Newbie building system,any advice?..I have....

[Guest]

Ok guys any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have just purchased: Retail 1Ghz Duron(with future plans of upgrading to 2000+ XP), Soltek KT333 DRV5 Mobo, Kingmax 256mb pc2700 DDR, ATI Radeon 7500 All-In-Wonder, SB Live 5.1, LiteOn 16x DVD, 350 watt Enermax PSU. I already have a 100GB Western Digital 7200rpm Hard drive and HP CD-RW I will be using. Any advice with setting this system up, or problems I should look for?? Should I go ahead and flash the Bios or wait and see how it runs? Any conflicts with hardware?? Also I am thinking very hard about buying Rounded cables and an active cooling kit for the memory(ThermalTake). Any ideas or recommendations?? Thanks in advance. Oh.. One more question.. When I set up my IDE devices I wanted to run my DVD and CD-RW on different cables so they would transfer data faster when burning cd's but will this make my ATA100 hard drive run at the slower speed of the other IDE device on the same cable?? Should I just go ahead and put both cd and dvd on the same cable (Master/Slave)??

 

[o1die]

I would look on pricewatch for a cheap ata 100 or 133 controller card for your hardrive, so you can hook up your dvd and cd burner on separate ide's. They run about $27-30 with shipping.

 

[Porkloin]

Flash the bios if it's what is needed to make the machine work. The old maxim "If it's not broke, don't fix it" rings quite true when potentially lobotomizing your bios. It's never happened to me, but the potential is there, and not worth the risk if you don't HAVE to do it.
The rule of thumb I've seen on manufacturer's instructions for your IDE arrangement is :
IDE 0 - Hard drive with O/S as the master.
IDE 1 - CD/DVD player as master.
CD-RW as slave.
You could arrange them anyway you want, but I would be more inclined to isolate my hard drive from the DVD and CD-RW.
The above-mentioned extra controller card idea would really expand your flexibility in this arena.

Sweating like a rancid chunk of pork

 

[Tiberius13]

Nice system! I have several components in common with you (the AIW Radeon 7500, the WD 100GB 7200rpm hd, and the Enermax psu)

Ok... first... for setting up your ide devices.... this is the best set-up:

primary master = 100gb hard drive (your boot hard drive)
primary slave = <nothing> (a second hard drive would normally go here)

Secondary master = CD/RW
Secondary slave = DVD

The basic rules to follow in determining what goes where are:
a) the boot hard drive should be primary master
b) any cd/rw device should be a master (leaving it as the secondary master)
c) you should NOT mix hard drives and cd/dvd drives on the same IDE controller or else you could kill the performance of the hard drive

As far as setting it all up goes... the best advice is to check out the websites for all of the components you got and get the most recent drivers/patches/via 4in1's/etc. If you are installing WinXP you can also often get away with the default stuff it installs quite nicely.

A note about the SB Live.... many people chose to just install the drivers for it, and not the software it comes with. Some people claim that software can trash a fresh install faster than anything else (well... except maybe Norton... hehe...) If you want the functionality the additional programs give you however, don't let that stop you from installing them. It's fine for most people.