of fluctuate is not good. because, when power goes down, it often spike up to correct itself and that is definitively something you dont want in your computer.. Or do you?

I wont spend thousand of $ on computer parts and avoiding to pay maybe 20$ more to have a better quality PSU.. But that just me... An I never had any unstable and failling computer in more than 10 years of building them.

When I built a computer, and the customer want to reuse it old PSU and I know it is going to be a bit weak, I simply refuse to built it. I dont make that for a living, I dont have the time to have my customer coming back every once and then with a computer that is unstable or not working anymore.

I dont built cheap machine. I never will and they know that. That's why they come back to me for their upgrade. They were satisfied with the quality of their first built and know that their second or third one will be as good as the other one.

Having a fast computer is not all that will make a customer to come back. A stable and fast machine will.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

sh1ft3d · Mar 6, 2005

Here's my system
AMD 64 3000+
DFI NF4 Ultra-D mobo
2x512 mb pc3200 kingston ram
HP lightscribe DL DVD burner
standard back floppy drive
X800xl vid care
160gb SATA barracuda HDD w/NCQ

I recently went the socket 939 3000+ plus route, and have no complaints whatsoever processor-related. Good CPU for the price.

If I were purchasing a motherboard now, I would definitely go DFI as I have heard nothing but good things about that board. I was stuck with the Chaintech nForce4 (which isn't bad, but would've rather went with DFI had I had that option open).

I agree with the poster who mentioned disabling NCQ. I wish I could find the benchie and a few other articles, but basically having NCQ enabled will cause your hard drive to work harder than needed since most reads and writes on a personal computer occur in relative order anyway (rendering NCQ ineffective basically) on the hard drive platter. In a centralized network where the file server stores files that many clients in the network access on a repeated basis, this is where NCQ shines.

--------------------------------------------
In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.

mozzartusm · Mar 6, 2005

I cant beleive you said that! 😱 You must be one of the very few that actually got a good generic PSU. They are mostly crap!

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Shaid · Mar 6, 2005

I'll listen to the NCQ suggestion as it is somethig I am not familiar with so I'll beleive you guys know what you are talking about. On the psu, I was just going to order a new one right away with the whole setup but when I went on to newegg under the case a lot of reviews said the PSU worked great. I should have just went with my gut but I was hoping to save a few bucks but I would gladly spend a few extra now than have something big happen to my new computer so I will probably be ordering the new psu in the next couple of days. Any suggestions on one that is not too pricey but will still do the job?

Guest · Mar 6, 2005

Try this <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-104-934&depa=0" target="_new"> FSP Blue Storm </A>. Very reliable products I understand

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Rugger · Mar 6, 2005

Read about <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20041223/index.html" target="_new">ATX12V v2.0</A> and then take a look at Tom's <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20050228/index.html" target="_new">Power Supply Review</A>. Great info for making that decision. I happen to think the Blue Storm has the best price/performance.

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Shaid · Mar 8, 2005

ok, I went ahead and ordered the Blue Storm 500w so should be receiving it soon. In the meantime, I did just receive all of my components last night and now am having issues. When I go to install Windows it gives me BSOD's. I thought it might be related to SATA drivers but have tried installing off the floppy that came with it and have tried using a normal winxp cd and a sp2 cd with both giving me BSOD's I also get different messages with them when I do the install. Thsi is off the top of my head but a few examples are;

IRQL NOT EQUAL OR GREATER THAN
Win64k.sys errors
a few others I can't think of

Are these problems that a new psu will probably fix or should I be looking at something else? My SATA drive is always detected and the BSOD's usually don't occur until after it reboots and then they pop up during the install. Any help is appreciated.

sparky853 · Mar 8, 2005

Could very well be a PSU issue. BSODs can also be caused by bad RAM, but since you are getting the new PSU anyways, I would swap that out first. If you want, you can always download <A HREF="http://www.memtest86.com" target="_new">memtest86</A> and make a bootable floppy. Just make sure you only have 1 stick of RAM in at a time when running the tests.

Systems Running F@H:
AMD: [A64 3200+] [XP2800+] [XP2400+]
Intel: [P4 2.8 x3] [P4 1.8] [P4 1.7] [P4 1.6 x2] [P4 1.4M] [Xeon 1.0] [Cel 1.0] [P3 ??]

Rugger · Mar 8, 2005

This could be a resource allocation conflict or possibly a RAM issue. What version of WinXP (i.e. Pro)? What order are you installing system drivers?

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Shaid · Mar 8, 2005

ok, thanks. I do have two sticks of ram so I was going to try with just one or the other and see what my results were. Also, I beleive the new revision of my bios has memtest built in so I also was planning on running that as well. I just know that there are issues with SATA HDD's on a windows install and since this is my first time installing on a SATA HDD I wanted to make sure it wasn't that before I started going into everything else. I'm hoping Fedex will drop off my new PSU by this weekend but I wanted to eliminate the possibility of faulty parts in the meantime. Thanks for the help and I'll post my results.

Rugger · Mar 8, 2005

When you post the results, be as specific as possible with all of the BSOD wording. Run memtest on both RAM modules - even if the first one comes up bad, the second could be bad, too. Do you get any beeps when you start the PC?

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Shaid · Mar 8, 2005

I just get the standard post beep and everything is detected fine. It detects correct processor speed, correct amount of ram, and locates dvd, hdd and floppy drive fine and reads off them all fine as well. The HDD only detects the full size when using the XPSP2 cd or when I install the drivers off the floppy but I was expecting that. Otherwise it only shows as 131 GB. I also would have posted the exact BSOD errors but I am not at home so I was just working off memory. When I get home and get another chance to work at it, I'll let you know the results.

oh and both versions of windows I have are pro. I was thinking of a possible resource conflict too but the only card I have added is my vid card and it would be a bit odd for the MB to not assign IRQ's correctly on it's own components but I guess it is possible. If the memory checks out fine as well I'll see about possibly disabling the extra usb ports, etc. on the MB and seeing if I need to manually assign IRQ's but I haven't done that for a long time so I'll avoid that as long as I can.Edited by Shaid on 03/08/05 04:20 PM.

Rugger · Mar 8, 2005

XP doesn't allow you to manually assign IRQs - you would have to do that in BIOS and hope that XP would allow your settings to remain. With only one card, I wouldn't think it was a hardware conflict either. Figured that you were at work, but wanted you to post the BSODs when you got the chance.

The first thing I would do is check the RAM with memtest...
Can you monitor your volt readings in your BIOS? If, yes then another thing you can do is montior/record them for around 10min and let us know the readings.

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Shaid · Mar 9, 2005

Alright, I got it working perfectly. I went through standard troubleshooting and moved down to one stick of ram and disabled everything on the motherboard but still was having the BSOD errors - the two common errors were;

win32k.sys - Address BF8219CA base at BF800000, Date Stamp 3B7DE698 - beginning dump of physical memory

Page Fault in Non Paged Area

What eventually fixed it was setting Max Async Latency to 6 ns. I had read this on another forum that you always wanted that to be set to 6 unless overclocking and then it should be set to 7 - at least with this DFI board. Anyways, everything on motherboard is now enabled and both sticks of memory are installed. It is all working fine and I played Half Life 2 for 2 hours on max settings with absolutely no problems. I am going to run memtest tonight to verify the ram is fine and finish updating all of my software but it all appears to be going great. By the way, when I set the Async back to Auto the errors came back so it still could be memory or maybe it needs a Bios Flash but it has been working great at 6ns so if memtest is fine and a bios flash does not fix it, I plan on just leaving it there.

Guest · Mar 9, 2005

<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-105-113&depa=1" target="_new"> I Love Clickies </A>

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 One new Firefox fan

Rugger · Mar 9, 2005

The real question is why that particular one... :tongue:

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Guest · Mar 9, 2005

I've just decided to use that as my post for generic links.

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Rugger · Mar 9, 2005

must really like that case then..

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My new Rig

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