Ask me pc related questions Options

[mastaping]

ic. yeah it is possible to build a $200 system. you can buy those compo build like these...for her.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....00%20-%20%24200

you would need to spend extra 20 buck for CD-rom though.


nope. no idea. lol

No Prob, Thanks anyway ^^

[InitialDJay]

exciting, i have the thermal paste, the 2 harddrives, the cd rom, and the processor.

as per this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUY0tP5jYIo

ill be putting the parts in this order?

1. power supply
2. optical drive
3. motherboard (put processor and ram on first) then heat sink
4. video card
5. harddrives
6. cables

questions:

- what is this electrical ground static thing? they say attach something to your wrist to the ground?

- how similar is my build going to be with his video (emphasis on case, like where things are and how to put in drives)? besides the heatsink, of which i know there is this vid for me to reference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN6qOc6hknY

and me having 2 harddrives.

no. do this if you want better space and cable management.

1. install the CPU on the motherboard. mount the heatsink bracket 1155 on the back of your motherboard (make sure you know which bracket it is!). then apply thermal paste in a VERTICAL LINE (don't spread, it's not the best optimal cooling technique). put the heatsink on top of the CPU that you just applied thermal paste. then mount the fan as directed on the video. there is a 4-pin plug on the sigmatek fan. plug that 4-pin into your motherboard 4-pin CPU fan. the motherboard CPU fan should be near the location of the CPU with the name "CPU fan".

2. install your two RAM in the two blue DIMM spot. NOT BLACK. if you adding more RAM, that's where you install them.

3. mount the motherboard into your case as shown in that video.

4. mount the power supply into your case as shown

5. on the power supply, there is a big 24-hole pin plug. plug that 24-hole pin into your motherboard as shown in the picture. if you want cable management, try your best to hide that big cable behind your case side panel.



6. on the power supply, there is an 8-hole pin plug. plug that 8-hole pin into your motherboard as shown in the picture. same thing, try wire them behind the case hole in the side panel.



7. install your SSD at the very bottom of the case. your case comes with customized location for your SSD. your case will show you how to mount it.

8. install your WD hard drive into the middle. notice: you need to take out the 1st drive bay (the middle drive bay) and insert the hard disk inside and lock it with screw driver.

9. install your CD-ROM at the very top of the case. just remove the default bracket on the case and push your CD-ROM in and lock it.

** at this point, it is up to you how you want to manage your cables. so think about how you want to twist and turn them so that your cable is organized and hide them behind the back of the case.

10. plug the sata III cable (the white top plug is the Sata III, the black top plug is the Sata II) into your SSD and into your motherboard Sata III port DARK BLUE. it does not matter which way you plug them or which dark blue port you plug them it. NOTE: the 2 WHITE ports are for RAID configuration. they're both sata III port. you would need more than 2 SSD to do this to increase speed.



11. plug the sata III cable into your WD hard drive and into the motherboard dark blue port. refer to above #10.

12. plug the sata II cable (the black one) into your CD-ROM and into the motherboard LIGHT BLUE port 1.



13. on the power supply, plug the Sata power into your SSD, WD hard drive, and CD rom. it has label "Sata" on it.

14. install your video card into the 1st PCI express..like shown here...



15. on the power supply, plug the two PCI-e into your video card. since it's a powerful video card, it requires 2 PCI-e.

16. on the case, there are some cable label the PW switch, Reset switch, HD switch, USB, etc.. plug all those into your motherboard where it is label. refer to the video.

17. on the power supply, plug the molex cable into the case fan. there are 4 cases fan total. so you plug 4 molex cables into 4 of those fan.

that it. you're done. turn on, and immediately continue PRESS "Delete" key during bootup to go into BIO setting. in the BIO, go the BOOT tab where it say "Boot Priority". set the CD-ROM as 1st boot. insert your Window OS and begin installation. remember to install the OS onto your SSD. note: you may need to format first.

------------

oh to answer other questions. if you have an antistatic wrist strap, you wear those to cancel the electric charge. but dont' worry, just don't touch any chip area part. handle them on the plastic area. and anytime you mess with computer component, just touch your case metal part. it will cancel out the electrostatic charge.

your case is a bit different from his case. the location of power supply mounting is the same (at the bottom). install HD and CD rom are different since your antec 902, you need to take out the whole bay. refer to online for help. the rest are the same.

actually, after you finish putting all them together. let me know so we can twist the BIO a bit for optimal performance. you need to set your SSD Sata to IDE to upgrade the firmware. then after that set to AHCI. this is a bit complicated. need give you steps to do this properly. lol.

This post has been edited by InitialDJay: Sep 3 2011, 11:23 PM

[Mid-Night_Sun]

ok, i got all my parts and tried to assemble. few questions.

1. i have a usb 3.0 that seems to be for a usb port, but its inside the case? also im hd audio right? not ac?
2. those power cables have more than 1 socket, is it ok if i had 2 of the fans into 1? and the other 2 cd rom fans to another?
3. i accidentally touched the vid card trying to plug its 2 power things in. is it dead now LOL.
4. my hdmi cable appears to be much too big for the hdmi on the vid card?


i didnt test if it works yet, because you said there was stuff i had to do if it did work. press delete, bio ,etc. so im waiting for those instructions.

overall, some parts were easier than i thought, others were much harder. like trying to plug in everything in that little space was very infuriating lmao. but ya a lot of the installation wasnt that bad. heat sink wasnt bad, although those rubber things are so irritating. all the cables appear to be connected so as soon as i get the next batch of instructions ill try to turn it on.




edit:

yaaa forget 4. i just found that adapter -_- needless to say theres a bunch of things i didnt open LMAO. im thinking i should take a pic and show you waht i DONT have in my comp so you can check if its vital. i dont want it blowing up in my face when i try to turn it on.

This post has been edited by Mid-Night_Sun: Sep 6 2011, 08:08 PM

[InitialDJay]

1. your motherboard has usb 3.0 port. the front panel is usb 3.0 capable, but you have to plug that front panel usb to the motherboard. yes, plug the hd audio. ac97 is old.
2. yes. it designs that way to keep your cable organized.
3. you mean the chip? no i doubt it is that sensitive.
4. you might be different type of HDMI. in that case, you might need an adapter. there's several way you can do that. you can buy the DVI to HDMI adapter/cable. can you show the picture of the hdmi you have?

okay, assuming that you get everything install properly. now this is crucial... don't close your case panel yet. let me ask you first, do you have the firmware 00009 download from crucial yet? if not, download it here ...

http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx

after download the 00009 firmware, burn it as .ISO disc image to a DVD. so you can upgrade the firmware before installing OS. if you want to install OS first, then upgrade later. that's okay too. but better to upgrade first, set it into AHCI before install OS..otherwise it takes a bit of registry twist later. i assume you want upgrade first before OS, so you have this firmware in a DVD bootable disc ready.

1. press the ON POWER button. the two front panel fan should turn on with blue LED. check that your sigmatek heatsink fan is spinning and working. if not, IMMEDIATELY TURN POWER OFF and check that your sigmetek fan is plugging to the appropriate CPU fan on the motherboard.

2. during boot up, continue pressing the DELETE button to go into bio.

3. in the bio, on the main tab, check that your RAM total is around 8,000MB and speed is 1600MHz. i assume you get that. if not, you have to manually edit it in AI Tweaker.

4. in the bio, now go to Advanced tab > Sata Configuration. then choose SATA Mode as = IDE Comparability if it's not already yet preselect.

5. go to the Boot tab. in the Boot Option Priority, choose your CD-ROM as your Boot Option #1.

6. insert your firmware DVD that you burn into the CD-rom drive. press F10 to save and exit. you will get firmware upgrade screen. follow the instruction when ask if you want to upgrade. type"yes" .. wait until it said finished and current firmware is: 0009 . then press the power button to turn computer off.

7. turn computer back on, press DELETE key to go into bio again. go to Advanced tab > Sata Configuration. change the SATA Mode to "AHCI Mode".

8. Advance tab > Onboard Devices Configuration. check that Marvell Storage Controller is AHCI mode. if not, choose AHCI.

9. take out your firmware CD, replace it with your window OS CD. click F10 to save and exit. then follow the on-screen instruction to install your OS. when you get to the window where it says "Where do you want to install Windows?", choose SSD M4. NOTE: you might get a list of hard drives. most likely two: M4 and WD. click on WD drive, choose format WD hard drive. before install the OS on Crucial M4!! otherwise you won't get advantage feature of super speed with new firmware in AHCI. you boot your PC up in less than 10sec.

10. after complete installation. go back into the bio. go to the Boot tab. check that Hard Drive BBS Priorities with SSD M4 as 1st boot. if not, choose M4 SSD as Boot Option #1. F10 to save and exit.

11. load up window and install your video card driver. to get the latest and best drive version, don't use your CD that come along with video card. go directly to nvidia support site. http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us to download the newest driver. install it.

12. you get an ASUS CD that come along with your motherboard. open it and install the USB 3.0 driver and Marvell driver.

DONE!

ps: yeah, show the picture if you're not sure what i'm talking about.

[Mid-Night_Sun]

lmao. i tried it, and everything turned on, all my fans working. but no visual.

i rewatch the vid test start up and i found my mistake. for some reason, my monitor didnt work just plugged into the motherboard blue thing.

however, using the adapter to the vid card, i could connect the monitor (as done in the vid) and it worked. [fun fact. the adapter was one of the things i didnt take out of the bag LOL...it was going to be in that picture of 'things i didnt use'.]

whether this will cause me problems and i really did do something wrong, i have no clue. should have followed his vid more closely lol.


anywho, heres where im at now.



i checked the ram, it is 8192. scratch what i said before. cpu info speed was 3400, memory info speed is 1333MHz


im at 5. its preset at A0S0 WDC WD5...and so on. the other option is P3 Atapi...and so on. last option is disabled.

i have zero idea which one is cd rom -_-

not sure whats happening now. i didnt get a firmware upgrade screen. its on 'finding drives' for awhile now.

i see from this

http://www.crucial.com/firmware/m4/0009/Pr...e0009_08-11.pdf

i should be seeing "searching for eligible ssd" "the following drive is eligible" etc. im stuck at finding drives. im guessing i didnt do the SSD harddrive correctly. not sure why. white tip sata III into the dark blue port. then the power cable...



GOT IT. that onboard marvel thing cant be ahci either or it wont find the ssd


also at this point i dont think its premature to THANK YOUUUU. you have been amazingly helpful. i think its clear from this thread and my questions i definitely couldnt do this without your guidance. thanks A LOT!

This post has been edited by Mid-Night_Sun: Sep 7 2011, 12:52 PM

[InitialDJay]

glad that you get it to work.

guess your motherboard can't auto detect your RAM frequency. so you have to manually change it to take advantage of your RAM standard 1600mhz speed. go to bio, AI Tweaker tab, then at the Memory Frequency, change it to DDR3 1600mhz. after that, go to DRAM Timing Control, check that the DRAM latency is 9-9-9-24 for optimal performance on your RAM capacity.

yes, you can't upgrate ssd in AHCI mode. i think i forgot to mention that you have to change it into IDE mode first. after upgrade, change it back to AHCI mode before installing window OS.. otherwise you may need to twist the registry. i guess you have already install your OS. if you go into bio and change it into AHCI, you will most likely receive an error that window can't boot. that mean you need to twist the registry to allow AHCI driver to load. try that in bio, change it into AHCI.

for the ahci vs ide thing.

there is small increase boost in AHCI mode compare to IDE for ssd. but also AHCI allows you to hotplug, meaning you can take out computer component part without needing to shut down computer. overall, there is performance boost for multitasking in running application. not all motherboard has AHCI mode, so take advantage of it.

download this hard drive benchmark, and run a test on your crucial m4 and wd disk. you'll see a huge difference in read/write speed. also see if your ssd speed is correct. you should get somewhere in the upper 300mb/s.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/AS-SSD-Benchma...nload-2569.html

[Mid-Night_Sun]

nah you didnt forget, its in step 4. what tripped me was the Marvell thing in step 8 that also needed to be changed from ACHI back in step 4.

i have both switched back to ACHI before and it is on that setting now.




the Benchmark test:

the SSD :
Seq Read = 268
Seq Write = 98
4K Read = 22
4K Write = 43
4k 64 Thrd Read = 105
4k 64 Thrd Write = 73
Acc Time Read = .109
Acc Time Write = .268


WD Drive:
Seq Read = 74.9
Seq Write = 116
4K Read = .62
4K Write = .94


LOL i grew impatient, it was taking a LONG time to finish.


i dont know what these numbers mean, but overall, the system does boot in less than 10 sec. i also already tried sc2 on its highest setting and it works great. im very satisfied with how fast it loads and runs things.


the only thing im thinking is since my SSD is my c drive, a lot of things automatically go in there, even if i install on the d drive. for example, the disk clean up, almost all the items are in c drive. my d drive only has recycle bin. id rather not have the temporary files and other things automatically going into my smallest drive.

[InitialDJay]

midnightsun, your ssd reading/writing performance is rather slow for its performance standard. it can be twice at faster...it should be in the upper 300, reaching well above 400mb/s for seq read. try to run the test again. if it still doesn't improve, there are few things you can do..

1. try change to SATA mode to RAID, and marvel mode to AHCI. take the test and see if it improves to above 350mb. (note: make sure you install marvell driver, AHCI driver, intel driver) from your Asus motherboard CD.

2. if it doesn't improve, try different port. plug the SSD sata cable (should be the white tip one) to one of the WHITE port. run the test

3. update the bio to latest version. before you do that, check your bio version first. on start, search command, type in "dxdiag" and it will give the BIO version.

------------------

install your OS and hardware driver (nvidia, USB3.0, marvel, intel, AHCI) on the C drive. install the rest on D drive.

the way you install is that when you run the exe. file, it asks where you want to install the software program to.. then prompt to install the location of D drive. all the programs main file will goes into the D drive meanwhile the short cut goes into C:. it won't cause a lot of disk space in C for shortcut. save your video file, music, etc.. into D. you may want to create several folders in D: to organize it.

[Mid-Night_Sun]

i already used the ASUS installALL thing so i dont know why this made a difference, but i manually install those drives and the score go up to around 330s.


dxdiag:

BIOS: Ver 08.00.10

This post has been edited by Mid-Night_Sun: Sep 9 2011, 03:28 PM

[InitialDJay]

it will sure make a difference because those drivers communicate with some feature of your SSD, allowing it to speed up. though, it is also important to get latest driver version for optimal performance. it seems your SSD improve but still not up on par yet.

that's not bio version. okay do this, in start, type in "System Information"... write down the bio version. my guess is that your motherboard has old version of intel raid driver. so if you update, you can get good improvement on ssd performance.

anyway, did you try changing the plugging the sata to the white port? white/dark blue are both 6ghz sataIII port, except the white one is optimize for intel raid. intel raid is slightly faster than marvel raid but not sure if they support yet. that's why i instructed to plug into the dark blue sata port in the beginning. try plug into white port, run the test. if it doesn't improve anymore. then do bio flash/update.

This post has been edited by InitialDJay: Sep 9 2011, 09:23 PM

[Mid-Night_Sun]

lol

BIOS Version Date: American Megatrends Inc. 0606, 6/24/2011
SM Bios Version: 2.6

so the white port use in conjunction with the SATA set on RAID?

[InitialDJay]

the bio is up-to-date so you don't need to update it.

yes, it is use for RAID. but you can use it too as the motherboard will just recognize it as regular IDE type.

[Mid-Night_Sun]

if i wanted to fill up the 2 remaining ram slots, what kind of ram should i get?

[Alesoco]

exciting, i have the thermal paste, the 2 harddrives, the cd rom, and the processor.

as per this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUCaMEraBATteriES

ill be putting the parts in this order?

1. power supply
2. optical drive
3. motherboard (put processor and ram on first) then heat sink
4. video card
5. harddrives
6. cables




questions:

- what is this electrical ground static thing? they say attach something to your wrist to the ground?

- how similar is my build going to be with his video (emphasis on case, like where things are and how to put in drives)? besides the heatsink, of which i know there is this vid for me to reference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN6qOc6hknY

and me having 2 harddrives.

I will to visit the youtube content.