Waylander Posted January 20, 2008 Report Share Posted January 20, 2008 Bought my components [all bar the GFx which is out of stock and due in couple of days]: Antec Sonata 3 Case GB P35 DS4 Mobo Intel Q6600 Retail - given in to temptation over the E6750 I was getting GB 2600XT GFx OCZ 4GB SLI-approved DDR2 ram PC6400 Samsung 500GB sata hdd Samsung 203Ben DVDRW Samsung 206BW 20" Monitor HSF: Arctic Cooling Freezer pro 7 Now whilst I can't build it yet I understand new Intel CPUs out tomorrow so Q6600 may drop in price First Intel build so need to get a few things straight in my head about FSB and memory speed etc. 1) I have the Q6600 and PC6400 [800mhz] Ram. I assume I leave the cpu settings to "auto" but what Ram speed to I set? What I mean is do I leave it at 800mhz or is 1:1 clock better and if so what is the speed to set to? 2) the OCZ is rated at 800MHZ but needs 2.1v; IIRC mobos default vcore is 1.8v; how will I get it to post to that I can set the correct vcore? I'm sure more idiotic questions will follow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bullett Posted January 20, 2008 Report Share Posted January 20, 2008 I'd set everything to default/auto to get it up and running and work from there. The only change I made was to memory latency setting and it runs well. What are you intending to do with that machine. I hope it's not gaming because that GPU is going to seriously let your rig down (especially if you are going to try Vista/DX10). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted January 21, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 Nope not gaming and the GFx was factored into that decision. Will probably upgrade it when more mature mid-range DX10 cards are out. Okay alot of things have changed since my last build so here are a few more questions: 1) The mobo seems have both ICH9 and Gigabyte Sata controller - which to use? ICH9 seems to support more functions 2)only 1 hdd so no RAID but put the hdd in "ide" mode or AHCI mode? 3) I thought with SP2 there was no need for a floppy during XP installation to load RAID/Sata drivers but according to the mobo manual it is still needed [for RAID/AHCI]. As I don't have a floppy on the machine how to I deal with installing these drivers then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 1. ICH9 IMHO. 2. AHCI - faster where supported (XP should be fine) 3. Umm, there probably isn't much else you can do. You can just buy a USB floppy drive, or if you have another XP machine to hand, try a thing called nLite, where you can build a customised XP install CD with SP2, drivers etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted January 21, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 I already have an XP disc which has SP2 slipstreamed into it. I guess what I am asking is if I still need the Intel Matrix thingy loaded from floppy if I have an SP2 XP Pro install cd? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigyb Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 AHCI, I think i have this on my new motherboard, but I think I'm using the slower channel. Must give it a whirl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruiser647 Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 [ QUOTE ] I already have an XP disc which has SP2 slipstreamed into it. I guess what I am asking is if I still need the Intel Matrix thingy loaded from floppy if I have an SP2 XP Pro install cd? [/ QUOTE ] If you have the drivers for bits, then you should be able to interrupt the SP2 install, change the CD and load up the required drivers, then carry on with the SP2 install? How about using USB stick for the drivers? The motherboard should be able to support them....? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobK Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 What I did on mine was install XP with the hard drive on the Gigabyte controller, then once in Windows install the Intel drivers and swap the SATA cable over to the ICH9 port. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChadW Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 Sorry to be off topic a bit but where any new Intel processors released today? If so, then what speeds are these running at? Assume they are the new 45nn's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted January 21, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 [ QUOTE ] What I did on mine was install XP with the hard drive on the Gigabyte controller, then once in Windows install the Intel drivers and swap the SATA cable over to the ICH9 port. [/ QUOTE ] am I correct in assuming you installed XP [in "ide" mode for you hdd]; went into device manager and updated the driver for the ICH9 port, started, set bios for hdd in ACHI and voila? If so: 1) did you just get the drivers for the Intel Matrix Manager off the GB cd? 2) why did you have to first install it on the GB sata controller? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted January 21, 2008 Report Share Posted January 21, 2008 [ QUOTE ] I already have an XP disc which has SP2 slipstreamed into it. I guess what I am asking is if I still need the Intel Matrix thingy loaded from floppy if I have an SP2 XP Pro install cd? [/ QUOTE ] Yep, Xp doesn't have ICH9 drivers with AHCI support IIRC. XP also only supports floppy drives for install-time drivers (not even a CD swap). If your mobo supports a USB drive emulating a floppy or something, you're good to go. If not, the install in IDE then swap method should work. There's still nLite - all you do is give it your existing XP SP2 CD contents and it gives you a load of options you can tweak, one of which is adding additional drivers, then it creates you a new customised XP install CD image to burn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted January 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2008 Thing is, I currently have very access to a pc until I build this one so can' go down the nlite route [that was what I used to make the slipstreamed SP2 in the first place last year]. mobo doesn't support usb drive fdd emulation. obviously the easy thing is just to blow a meagre £4.52 on a fdd but that doesn't help in education about such matter. What I don't understand is why I would need to swap between the GB and ICH9 controllers. Why should it not work if: -I connect to ICH9 controller -put drive in IDE mode for XP SP2 install [no floppy needed] - once in XP install the Intel Matrix Driver from within device manager -reboot and put drive in AHCI mode? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted January 23, 2008 Report Share Posted January 23, 2008 It might well work, but I wouldn't be 100% surprised if it failed to boot in AHCI mode afterwards. What have you got to lose, apart from a little time, if you try? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted January 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2008 I have chickened out entirely and just bought an internal fdd. Sadly I don't have the time I used to have to indulge my curiosity in such matter.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted January 23, 2008 Report Share Posted January 23, 2008 I understand that fully - I don't have the time to play that I used to have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted January 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 well I built it last night. Took the best part of 3-4 hours but then I was double-checking everything as I went along! The Good -It POSTed first time -It is freakishly silent (with the rear case fan set to "low") so much so that wifey said she wouldn't be able to tell if it was still on without looking at the monitor. The Bad -The case really is a squeeze. I ripped my fingers to shreds during the mobo install and one edge was so sharp I didn't even know I had cut myself until I saw blood on the PCB -I'm not sure if PWM is working or if the cpu header is borked. bios reports the cpu fan as running at 560rpm [the box says it runs 900-2000rpm], and even disabling cpu fan control which should theoretically make it run at full speed had no effect. The Inbetween/Not Sure -bios recognised a quad core q6600 but set it by default to run at 8x333 [ie 2.1GHz] rather than its rated 9x266 so I had to manually adjust this -the vcore has been set by default to 1.3v; leave it or lower it? -RAM supposedly set "by SPD" timings are 18-6-6-6 whereas it is PC3200 rated ram supposed to run at 15-4-4-5 timings -cpu idle temp was 34C with case fan on "high" and 36C with it on silent/low; is this acceptable for this cpu with internal case temps 32-34C? I might set the case fan to medium -no os drivers installed yet. setting hdd to ide and "native ide" to off [ie default] meant the hdd and dvdrw were both autodetected in the bios; when I set ACHI on and ide to Native mode the drives are displayed on the post screen but it says "none" in the bios and they are nor auto-detected I am guessing this is because the relevant drivers/OS have not yet been installed -mobo/psu has both 2x2 and 2x4 12V connectors. The 2x4 is supposedly for using 130W "extreme" cpus. I plugged in the 2x2v connector and it works So: 1) should I worry about the cpu fan speed issue? It is certainly spinning. 2) bit annoyed the cpu speeds were not correctly set by default; what vcore should I change it to [or leave it be] 3) should I leave the RAM alone or change manually to the advertised timings? then again the vdimm is set at 1.8v currently and these babies need 2.1v 4) should I leave psu/mobo on the 2x2 12v connection or swap over to the 2x4 connector and have more juice on tap? I'm sure I'll have more questions!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobK Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] What I did on mine was install XP with the hard drive on the Gigabyte controller, then once in Windows install the Intel drivers and swap the SATA cable over to the ICH9 port. [/ QUOTE ] am I correct in assuming you installed XP [in "ide" mode for you hdd]; went into device manager and updated the driver for the ICH9 port, started, set bios for hdd in ACHI and voila? If so: 1) did you just get the drivers for the Intel Matrix Manager off the GB cd? 2) why did you have to first install it on the GB sata controller? [/ QUOTE ] Sorry, it's a bit late now but 1) I downloaded the latest ones 2) because the GB drivers are built in and I don't have a floppy drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted January 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2008 guys could you please suggest a software that will: 1) Benchmark 2) Stability Test 3) load my cpu My shiny new machine is slow and less responsive than my old athlon system. I know Zone Alarm is partly responsible but I want to get some objective data on the build itself once I remove ZA Back in the day, SiSoft Sandra had a System/CPU Burn Test and 3DMark did this too. What is currently used? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now