Lets build a couple computers

[Sarrkazztic]

I am not the greatest writer so please forgive me...Hope I didn't leave out too much...but I had fun building these machines and running the tests....The writing part was not all that much fun LOL

I decided to upgrade the motherboard in my main machine, that means picking a new board that meets my needs now and in the future. So I had to research what I wanted in new board and then find the best pricing on that board. The following article follows that process all the way to setting up 2 new machines.

I wanted a motherboard that had a known reputation for being stable, that was also upgradeable in the future. I have an Athlon 1.2ghz processor so the board had to accommodate that as well as be able to run the Athlon XP series of processor in the future when the prices fall more. I decided on the Asus Brand A7v133-c with onboard audio specs

BigJames4xl a member of amazingtechs.com had already ordered one of these boards from www.mwave.com and they had shipped it to him really quick so I thought I would give them a try. Unfortunately for me they listed the a7v133 board in the specs for the 133-c and the difference between the boards is the a7v133 has an onboard promise controller for adding up to 4 additional ide devices than traditional boards. The 133-c revision does not have this feature. Which was kind of a let down but that was easily remedied I purchased a Maxtor UltraAta100 controller card to solve that problem.

Mwave had a motherboard, cpu, ram, heatsink and fan bundle special so I opted for that along with 9 dollars for testing the combination before shipping. Total price for the bundle with shipping 2nd day air was 197.81. I ordered on Friday and had the package on Monday. Excellent turn around time.

For my main machine I previously had an Ecs K7vza motherboard. K7vza
That my Athlon 1.2ghz cpu was on. In the bundle I ordered a Duron 800 so I would have processor to put back on the Ecs board. I use the Antec sx-830 case which comes standard with an AMD approved 300 watt power supply. For video I have the Radeon VE 32mb ddr This will be upgraded soon to the Geforce 2 mx-400 For sound I bought the motherboard with onboard sound because after spending this cash I new I would have to wait awhile for the real sound to go in which should be the end of this month I am getting the Soundblaster Audigy Xgamer specs I have an HP 8100+ series charcoal gray colored cd writer and a Pioneer 16x dvd drive also charcoal gray. I also have an atapi zip 100 drive also charcoal gray and 2 40 gig Maxtor ata100 7200 rpm hard drives. Notice this is 5 ide or atapi drives, that is why I need the extra ata100 controller because on a normal motherboard you can only have up to 4 of these devices connected due to the limitations of ide controllers.

The building process

Any time you are working inside your computer make sure you have either discharged all static electricity by grabbing onto the case with both hands or wear an anti-static bracelet. Static Kills!!!
I always like to have everything lined up nice and neat on the workbench according to the order of installation. I pre install the cpu, heatsink and fan Socketed CPUs will have two odd corners that you can use to make sure that the pins are lined up correctly with. Note, in the below picture, that the right corners of the CPU are different than the left ones. Make sure that that odd corners line up with the odd corners of the socket (in the below picture, they are the bottom two).Cpu lineup

After figuring out which way the CPU goes into the socket, lift the lever.

Lever closed
Lever Open

Then carefully insert the CPU. This should require no force. When lined up correctly, the CPU should "fall" into the socket. Use of any force will damage the CPU.
I like to ues a bb size drop of Arctic Silver thermal compound this aids in dropping cpu temps a couple of degrees by filling in any cracks or crevices in the heat sink material. You only need a micro thin layer of this paste do not apply too much, if you do clean it off with alcohol and a very soft anti-static cloth. Cpuinsocket Then put on the Heatsink and fan. I used the vantec cck-6035d with delta 7000 rpm fan HSF
Next I install the ram in this build it is 512 megs of pc133 Sdram. Then I put the video card in the agp slot all of this while outside of the case and connect the monitor cable to the video card. Then I do what is called a dry run I connect the atx power cable to the motherboard and short the soft power on switch this will turn on the motherboard circuitry and you can test for P.O.S.T. (Power On Self Test) I do this because if anything does not want to cooperate you do not have to remove it from the case before you send it back to the vendor. Now since I had this board pre-tested at the vendors I still checked it myself to be on the safe side, I had not dealt with this vendor before and really didn’t know if they could be trusted. After I check for P.O.S.T, I can mount the motherboard inside the case. The first machine I built myself around this time last year I used the nylon standoffs these make it very difficult to remove the motherboard or realign it for that matter. I will never use those again. I only use the brass screw-in standoffs now.

Do a test installation of the motherboard to see where you need to put the brass standoffs, mark these locations with a black marker or just keep track of what holes line up.
After I install the standoffs and before putting the motherboard in the case permanently I run the sound card wire that runs from the back of the cdrom drive to the sound card input port under where the motherboard would be as to keep this wire hidden and out of the way. **Note** since I am going to be adding an aftermarket sound card later I left about 6 inches of extra wire at the board end so it will reach the connector on the audigy card when I install it later. Make sure any knock-off plates are removed IE. The sound card plugs, USB ports and if you have onboard Lan remove that knock-off plate too. If the case has the backing plates for agp or pci slots that are not the screw down type you will need to remove the ones that correspond to the slots you will be using also. Now mount the motherboard onto the brass standoffs and screw it down tight but do not over tighten the screws.

The first connection I make is the atx power connector atx power

**Note** this picture is actually from the 2nd build. First build pictures were corrupt on the floppy disk

Next I connect the connecting leads from the case to the header on the motheboard. IE. Softpower on, hdd, led, power led, reset switch, and speaker Connections
I do this without any drives in the case for more room for my hands. Then I install all drives. In this machine I have the 2 40 gig hard drives, Hp 8100+ cd writer, Pioneer 16x dvd, and atapi zip 100 drive as mentioned earlier connecting power and ide cables to all as I go.
Next I install the video card, network card if used (I have highspeed Internet so it is a must) and The Ultra ata100 controller card. **Note this is installed without any drives connected** because I am using windows 98se in this project and you have to install the device driver before you can use the card.

Partitioning and formatting the harddrives is next. Boot to a 98se boot disk I choose the boot without cdrom support for this step because after all partitions are made you have to reboot before formatting the drives..just takes less time in the initial boot periods to go without cdrom support (This portion of the article borrowed from pcguide.com to save typing time.
[ The PC Guide | Procedure Guide | Setup and Inspection Procedures ]

Hard Disk Partitioning and Formatting Procedure

This procedure describes how to set up a new, empty hard disk so that it is ready for an operating system to be installed on it. This process includes partitioning and formatting and results in a bootable hard disk. The procedure covers configuring the hard disk as a single large partition or splitting it into multiple, smaller partitions. The procedure provides specific instructions for using the FDISK program and is based on the Windows 95 OEM SR2 (Windows 95B) FDISK version with FAT32 support.

Warning: This procedure is intended to be used for setting up a new hard disk containing no information on it. Do not follow these steps if your hard disk has already been partitioned and formatted, or data loss will likely result.


Procedure Overview:

Difficulty Level: 2 (Low).
Risk Factor: 1 (Very low). This assumes that the hard disk has no data on it.
Hardware Required: None.
Software Required: Boot disk containing the FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM programs.
Time to Perform: 5 to 20 minutes, depending on the size and speed of the hard disks.
Preparation / Warnings:
To be safe, always run FDISK from DOS only.
Be extremely careful when using the FDISK program, as one incorrect keystroke can result in major data loss. In particular, in a system with multiple hard disk drives be careful to make sure you are working on the right physical disk or you may accidentally end up disturbing the contents of the wrong drive. Beware that DOS drive letters can change after creating or deleting partitions, and that with multiple hard disks the partitions may be lettered in an unexpected sequence. See here for more details on this.
Do not perform this procedure until the system is in good working order. Resolve any hardware conflicts or other issues before commencing.
I assume that the system has been turned on and booted from the floppy disk.
FDISK uses binary megabytes when displaying drive and partition sizes, not decimal megabytes. See this explanation of the difference for details.
All commands in DOS or within FDISK require you to press {Enter} to select them; I'm not going to repeat it a zillion times within the procedure below.

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Procedure Steps:

Check Version Number: At the DOS prompt, enter the following command: "ver". The system will respond with the version of DOS/Windows you have booted. Make sure that this matches whatever you want to install on the hard disk. For Windows 95 OEM SR2 the version number will be "4.00.1111".
Plan Partitions: Decide how you want to partition your hard disk. In particular, for large hard disks under Windows 95 OSR2, decide if you want to set up your hard disk with a single large FAT32 partition, or several smaller FAT16 partitions. (You can of course mix these). I provide instructions for doing either of these, but cannot tell you how to set up your system. You must decide based on what makes sense for you. For assistance in making this decision, and more general information on partitioning, cluster sizes and related issues, refer to this section. Most people today prefer to set up a new system using a single FAT32 partition.
Run FDISK.EXE: From the command prompt, enter the command "fdisk". If you have a disk large enough to warrant the use of FAT32, you will be asked if you want to enable "large disk support". Enter "Y" if you want to enable FAT32, or "N" if you do not want to enable FAT32. If you do enable this, any partitions over 500 MB that you create will be FAT32. Note that if you do not enable FAT32, you will not be able to put your entire hard disk into one partition if it is greater than 2 GB in size.
If you decided to place your entire hard disk into a single partition, then follow this step:

Partition Hard Disk (Single Partition): Follow these steps to set up your hard disk:
Select from the FDISK menu "1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive".
Select "1. Create Primary DOS Partition". FDISK will verify drive integrity. Then it will ask if you want to use the maximum available size of the disk for the primary partition and set it active. Enter "Y". The system will allocate the whole disk to the partition, and that's that.
Press {Esc} to exit FDISK.
If instead you want to set up your hard disk with multiple partitions (or if you don't have Windows 95 OEM SR2), follow this step. In order to make the process easier to follow, I am going to use an example below. In the example, a 3100 (binary) MB hard disk is being partitioned into four partitions of 1000 MB, 800 MB, 700 MB and 600 MB respectively:

Partition Hard Disk (Multiple Partitions): Follow these steps to set up your hard disk:
Select from the FDISK menu "1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive".
Select "1. Create Primary DOS Partition". FDISK will verify drive integrity. Then it will ask if you want to use the maximum available size of the disk for the primary partition and set it active. Enter "N". The system will show the size of the entire disk in MB.
Enter the size of the primary partition. In our example, this would mean entering "1000". The system will tell you that it has created the primary partition, and will assign it the drive letter "C:".
Press {Esc} to return to the FDISK menu.
Select "2. Set active partition". Select partition 1. FDISK will report that it has set partition 1 active.
Press {Esc} to return to the FDISK menu.
Select from the FDISK menu "1. Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive".
Select "2. Create Extended DOS Partition".
When prompted, press {Enter} to select the entire remaining area of the disk for the extended DOS partition. FDISK will report that it has created the extended DOS partition.
Press {Esc}. FDISK will automatically prompt you to create your first logical DOS volume within the extended DOS partition.
Enter the size of the first logical partition (the second partition overall). In our example you would enter "800". FDISK will create the partition, label it "D:", and then say "Logical DOS Drive created, drive letters changed or added". Don't touch anything, just wait, and FDISK will prompt you for the next volume.
Repeat the previous step for the remaining partitions (in our example there would be two more partitions to create, the 700 MB and 600 MB ones). When all of the partitions have been created, FDISK will report "All available space in the Extended DOS Partition is assigned to logical drives".
Press {Esc} to exit FDISK.
Continue with the procedure:

Reboot: Reboot the system using either the Reset button or the "three-fingered salute" ({Ctrl}+{Alt}+{Delete}). Make sure the floppy disk is in its drive, since you still need it. Note that you may get "Invalid media type reading drive C" errors while rebooting. This is normal at this stage.
Format Primary Partition: From the "A:" DOS prompt, issue the following command: "format c:/s". Do not forget the "/s", as this is what will make your C: drive bootable. You will get a "scary" warning message such as "WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST. Proceed with Format (Y/N)?". Since of course there is no data presently on drive C:, just enter "Y" and the system will format the hard disk. The program will show you its progress as it formats and at the end will prompt you for a volume label. Enter one if you wish.
Format Additional Partitions (if necessary): If you set up multiple partitions, format the additional partitions now. This is done in almost the same way as formatting the primary DOS partition, except that you leave off the "/s". So normally you would be entering "format d:", "format e:" and so on, until all the partitions have been formatted. The prompts should be the same as in the preceding step.
Warning: If you have a second hard disk in the system and it has a primary DOS partition, that partition is probably assigned D: because DOS assigns letters to all primary partitions before any logical partitions. Be careful of what you format.


Remove Boot Floppy: Eject the boot floppy from the floppy disk.
Reboot: Reboot the system using either the Reset button or {Ctrl}+{Alt}+{Delete}. The system should boot up from the hard disk this time, and stop at the "C:" prompt. Note that if you get an error such as "NO ROM BASIC, SYSTEM HALTED" or "No boot device found" at this stage, this means you forgot to set the primary DOS partition "active". Reboot from the floppy, run FDISK again and use option 2 to set the primary partition active, then reboot. If you get an error like "No operating system", this means you probably forgot the "/s" parameter when formatting the C: drive. Put the floppy disk back in the drive and then return to step 5. See the Troubleshooting Expert for more help with any errors you may encounter.

Installation of Operating System and drivers

The next step is installing the operating system 98se for me
reboot with the boot disk choosing cdrom support this time and browse to the directory of the drive with the 98se cd in it
and choose the setup.exe file this will get you off and running installing the o.s. Answer all questions and let it run its course

When it reboots and gives you control of your machine back you will likely have the display set in 16 colors and 640x480 pixels...This is where you start installing drivers for your cards. I always install the via 4in1 drivers first to prevent any conflicts with video cards and busmaster type devices later. After the via drivers and busmaster drivers I then install the video card driver this will prompt for a reboot.

After the reboot you will be able to select the display settings of choice..I use 1024x768 and 32bit color as this is the smallest display settings I can use comfortably with my eyesight and the hours that I spend on a computer each day.

Next I install the sound drivers (however in this case they are a part of the via drivers)

Then up next is the installation of the Maxtor Ultra ata100 controller card. after this driver is installed I can connect the 2 40gig drives to it and boot up to the bios and set the boot order to 1.floppy drive, 2. Scsi, 3.Cdrom and save changes and boot to the o.s.

I let the machine run a day or so in the default configuration of the board before tweaking anything in the bios. And since this board is running in jumper free mode pretty much everything is set correctly anyway.

Now for keeping this Athlon cool....I already have the vantec hsf installed but that is just not enough for todays high end processors and video cards. The Antec case has mounting brackets for up to 5 80mm case fans so I am using all of them 2 in front as intake 2 in rear as exhaust and 1 other in the front of the drive bay area to help cool those twin 7200 rpm 40 gig drives. I also have a slot mounted exhaust fan to help keep the video card cool....the sytem has been up and running for a week today and my system temps measured both in the bios and sisoft sandra say that on my average use the system never gets hotter than 41 degrees celcius or 105. degrees fahrenheit which is well in the limits of the athlon cpu.

After using zip ties to make sure all wires and ide cables are neatly out of the way I put the side panel back on the machine and let it run for 24 hours running the windows built in 3d maze screensaver...this puts a pretty good taxing on the cpu to make sure nothing is wrong with the board or ram or other key components and if the machine responds well to that test then I start installing all of the software that I use on a daily basis.

After all software is installed I have a copy of Norton Ghost 2001 that I make a complete C drive clone and store it on one of the other drives incase something goes terribly wrong and I have to set the system back to its current configuration. I try and make a new ghost clone each weekend or so that way I have a working image to go back to if any new software causes trouble...this is very good idea and many of us on this board and the others that we all belong to do the same.

Part 2....building of the second machine
This will be in less detail as I covered most of the important stuff in the first part....

I had the Ecs K7vza motherboard left over from my previous machine so I bought a new case to put it in as a backup or email and internet machine...The case fans and hsf in the main machine make alot of noise and I do not want to leave it on all the time so I generally have a 2nd machine that I can leave on all the time and I can use it to burn cds or any other application while I am on the main machine taking care of business on these forums that we all post to.

The second machine is based on that ECS motherboard and the Duron 800 cpu I bought in the bundle pricing from Mwave

I only put 128 mb of pc-100 ram in it as that is all I had laying around after the build of the first machine...(more on that pc100 stick later in the troubles and testing section)

Followed the same exact procedures as above on this one but the components are different
K7vza Rev 3.0 motherboard
Duron 800 cpu
128mb pc-100 Sdram
drivebay empty

Drivebay full
32x cdrom drive
8.4 gig drive to upgraded to 40 gig soon
Ati Rage IIc 4meg video card spare part laying around

Supercase empty
Cdrom and drive bay installed
Inside view of cdrom and drive bay installed
Board mounted

Test Results
The first set of test I ran on the main machine was 3dmark2000 the score for the board and video was higher on this board...old board with same video card was 2763 new board with same video card was 3337 at 1024x768 resolution and 32bit color noticeable improvement there

Train and I coordinated some test using Fractal Explorer to see what the differences would be between his Duron 800 and my Athlon 1.2ghz for this test we both used 384 megs of pc-133 Sdram.

Trains 800 Duron and My 800 Duron results are virtually Identical

Test 01 both took 109 seconds to render the Fractal
Test 02 both took 118 seconds to render the Fractal
Test 03 both took 50 seconds to render the Fractal

My 1.2 ghz Athlon was considerably faster with 384 megs of ram

Test 01 took 71 seconds
Test 02 took 78 seconds
Test 03 took 33 seconds

For the sake of science I put the other 128 meg stick in and ran it at 512 megs of ram

Test 01 took 77 seconds
Test 02 took 78 seconds
Test 03 took 32 seconds

This shows evidence that windows 98se does not really use any additional memory past 384 mb and actually runs better

Problems during the build

Really there were not that many glitches in this build....There was one major one...after I installed the operating system the first time and made my ghost clone to the hard drive, The next day I installed Asus temp probe software to see what it said about the system temperatures. Immediately I started seeing blue screen errors and I knew it wasn't temperature related but I had to leave for work and couldnt diagnose it then, but I did recall when installing the ram that one stick was labled pc-100 the other 2 were pc-133 and I had the system running using pc-133 settings in the bios. I came home from work and installed sisoft sandra to see if it was indeed pc-100 ram and sandra said it was so I took it out and all the blue screens went away. But to be on the safe side I formatted the disk and restored my ghost image all has been fine since then not one problem and no blue screens at all.

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[Sarrkazztic]

here is the whole article with pictures

Article **note this is a word document and you have to follow the hyperlinks to get to the pictures**

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[This message has been edited by sarrkazztic (edited 01-21-2002).]

[greengoose1]

Hi Sarrkazztic, I cannot open the the link up. I wanna see the pictures.

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[Sarrkazztic]

Goose....I emailed it to your hotmail email

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[greengoose1]

Thanks.

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[Nix]

Wow that's pretty full on and useful information.

I'm interested in the bit about the ATA controller.

I have a promise 100 ata controller that my 20Gb HDD is attached to.

If I was to fdisk, partition and format the drive and reinstall WinMe, would i have to disconnect the HDD from the ATA controller and connect it to the ide controller until such times that Windows and the ATA drivers are installed and then reconnect back to ATA.

I have Gateway OEM recovery CD that claims it does it all for you, but the default is for one partition for the whole drive.

My system boot order is CD-Rom, Floppy, HDD

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[This message has been edited by Nix (edited 01-21-2002).]

[Sarrkazztic]

Not real sure about those gateway recovery cds...but I do have a machine at my house from a client whose gateway machine has the ata66 controller in it....so it seems common for them to use that....If you are going to do a clean install with WinME then yes you should connect your drive to the primary IDE controller and install your O.S. then install the drivers for the ata100 controller before connecting the drive back to it.

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[Sarrkazztic]

bumping this up so it doesnt get lost

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[bistro]

Had to do that with this new RAID board. Connect the primary HD to IDE 1, install the OS, then the ATA controller drivers, THEN I was able to switch the primary over to the ATA connection. Not a real biggie, but I am easily irritated....



[This message has been edited by bistro (edited 01-23-2002).]

[DrMDJ]

Because of nuances in the way those recovery CDs (the procedures) you may well have to move the HD to the motherboard controller. If you were just doing a "regular" install though it could be done with the drive on the Promise controller.

One potential problem to watch out for... In some cases there can be differences between the way translation is done (the way the hard drives geometry/layout/addressing is handled) by the motherboard's bios vs that on the Promise (or other controller cards). This can cause a drive to be unrecognizable if it is first fdisked/formatted on the motherboard and then moved to the Promise). Just something to be aware of.

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[This message has been edited by DrMDJ (edited 01-23-2002).]

[Train]

sarrkazztic

My 1.2 ghz Athlon was considerably faster with 384 megs of ram

Test 01 took 71 seconds
Test 02 took 78 seconds
Test 03 took 33 seconds

UPDATE
jr today did the this.
Test 01 in 63 seconds
Test 02 in 72 seconds
Test 03 in 31 seconds
And only has 256MB


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[This message has been edited by Train (edited 01-24-2002).]

[Sarrkazztic]

Folks....Train has neglected to tell us that he has upgraded jr...from the 800 duron to a 1.4ghz athlon running on a 266mhz asus A7v266e motherboard with ddr ram.....thats cheating Train.....congrats on the upgrade....you just had to be faster didnt you....well time to build another one I guess...he he.....nope I am done for a while...installed the audigy last night....man you cannot believe the difference between that card and the onboard ac97 sound that I had before....AUDIGY ROCKS!!!

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[Sarrkazztic]

bumping this up again so it doesnt get lost on page 2...will not bump again..

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[Train]

Tattle tale
On board to a card, yes I would .
You wrote a step by step, so I tried it out

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