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Glad to hear it! :D
I, myself just ordered an Enermax 300w from Texas. I'm waiting on it to arrive in about five days. Hope you get the HDD and Power LEDs figured out, as well as your audio. But sounds like everything turned out alright in the end.
Thanks for letting us know.
On your hdd and power lights,,have you tried reversing the connectors? Many mobo manuals aren't very clear on this config...
Glad to hear you got the main prob sorted tho'...:)
Congrats - those temps certainly sound very good.
Ridge is right on - reverse the connectors, your case lights should come on then. The description from the MOBO, respectively case maker are almost always wrong in my experience.
No idea as to the headphones, matbe someone else pitches in...
Enjoy :)
And just to clarify what they were saying, reversing them doesn't mean switching the spots of the HDD and Power LEDs (you may have known that, but just in case) ;) . They're talking about flipping them around so that the wires are reversed. I've run into this a ton of times myself. The good thing is that it won't hurt anything if they are backwards, just keep messing with them (i.e. trying them one or two spots over, forwards, backwards, etc) until they work. I've had some motherboard manuals that were waaay off as far as the locations for the HDD and Power LEDs were concerned. Hopefully that's all it is, since LEDs rarely go bad.
Good Luck!
Ok I have another update, I’ve managed to fix the HDD and power LED just by reversing the connectors as you said :D However I haven’t managed to get the sound going properly yet after much fiddling about- I can only get sound through one headphone\speaker at a time (no it isn’t a problem with the headphones). I’m thinking that the cable linking the 'phone jacks to the mobo are damaged. To be that honest I’m not to bothered as I was thinking of getting a half decent soundcard (with a headphone jack in the back) anyway, so this is just the excuse!
Another question (this is the last one, honest!!)
What sound card do you recommend? I’m pretty sure most of you will now say "Audigy2!", however I cant really afford £75 on a soundcard; I’m looking to spend £30-45. I’ve heard some good things about Hercules' soundcards.....
Soundblaster Live 5.1! or Voyetra Turtle Beach. Both great cards for little money and often recommended here.
I personally prefer the SB, but that's a taste decision, not quality based.
www.soundblaster.com
www.voyetra.com
I've been using the SB Live! Platinum 5.1 for a while now, and it's a fantastic card - it's worth saving your pennies for if you possibly can.
If you go to www.dabs.com and type "sound cards" into the Quicksearch box you'll find plenty in your price range. For me the only 2 brands I would consider are Creative or Terratec, they both get rave reviews in all the PC mags.
Personally,i prefer the Turtle Beach-Santa Cruz card. Have the SB Live! 5.1 in my second machine,but i don't care much for the bloatware and legacy stuff it tries to install. There are workarounds for this,but the Santa Cruz is so simple to install,compatible with everything i have and with my 3 speaker Altec Lansings,the sound is great!
My 2¢ worth...:)
If you're looking for a surround-sound card, go for the SoundBlaster 5.1.
Really all of the SoundBlaster cards are good. That's the company I always go for when I'm buying sound cards, they're excellent and work very well with Windows.
Good Luck.
Yeah, truth be told, I agree with Ridgerunr. I personally never install any of the extra "goodies" that come with the SoundBlaster cards, only the drivers. Most of it is pretty decent software, and for some people that's part of the reason they buy SoundBlaster cards, but for me it just takes up space and I never use it.
By the way, BlIsTeRpAcK, looks like it wasn't such a stupid question about fans after all. just goes to show the only dumb question is the one you don't ask.
Ok I will save my pennies and get the Soundblaster (it does have a headphone jack in the back, doesn't it?).
Looks like you are right Webshark2000, this wasnt such a bad question to ask;759 views-holy momma!
If you save up even more pennies and get the Platinum you get the breakout box that fits in a 5.25 bay and you get the headphone jack on the front with a volume control. I've got my headphones plugged into it right now, listening to Internet radio on Winamp3 :D (radiostorm.com classic rock - truly excellent).
Hmmm I could save more for the platinum however I would be really stretching it (I am a student!), to be honest its no problem not having a headphone jack on the front of the PC as I have headphones that have 3.0m cable length, so as long as it has a jack on the back of the card itself im fine!
Oh yeah, it's got a headphones jack. Acutally I shouldn't call it a headphones jack, since it's really a line out jack that you can hook up to headphones, speakers, or whatever. I've got the 5.1 card, but at the moment I'm not using it to its full potential. At the moment I've just got it hooked up two two Sony computer speakers (SRS-Z500s). They're great speakers, don't get me wrong, but I've got surround-sound and haven't set it up since I moved. I'm planning on it in the near future. That's when those newer video games really shine.
At the moment I've actually got a 1/8 inch splitter plugged into my line out on the back of my sound card (the green spot on the sound card). I've got it so I can have the signal going to my speakers, or if I want to turn them off and use my headphones I can do that as well since the signal is going there also.
The SoundBlaster 5.1 card also has it set up for those who don't need complete 5.1 digital surround sound (or don't want to shell out the cash for it), and you can use one jack for 2 front speakers and one for 2 back speakers, so it will still give you somewhat of a surround sound. Although, surround sound packages for computers have come down in price so much, it's almost cheaper to just shell out the money for the 6 speakers, than it is for just 2. I know SoundBlaster makes a 5.1 speaker setup (all-in-one package) that's less than $100.
The 5.25" front-panel that SuperSparks was talking about is excellent, if you do ever decide to go with it. I believe you can even purchase it seperately later on and it will work with your sound card (so you could save up for it after you get your sound card). But another plus, it has a remote control so you can control your computer's volume, what it plays, and more from afar. I plan on getting one some day (perhaps when they come down in price a little).
Anyway, hope that's some useful info for you.
Webshark2000, thats an abosultely great overview of the card. I thank you. :D