New PC

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by kelton, Oct 8, 2003.

  1. kelton

    kelton Nibble Poster

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    Hello!

    Following on from that HDD post I made... while looking online for some cheap Hard drives I sorta started "building" a PC in my shopping basket.

    Ive been wanting to upgrade the processor for a while now... I currently have a P4 1.5Ghz with 512MB Ram.

    I am wanting to stay on the 'cheap' side of CPUs - so no latest ones costing a few hundred £.

    This is whats planned:
    AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 'Barton Core' (333Mhz FSB) OEM
    (with a suitable Cooler/Fan not choosen yet)
    place on a...
    Asus A7N8X nForce2 Deluxe Motherboard
    with...
    Corsair Platinum TwinX 512MB DDR XMS2700LL CAS2 (2 modules)

    I would also buy

    2x Maxtor DiamondMax +9 Serial ATA 80GB 8MB Cache OEM
    (probably strip them to increase speed!).

    I would salvage some good sruff from current setup:

    ATX201 Coolermaster Case, SB Live2, Gainward GeforceFX5200w/128 mem, 80 GB IDE HD, DVD/CD-ROM burner.

    Havent decided yet if Im going for it. Has anyone got similar? Know anything wrong with any of the items ive listed to buy... like known problems or even spot a glaring compatibility issue here?

    Or even any suggestions which would bet better with no increase in cost :)


    Cheers.
     
  2. Sandy

    Sandy Ex-Member

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    Hi Keton

    You don't say what you intend to use this PC for. Look like your current spec. could run most of the planet!
     
  3. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    Sandy, wasn't it you who suggested that he use VMWare to create a virtual network on one box (my current plan)? :) Kelton, if that's what you're up to, keep in mind, you could ramp up your RAM to 1 gig but apparently, that's the hard limit for VMWare. After that, it doesn't matter how much RAM you're running...for the purposes of having multiple virtual machines, VMWare will only recognize 1 gig (bummer).

    BTW, I love SATA drives. I haven't had the opportunity to use one but when I build my dream machine, that's what I'm going to use. I actually wrote an article on them (I didn't know they existed before then) a few months back. It's published on the web. Let me know if you want to read it (I've already tortured everyone else I know by publishing the link various places so I won't do it again here unless asked). :wink:
     
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  4. flex22

    flex22 Gigabyte Poster

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    Hey Trip, could you post the link here.You gave me the link in a message, however this doesn't work.I found the article through google.

    I thought that the article was interesting and that certforum members would enjoy reading it.
     
  5. kelton

    kelton Nibble Poster

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    Sandy, World Domination is the plan! Heh, tho I think I would the latest AMD with a 400 MHZFSB. Actual use? Im just an hardware addict... :twisted:

    Trip, Ive already been looking and thought "I have 512MB memory now, but I want more!!"

    Currently have Corsair Platinum TwinX 1024MB DDR XMS3200LLCAS2 lisetd now... over double the price :( Oh well, only live once.

    I am also with Flex. Id heard of them before a few days ago... but only in passing. Never looked into them till the last few days while looking at HDDs to buy.

    I think if did this set up, I would certainly look at VMWare again... but I will still have my other 2 machines for that.

    I may also look at just buying 1 SATA drive for now - and get the other when I want to play with RAID. Not sure!
     
  6. Sandy

    Sandy Ex-Member

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    Note to myself: Never ask Kelton to spec PC's for any installations I am doing (he will spend the H/W budget on PC's leaving me €0 for servers switches and routers :lol: )
     
  7. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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  8. kelton

    kelton Nibble Poster

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    Who needs servers, switches and routers anyway!!! :P
     
  9. kelton

    kelton Nibble Poster

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    Trip, great article.

    A question:

    The new MoBo I have down has 2xSATA connections. I planned to put in 2x80 Gig SATA drives and strip them. Does your comment mean that I can not do this? I thought stripping was ideal when on a different channel (as there is no point if its on the same chan as the same bottlenecks happen).

    cheers.
     
  10. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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    I think somewhere in the article, I mentioned (or maybe I just meant to mention) that multiple drives would be supported in SATA 2. You might want to double check the specs on your mobo or even the manufacturer's tech support to verify this. I've seen ads for servers using SATA RAID so I think the technology has gotten that far. Remember, my article was written at the level of the beginning tech and I started out with the first appearence of SATA. Even though it's new stuff, it's advanced since it first came out. Let me know if you're having trouble finding info. I can send you the links I used in my original research. Oh, BTW, although the article is fairly generic, I did publish it on a Linux site so there is that slant present.
     
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  11. kelton

    kelton Nibble Poster

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    Ive found a few items in Google that suggest it is posible.

    Im gona buy a single drive for now anyway - maybe buy the other closer to christmas when I am ready to play.

    Thanks for the help.

    8)
     
  12. kelton

    kelton Nibble Poster

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    Well its built - the core bits anyway... case is still open :)

    The bits came on Monday... I coulndt wait till next week, so I stripped the pc down today and rebuilt with new stuff.

    Booted first time, having a few problems getting SATA to boot for me... hope ive just cracked it - back to testing!
     
  13. Jakamoko
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    Jakamoko On the move again ...

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    Good on ya, kelton - I've got a bag o' spanners here if you need them !!!
     
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  14. SimonV
    Honorary Member

    SimonV Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    Is that so you can admire your work or is it because you've got so much kit it wont shut anymore?? :lol:

    SimonV
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2015
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  15. kelton

    kelton Nibble Poster

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    Have you got some of those workbench type clamps handy? I recon it would shut with a couple of them. :eek:


    well XP is in now. Note: XP install wont recognise SATA - you have to get some drivers and pop them on a floppy to be read in by the install so it can see the drive :) Also Note that you have to set your Boot drive to SCSI and the bios will boot from that drive when it restarts.

    All the core drivers are in now... just about to install Sandra and 3DMark03 for some initial tests :!:


    Then its time for tweaking!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 2, 2015
  16. kelton

    kelton Nibble Poster

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    Running it just now at 2.2Ghz - ive had it up to 2.3Ghz was slightly unstable, however I could have upped the core voltage... but that shortens the life so not wanting to do that.

    FSB currently set at 211.59 with a click multiplier of 10.5. I upped the FSB and lowered the multiplier to overclock the memory without increasing the CPU much.

    DDR memory is working at 423Mhz FSB - pulling a throughput of 3.2GB/s - about 1GB/s more than when I put the CPU in :)


    *goes to tinker some more*
     
  17. Jakamoko
    Honorary Member

    Jakamoko On the move again ...

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    <sniffing>

    Is that the smell of melting silicon ??? :frman

    :P
     
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