Will it be safe to power up my new build?

[jammydodger1995]

Hi peeps, this is my first post so don't grill me too soon.

Anyway, I'm building another pc, with specs as follows:

Nvidia 680i SLI mobo.
Intel Q6600 Quad @2.4ghz
2x1gb Corsair DDR2 800 444-12, 1x1gb Corsair DDR2 800 555-15, 1gb of OCZ DDR2 800 (unknown timings)
MSI GTX680 2gb DDR5.
I also have an Antec 750w modular psu and a Corsair 200r case on the way, and I already have DVDRW drives waiting to go in.


The CPU, Mobo and RAM I bought off ebay as a bundle. I know the RAM pairing isn't the best but I thought it would all be identical.

Now to the main issue. I understand the 680i mobo was an "overclockers toy" back in the day, and I've now discovered my CPU surface has been lapped. That makes me think the previous owner was into pushing things a little? I know you can fiddle with a lot of voltages/speeds on this mobo, and I don't want to plug all my new bits in and it frys everything. Is there a way to check the board hasn't been pre-set to crazy speeds or voltages? Just hit the BIOS button on startup and have a look? I can't imagine someone building a 680i and Q6600, then lapping the CPU and proceeding to do some Microsoft word...

I know this build is ancient, so I don't need any abuse for that. Up till now I've been happy with my old Pentium Dual Core/Nvidia 9600gt setup. I can run most of my games on High/Ultra with it (no AA). I'm not planning on running 3 monitors running heavy multiplayer games or anything like that. I just wanted to upgrade pretty cheap.

If there's anything else you need to know, just ask.

Thanks

 

[Trafalgar747]

May i ask how much you spend on all this? Im pretty sure you could have gotten something better.

 

[galeener]

I built the same system from parts I had out in the garage but used a 230t case. The best you can do is put it all together go into bios and set it to load defaults, this will be the most compatable settings then save and try to boot into the OS. If this works you can then mess with the bios settings to get it exactly where you want.
In other words you won't know until you try.

 

[jammydodger1995]

May i ask how much you spend on all this? Im pretty sure you could have gotten something better.

You may not ask I could have got something better but I just wanted a cheap upgrade from what I have at the moment. I think I messed up on the CPU/Mobo/Ram combo though...

So far I've spent:

PSU- £75
Case- £65
Graphics Card- £80
CPU/Mobo/Ram bundle- £80
DVD drives, HDD, Fans etc I already have.

The way I see it, 50% of the components I've bought have room for upgrading. The GTX680 2gb card, Antec 750w psu, and Corsair case could be used if I ever decided to go Core i5/i7. The only loss would be the mobo/cpu/ram, all the other components would probably keep up.

Bear in mind, all the games I'll be playing have worked on a Pentium Dualcore setup until now. I just want to be able to get my settings higher on some newer games. I've never needed to overclock.

Please note, I'm not trying to build a super-fast rig. I don't spend loads of time gaming, so I don't justify spending my money on the latest setup.

Back on topic, do I risk hardware damage by powering it up without checking the BIOS settings or will the mobo set itself up according to the new components?

 

[galeener]

Well it will try to use what the previous owner had set. So if you trust he had it running ok then you could just power it on and it should work If he said it was working he has it set up with the parts he sold you most likely. Is there a chance it may have an issue always but that chance is there on brand new components also. You could send him a pm and ask if he left the system in an overclock state most people reset it to make sure it will work for who ever buys it next at defaults there is less a chance it wont boot.

 

[grimakis]

Just pull the CMOS battery. Won't that put everything back to defaults?

 

[jammydodger1995]

Right, I've got it running with my old 9600gt and 700w psu to test the CPU/Mobo/Ram. Everything in the BIOS seems normal and after multiple BSOD's and reinstalling Windows 7, I got it working.

Thing is, DxDiag now tells me my 9600gt 512mb has about 1.5gb of "Total approx memory size"?

 

[galeener]

Not sure but dxdiag may be reporting shared system memory too.