I recently decided to upgrade my Motherboard / CPU / RAM and have already purchased the new parts, but have a couple questions now that I am installing them. List of parts can be found at the end.
1. I was previously using an Audigy 2 ZS Gamer for my sound, but planned to ditch the sound card and use the audio on my new motherboard. The new motherboard supports 8 channel sound, which I thought was good.
However, I discovered after installing the new board and reading the manual, that my motherboards audio supports 2 channel, 4 channel, 6 channel and 8 channel, but does not list 5 channel support.
I have old Logitech Z-640 speakers, which use a 5.1 sound setup. Will I be able to continue using this 5.1 setup with my new board?
The new board has line in, line out and microphone, colored pink, blue and green. The connectors for my speakers are green, black and orange.
2. My motherboard has two PCI slots, but one of them is very close to my grapahics card. I could say dangerously close, because if I try to use that PCI slot, the card I put it would likely be bumping into my graphics card and potentially covering or blocking the fan on my graphics card. Is this a bad thing? if I use the 2nd PCI slot, there is only a sliver of space at most between the graphics card and the PCI card.
3. My power supply is only a 550W Antec, will this be enough for my upgraded build, or should I consider saving up for a new power supply? It seems to work so far, but I have not yet loaded any games on my system yet.
4. When I took out my old M2N-SLI Deluxe motherboard, I discovered the mechanism / lever holding the heatsink in place was broken! The only thing keeping the heatsink from falling right off was the thermal paste, so I was very lucky it was still holding. Not sure how long ago the heatsink part broke, but the board / CPU were from August 2006. Can the old board be fixed? or should I consider it scrap material?
Here is my current system, counting the new upgrades:
Antec SUPER Lanboy
Antec True Power 2.0 550W Power Supply
Antec Tri Cool Tri Color 120MM Fan
120MM Blue LED Fan (not sure what Brand, but possibly Cooler Master)
Asus M4A87TD / USB3 Motherboard
AMD Phenom II 965 Black Edition
4GB DDR3 1600 OCZ Memory (2x 2GB)
EVGA 9800GTX+
Blue Ray DVD Drive (DVD / CD RW capable)
Hauppauge TV card
Samsung SATA II 1TB drive
Seagate SATA II 1 TB drive.
Maxtor 200GB SATA I drive
Western Digital 250GB SATA drive (external)
Audigy 2 ZS Gamer (have not yet reinstalled this)
Old parts I replaced:
AMD AM2 Athlon x2 4200+
M2N-SLI Deluxe
2GB DDR2 Super Talent (2x 1GB)
2GB DDR2 OCZ (2x 1GB)
1. I was previously using an Audigy 2 ZS Gamer for my sound, but planned to ditch the sound card and use the audio on my new motherboard. The new motherboard supports 8 channel sound, which I thought was good.
However, I discovered after installing the new board and reading the manual, that my motherboards audio supports 2 channel, 4 channel, 6 channel and 8 channel, but does not list 5 channel support.
I have old Logitech Z-640 speakers, which use a 5.1 sound setup. Will I be able to continue using this 5.1 setup with my new board?
The new board has line in, line out and microphone, colored pink, blue and green. The connectors for my speakers are green, black and orange.
2. My motherboard has two PCI slots, but one of them is very close to my grapahics card. I could say dangerously close, because if I try to use that PCI slot, the card I put it would likely be bumping into my graphics card and potentially covering or blocking the fan on my graphics card. Is this a bad thing? if I use the 2nd PCI slot, there is only a sliver of space at most between the graphics card and the PCI card.
3. My power supply is only a 550W Antec, will this be enough for my upgraded build, or should I consider saving up for a new power supply? It seems to work so far, but I have not yet loaded any games on my system yet.
4. When I took out my old M2N-SLI Deluxe motherboard, I discovered the mechanism / lever holding the heatsink in place was broken! The only thing keeping the heatsink from falling right off was the thermal paste, so I was very lucky it was still holding. Not sure how long ago the heatsink part broke, but the board / CPU were from August 2006. Can the old board be fixed? or should I consider it scrap material?
Here is my current system, counting the new upgrades:
Antec SUPER Lanboy
Antec True Power 2.0 550W Power Supply
Antec Tri Cool Tri Color 120MM Fan
120MM Blue LED Fan (not sure what Brand, but possibly Cooler Master)
Asus M4A87TD / USB3 Motherboard
AMD Phenom II 965 Black Edition
4GB DDR3 1600 OCZ Memory (2x 2GB)
EVGA 9800GTX+
Blue Ray DVD Drive (DVD / CD RW capable)
Hauppauge TV card
Samsung SATA II 1TB drive
Seagate SATA II 1 TB drive.
Maxtor 200GB SATA I drive
Western Digital 250GB SATA drive (external)
Audigy 2 ZS Gamer (have not yet reinstalled this)
Old parts I replaced:
AMD AM2 Athlon x2 4200+
M2N-SLI Deluxe
2GB DDR2 Super Talent (2x 1GB)
2GB DDR2 OCZ (2x 1GB)
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