Legit Reviews

Hello,
I am kind of new to building new computers, I've played around with older systems with somewhat mixed results. I just built myself a new system (the first NEW rig I've ever had.) A friend asked me to help him build a new system for himself, a real monster, everything on the bleeding edge.
Anyway I got the motherboard, processor, memory, & PSU together, just to see if I could get it to post. I turned on the power and the fan started, but no beep, well I forgot to hook up the speaker so I did that. Powered it up again and the fan started, then stopped. I looked in the manual and saw that while I hooked up the 20-pin power connector, I forgot to hook up the 4-pin CPU power connector, so back to the title- did I just fry this motherboard? Or the CPU? AND the CPU? What I'm saying, basically is HELP!!!
Thanks,
LoTek_X
PS- My friend is really annoyed, so the sooner I hear from someone, the better, he in my living room RIGHT NOW and smoke is coming out of his ears.

Not likely, but possible.

Please post specs. and photos if you can. I would take it all apart and start over. If you didn't smell smoke or flames I think you are ok. Take your time and read before you connect. Good luck. Next time don't touch anyone elses stuff unless you know what you are doing. If you did mess up you owe him a new motherboard. That's just me.

Hey Guys, Thanks for the quick responses,
It's A Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5 board, Phenom 9600 Black Box CPU, I stick of 2GB Crucial RAM, hooked-up to a PC Power & Cooling 1.2 KW PSU, in a Lian-Li A70 case. I haven't hooked anything else up yet, I'm just trying to get it to beep for me, so far no joy.
I'm going to tear my friend away from the rig and call in a consultant I know tomorrow, but any advice in the meanwhile would be helpful.
Thanks again,
LoTek_X

Keep going. Load drivers and hard drive and the rest of parts. Just double check you connections. If it does't post, turn power off. Take out battery and wait about 1 min. Put battery back in and power up. If fans don't work, shut down and get help.

is the video card in? not connecting a cpu power connect almost difinatly wont fry a mobo

Hey guys, thanks again,
I told my friend I really wasn't up to this, several times, at the beginning. He just wouldn't take no for an answer (you'd have to know him,)
Anyway after all the assurances he has calmed down, there is no longer smoke coming out of his ears, and he's finally willing to let someone who knows his stuff help us. So I'm going to call my consultant (a really great guy) in to help us. It's really good to hear that I didn't fry several hundred dollars worth of hardware with a rookie mistake.
Just for grins here are the complete specs- (I designed it, I'm pretty good at that, it the screw turning I always mess up)

The Silver Spider-
Motherboard-
Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5
Socket AM2+ AMD 790FX Chipset ATX Motherboard

Processor-
AMD Phenom 9600 - Black Box Edition
AMD AM2+ Quad-Core 2.3 MHz Processor

Memory-
Crucial CT2KIT25664AA1067
2GB X 2 DDR2 1066 MHz (PC2-8500) 1.8V Non-ECC Unbuffered SDRAM DIMMs

Power Supply-
PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1200 ESA
1.2KW Continuous (1.3KW Peak) 80+ Certified +12V @ 90A Power Supply

Video Card-
ASUS EAH3870X2/G/HTDI/1G Radeon HD 3870 X2
1GB (512MB X 2) GDDR3 512-bit (256-bit X 2) PCI-E 2.0 X16 Crossfire Video Card

Video Capture Card-
Diamond TV Wonder HD 650 Combo TVW650PCIE
PCI Express Analog/Digital TV Capture Card

SATA RAID Controller Card-
3ware 9650SE-4LPML
PCI Express X4 256 MB DDR2 533 4-port SATA 3.0 Gb/s RAID Card with RISC

System Array-
Western Digital WD RE WD1600YS (X 4 in a RAID 10 Array)
160GB SATA 3.0 Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200 RPM Enterprise Class Hard Drives

Data Array-
Western Digital WD 16 Caviar SE16 WD3200AKSS (X 2 in a RAID 1 Array)
320GB SATA 3.0 Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200 RPM Hard Drives

DVD-DL RW Drive-
ASUS Black 20X DVD+R
IDE 2MB Cache DVD/CD Burner w/ Lightscribe (48X CD-R 32X CD-RW
20X DVD+R 20X DVD-R 8X DVD+R DL 8X DVD+RW 6X DVD-RW)

DVD Bezel-
Lian-Li Universal CD/DVD Drive Bezel
Brushed Aluminum

Case-
Lian-Li A70A
Brushed Aluminum ATX Full Tower 5 X 5.25" ext., 10 X 3.5" int. 6 X 120mm Fans

CPU Cooler-
We'll try stock cooling and if that isn't up to the task we'll try a aftermarket cooler.

Memory Cooler-
Thermaltake CL-R0026
Adjustable Copper Heatpipe/Aluminum Heatsink Memory Cooler

PCI Cooling Fan-
Lian-Li BS-03
120mm PCI Cooling Fan Module

Fan Controller-
Zalman ZM-MFC 1 Plus-S
6 Channel 5.25" Bay Brushed Aluminum Fan Controller

Replacement Case Top-
Custom "Modded" Lian-Li A70A Top
With Two Pre-cut "Blowholes" for 120mm Fans

120mm Fans-
Silverstone FN121 Case Fan
Black 8-Bladed 53.24 CFM 26.6 dBA Case Fan (X 2)

Fan Filters-
120mm Silver Steel Mesh Filters FFA-19
Large Mesh Decorative Filter \ Fan Grill

LCD Screen-
Matrix Orbital MX221
2-line 20 Character 5V Blue on Gray LCD Screen

Card Reader-
Lian-Li CR-25A
50-in-1 Memory Card Reader

Card Reader 5.25" Bay Adapter Bezel-
Lian-Li MF-515
Adapts 3.5" Bay Device to fit into a 5.25" Bay

That's it soup to nuts, it's going to be a real monster if and when we get it built (and then he's going to use it to surf the, go figure.)

Anyway thanks for all your replies, it's nice to know there are people willing to help a complete stranger in their time of need.
LoTek_X

Why raid one? When one gets messed up so does the other.

Just keep going, you can do it!

please read the reviews on your motherboard at newegg.com. Alot of people have been having problems with that motherboard. Maybe the reviews can help you.

vbironchef wrote:Why raid one? When one gets messed up so does the other.

Just keep going, you can do it!

I think you're mistaking RAID 0 for Raid 1. Raid 1 is fault tolerant so the data exists on both disks.

Hi, i'm not sure on this because i have never used less than 2 sticks of memory. I noticed you specified one stick of 2 GB memory and that board is dual channel, maybe someone can kick in and tell you if this might be preventing the boot process.

Hey folks,
I think I may have figured out the problem. I've got a 1200 Watt PSU powering this, I've heard (don't ask me where) that under-powering a PSU can cause problems, maybe my PC Power & Cooling (they're the BEST- but boy do you pay for it) unit is powering itself down to avoid damaging itself. Does that make sense to anyone?
Just so you don't have to go back to the top of the tread- I'm at the first stage of building a new rig (motherboard, CPU, RAM, PSU) and am trying to get it to give some indication (a "beep") that it's POSTing, but the board doesn't power-up. The CPU fan spins for a few seconds and then nothing.
Any ideas ya'll have are greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
LoTek_X

I was not talking about hard drive failure, I was talking about virus and spyware. I think it is better just to have a separate backup drive. You gain storage space and harddrives are faster. Raid 1 just makes a mirror copy of the first drive. If the OS is corupt so is the second hard drive. Correct me if I am wrong.

Please keep us posted on your build.

Vbironchef,

There are actually 2 separate RAID arrays. The first is a RAID 10 array (a mirror of stripes) consisting of four drives, which is hooked up to a RAID card (a 3Ware PCI X4 with it's own processor) for both speed and stability. The second array is a RAID 1 (a simple mirror) that uses the onboard (mostly software) RAID controller. The system, applications, and video spool files will all be on the first array for maximum speed and system stability. All of the plain data will go on the second array.
It's been my experience that viruses and other malware usually attack whatever drive (or partition) the system or target applications (web browser, etc.) are on. By moving the data to a separate array I not only protect the data from "attacks", but also if the worse happens and the system is seriously damaged and requires a system re-installation, or we even have to wipe the disks and start over, the data is safe on another drive.
I've given this a lot of thought as data protection is one of the main things my friend wanted. He's a genealogist (family research), and has put hundreds of hours into collecting the data he has. It's far too extensive a collection for him to keep a hard copy of all the records he's collected. (Do you remember the "old days" when we keep a hard copy of all our data?)
My friend will also be keeping a back-up copy of all his data and such on an external "firewire" 1TB drive he has, but I've read some recent research that indicates that drives that aren't keep running (at least at idle) a good proportion of the time may not be as reliable as was once expected. So that's the reason for the 2 arrays and the data mirror. I'm also going to suggest that he make DVD back-ups of his genealogy data as well (what with Murphy's law and all.)
So not to bad for a rookie huh? My grasp of concepts has always been good, it's in actual execution that I always have a problem.

Thanks again to everybody for all their help,

LoTek_X

Ok, that kind of system is way over my head. Good luck!

I had to look up what raid 10 is. http://www.acnc.com/04_01_10.html I still don't understand why you need that. Why not just build a server instead? That is what raid 10 is for.

Is everything still not powering on?

Dan

Vbironchef,
The reason for the RAID 10 array is simple- SPEED!! No matter what speed your system is the biggest bottleneck is always the hard drive data transfer rates. Don't be fooled by the speeds listed for the different drive types (IDE 66, IDE 100, IDE 133, SATA 1.5Gb/s,SATA 3.0Gb/s, the 5000 flavors of SCSI) those are burst speeds, sustained reads are much, much slower. I saw one guy on one of the support forums who said his SATA 3.0Gb/s only did a file transfer at a little over 400 Mb/s for a large file. Another more experienced forum member explained the difference between burst speeds & sustained speeds and reassured him that, all thing being equal, 400 Mb/s wasn't bad.
Hence the RAID 10 array. Stripes make it faster (by quite a bit, or so I've heard) mirrors protect your data. The RAID card uses the PCI x4 bus, allowing four times faster transfer than with a regular PCI card. It also gave us something to plug into the second PCI 16 slot that would have otherwise just sat there taking up space.
I should mention two things at this point- my friend wanted his new rig to be fast, and cost was no object. A lot of people say cost is no object but then cringe when they see the price tag, not Tony (that's my friend's name.) A few times I had to talk him out of a more expensive component that didn't do as much as a lower cost alternative. I had to forbid him (he continued to do it anyway) from browsing newegg with the items sorted by cost highest to lowest.
So when you say these are for servers, you're right (as a matter of fact, the four drives in the RAID 10 array are specially made for use in servers), but it can also speed up a desktop machine, if you're willing to spend the money (and put up with the noise and heat.) Also any increase in the speed of data transfer translates to differences you can really see- Windows starts up faster, applications open faster, documents (especially large ones) load faster. I personally wouldn't spend the money, but Tony wanted fast, so I gave him the options, and he picked what he wanted.
So here we are, with all the newest, latest computer parts available. We are way out on the bleeding edge (not someplace I wanted to be, but here I am) and as a result I have the feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of time on a lot of forums, and talking to tech support. To tell you the truth, after I couldn't talk Tony out of getting all the latest gear I steered him toward getting as much of his stuff from as few companies as possible- AMD/ATI, Diamond, Gigabyte, 3ware, Western Digital, and that just about covers the major stuff. I figure if I'm going to be spending a bunch of time on the phone, I might as well develop a relationship with tech support people, I bet before it's all over the tech support operator at AMD/ATI will recognize my voice.
It's going to be an adventure, and I'm going to need all the help, advice, and support I can get.

I'll be around!

LoTek_X

DMB200uk (Dan,)

Nope.
I tried hooking up the video card and all the case fans to that monster (1.2 KW) of a PSU, you know, just to give it a more reasonable load. Still nothing, nada, zip, zilch. The CPU fan spins for a couple of seconds and then that's it. I'm beginning to suspect the board is just a dud. At first I was terrified that I had done something horribly wrong (just the way my mind works), but now after examining thing and talking with a few nice folks I think that it's just the board.
I KNEW this was going to happen- you get a brand new board, with a brand new chipset, supporting a brand new processor and things are bound to go wrong . This is why I went with what is called "mature technology" when I built myself new rig a couple of months ago. I spent 2 months researching, 2 hours building, I turned it on and it worked.
Well I'll solider on I guess- next stop the Gigabyte forum, and then maybe the PC Power & Cooling forum, and after that, I don't know, maybe the AMD/ATI forum- I get the feeling I'll be spending a lot of time there I think I should get a feel for how it's laid out.

Thanks all, I'll keep you posted on my progress (if there is any) and otherwise just stop by for a chat and a nice cupa (that how the brits spell it, isn't it?)

LoTek_X

There is no such thing as too little of a load on a PSU. Its not the PSU, Grab yourself a PSU tester or a even a Multimeter if you want to test the psu