Page 1 of 1
whatcha think guys?
Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 10:12 am
by grunt
heres my system that should be arriving shortly in the mail piece by piece....
abit nf7-s (rev 2 like Ive read here) $90.00
3200+ cpu $201.00
1gig pc 3500 xms (platinum, cuz im gangsta lol) $175.00 (hopefully, ebay)
asus 9600xt $185.00
Thermaltake Xaser III (V1000D) $90.00
raptor 40gig hd $98.00
As youve seen by my posts here im a noob so gimme ur oppinion if u care to, also any and all advice is welcome as to configuration of the settings... Im putting this together up in Virginia while im at school (longbow transition).
oh, reason I put this post here is because I for some reason wanna tweak it so lemme know any ideas..
Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 11:34 am
by Apoptosis
Grunt,
Best Buy has the ATI 9800 Pro 128mb Video card for $250 minus a $50 mail in rebate...
Linky
Meaning final cost would be $200 and a better card for gaming and performance.
I'd also buy a brand new retail Barton 2500+ from a good online retailer like below:
Zipzoomfly has one for $80
Crank the FSB up to 200MHz and you have a 3200+ for only $80
Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 3:11 pm
by grunt
darn, too late on the cpu but Ill take ur advice on the ati card, thanks
Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 3:31 pm
by Apoptosis
grunt wrote:longbow transition
The army chopper?
Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2004 6:34 pm
by grunt
yeah thats the one, i work with the weapons/avionics systems...
As for my system, the bid didnt go through with the ram so ur oppinion is needed, im just gonna go with 512mb. Cant really decide whats gonna be best but Ive been looking at the hyperX and xms stuff. I just got back from best buy and picked up that 9800 pro (thanks for the help). As for a power supply Im totally lost, the only thing I *think* I know is that I want at least 350 and it needs 2 fans on the power supply... Ur thoughts?
Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 6:54 am
by Apoptosis
as for a PSU it depends on what you are looking for. You might want to look for on that has SATA power connectors on it already so you can skip the adapters in your case. Antec and Enermax are a couple solid companies to look at. You also have SilenX that make a great 400W PSU that puts out less than 14dBa if you are looking to make a silent rig.
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 9:19 am
by grunt
well everything is all put together with the ram being pc 4000 (1gb hyperX) and the hd is a 80gig seagate... Majorly annoyed since I cant seem to get the thing to boot up faster then a snail, Im sure its a driver problem but I have no conflicts and am totally lost....
Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 10:10 pm
by Apoptosis
How many seconds does it take to boot?
Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 2:25 pm
by grunt
50sec exactly. from the time i hit the power button till its completely loaded in XP. I did this test with a downloadable version of 3dmark2001se and scored 16,6something. Not really sure how good that is, my system runs around 32 and cpu around 48.
Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:53 am
by Apoptosis
the temps and 3dmark score seem to be okay. Sure you have the BIOS set correctly? Turn off the Floppy if you don't have one. Disable the virus scan. Enable fast boot. Turn off the splash screen if the bios has one... I could go on for days...
Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 1:11 pm
by grunt
i dont have a floppy which is probably why I can update the bios (as far as I know. Will go get one tonight on my break at school. Then Ill get the latest bios and flash it. Then Ill take out the floppy like you just mentioned.
PS, the longbow is awesome lol... Cool stuff we are learning
Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:12 pm
by Apoptosis
Do a BIOS update and then load the "optimized defaults" After that is all loaded go through it and turn off everything in the BIOS that you don't need. Such as the virus scanner, Floppy Drive, and so on. Also 99% of all BIOS's first check to see if it should boot off the floppy. This might be why your system is hanging. Be sure to remove Floppy from the boot order. If you never boot off CD just set #1 to HDD. This speeds up the boot process a bunch on any PC.
Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 6:51 pm
by grunt
will the bios update make a difference in detecting the cpu? Reason I ask is when I select the optimized in the bios it goes to 2500+ on the cpu. There is no other way to update the bios other then with a floppy is there?
Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 7:10 am
by grunt
what timings on my fbs/dram should I use? AGP frequency is at 66%, can i get higher?
Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 10:06 am
by Apoptosis
Some boards allow you to update the BIOS over the net... I've seen a BIOS chips die durning the process though. Use a floppy just to be on the safe side!
Here is a great link on how to update your BIOS:
http://www.abit-usa.com/downloads/bioshelp.php
As for your AGP concern... It's not set at 66%... It's set at 66MHz, which is default and where you want it to be!
Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 12:20 pm
by grunt
good deal, thx