First build - questions

I am working on my first build and I have a few questions:

1. How sturdy are today's processors? I was taking the CPU (Socket 775 Celeron D) out of the package and it dropped onto the table, from a height of about 8 inches or so. The protective cover was still on, and it did land on the static protection plastic sheet I had laying on the table. Is there anything to be concerned about? If it works on the first boot, then am I in the clear or is there a chance that it may fail later if damage was done? It sure seems pretty solid to me, but I have no idea what's going on on the inside.

2. The stock cooler has thermal compound on it, but it is in strips. I assume that this will melt from the heat and eventually cover the entire surface? Should I stick with the stock compound or should I remove it and apply something better? I am also a little concerened as I may have inadvertently touched the compound briefly with my palm.

3. I am having a hard time figuring out the little connectors on the mobo (front panel, etc) They are not "keyed" like other connectors so i don't know which direction to plug them in. I do notice a little arrow on one corner of the plug, but do not know what that means? Does direction matter on these plugs?

4. Since I am installing an SATA HD, do I still plug the CDROM drive into the secondary IDE channel and leave the primary channel open? The CDROM was OEM and did not come with any cables. Will any IDE cable work or does it have to be specifically for a CDROM drive?

5. The rear case fan has a large power connector that appears to plug straight into the power supply rather than the mobo. Is this correct?

That is all for now, but I am sure I will have more questions.

Thanks

PK

 

1. it should be fine, as long as you didnt break or bend a pin. they are pretty hefty lil buggers and should be fine if banged around a bit just dont do it too often

2. im guessing its a thermal pad, not thermal paste. if i were you id buy some new stuff and do it yourself, just a small (half-pea sized) drop in the middle of the heatspreader

3. yes it matters, check your mobo manual for how to do it correctly. i hate those things, a royal pain in the @$$

4. i dont think it really matters since the PATA and SATA are on diff "channels" (i think?) it shouldnt matter either way

5. yes thats correct but it will always run at full speed and you cant monitor RPMS (shouldnt matter if you dont OC or need extra cooling) if the sound bugs you, get a fan controller to turn it down or buy a quieter fan

 

I agree with Viper, it should be fine, but the biggest worry is dust, dirt, debris, or any other contaminant on the land grid array (part that touches the socket). Also scratches are a concern. I think yours is fine. Just make sure there is no debris on it before install (maybe use some air and blow it off a bit- CAREFULLY).

You are right, it will melt, but it is bad stuff. It contains parraffin wax that melts when heated and fills the lands and channels of the HSF and heat spreader of the processor. Once it heats and melts, it is nearly impossible to remove completely. It is an inferior quality thermal transfer material. I would suggest a high quality compound such as Arctic Silver 5. You would have to clean the current material off completely using high purity isopropyl alcohol, for example, before applying a new interface. As Viper pointed out, use a grain if rice sized amount in the middle of the chip's heat spreader.

As Viper says, yes it matters. He also astutely points out they are a pain sometimes. Confer with the manual carefully. It should give you a schematic and some instructions (can also try looking online).

Either channel is fine. I prefer to do it the way you mentioned and leave the primary open for a future HDD. There are different IDE cables as far as "speed" rating is concerned. An ATA 100/133 (there is also ATA 33/66 which will work with the higher transfer rate, but only at it's rated speed) should work with all speeds. They will all work, but you don't want to use a lower rated transfer speed cable. Yours should be an 80 wire 40 pin EIDE cable. That should work Also, if you have a 2-device cable, be sure to install it correctly (long end, usually blue, goes to board and the closer 2 connectors goes to device with master on end.

Yes. I agree with Viper. Probably not on that one, but on some fans you will see that Molex power connector that connects straight to the fan and a single yellow wire that goes to the board to monitor speed. Yours probably just has the Molex connection and not the yellow wire. It isn't necessary to use it either, but it can be very important to monitor fan speeds in certain rigs.

 

Here is a link to another thread that may be of some help in general. It is very long, but the poster is a first time builder and the thread has a lot of "first-timer" mistakes that were solved. You may get an idea or two from it, but I warn....it is LONG.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=116772

 

Thanks for the great answers!

#2. Hmm...some folks are telling me to stay with the stock thermal gunk, others say to remove it and apply Arctic Silver...not sure what I will do here.

#3. Those connectors are a major pain!! Apparently my mobo and case are not super compatible, as the power light connector on the case has 2 holes, but there are only two pins on the mobo. Also, the front panel USB plugs and pins do not seem to match. I guess power and reset are the most important, but front USB sure would have been nice.

#4. So will the cable that came with the mobo that is color coded to match the primary channel that is intended to be used with the HDD work OK for my CDRW on the secondary channel?

PK

 

2. For your Celeron that will be fine. It is just not good stuff. People with high end rigs and OCers, it is a liability. For your cpu at stock, it will be sufficient. Just letting you know that it isn't good stuff, though. Celerons run very cool too.

3. They are tricky. If you have a newer ATX case, they will work, it just takes a bit to figure it out if you are newer sometimes (the only way you may have minor difficulties is if your case is SUPER OLD or from an OEM manufacturer such as Emachine or something). Maybe go on the net and search if you have trouble with the manual. You may find someone else who posted exactly what goes where sometimes. More importantly, the USB connector do not go in the same pins as front panel connectors. That is keyed to go into only 1 set of pins, so you will have to find them. They will be in the manual too. Look for front panel USB or the like or check the overall schematic. It will show.

4. Yes, indeed.

 

If you let us know your motherboard make and model, we can download your manual and give you some guidance if required

Any other component details may come in handy too
ie:
RAM
PSU
GPU
etc
&
OS

 

Everything is brand new, but lower end (this is a budget system for my dad).
Here is the case: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811156011

I could find no manual for it.

Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131029
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819112206
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820145026
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822135106
ODD: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827106007
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817182001

OS will be XP Home

I have the manual and schematics for the mobo and can understand most of them, but pins just don't match some of the connectors on the case. Is it the case's fault or the mobo? Is this pretty common?

PK

 

Here is the 'home' page for your mobo
http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=1276&l1=3&l2=11&l3=0

Here is the download page for your mobo manual
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

there is also a list down the left hand side that will allow you to download the latest bios, utilities and drivers for this mobo


Here are your component details (will make it easier for people to help you, if the need arises)

Case: RAIDMAX Elite ATX-208 Beige 0.7mm SECC ATX Mid Tower
Mobo: ASUS P5PE-VM LGA 775 Intel 865G Micro ATX Intel
CPU: Intel Celeron D 331 Prescott 2.66GHz 256KB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor
RAM: CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
DVD: LITE-ON Beige 16X DVD-ROM 52X CD-R 32X CD-RW 52X CD-ROM 2MB Cache ATAPI / E-IDE Combo Drive
PSU: Rosewill RV300 ATX 300W Power Supply 115/230 V CE, cUL, CSA, CB, TUV, FCC, NEMKO, DEMKO, SEMKO, TC

 

Hope these help

pics from your manual

front panel usb connection on page 41
front panel connections on page 42

 

Oops...that mobo was not right. I forgot I changed my mind ad the last minute.

It is actually an ECS 865G-M8 (V1.0) LGA 775 Intel 865G Micro ATX Intel Motherboard.

I think I got the front panel stuff figured out, with a friend's help. I have not tested the front USB ports, but this is a minor issue.

What is odd is that it seems that the SATA drive is detected as an IDE device, even though it is plugged into the bottom SATA port.

Windows saw the drive, and installed, but why is it not detecting as SATA? Does the SATA port just channel through the IDE channel on this mobo? Does that mean that i am not going to get the speed advantage of SATA?

Any ideas or should I contact ECS?

PK

 

SATA devices are IDE devices technically speaking, but we just refer to them as distinct entities (IDE vs SATA, but both are IDE- Integrated drive electronics). Really we should be calling them PATA (parallel ATA) and SATA (serial ATA), respectively. Here is a good thread to explain further....

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?p=939139#post939139

 

Once you have the case/mobo connections figured out, I would connect them before you plunge the mobo into the abyss. It's alot easier when the mobo is not down there.

 

So the fact that the BIOS reports that the HD is an IDE device on POST means nothing? All SATA settings in the BIOS are set to "Auto."

The HD is showing up as IDE Channel 1 Master; the CDRW (plugged into the Primary IDE connector) is showing as IDE Channel 0 Master.

In the "OnChip IDE Devices" Menu, it says
"SATA Mode: ATA"
"OnChip Serial ATA [Auto]"
"Serial ATA Port0 Mode: Secondary Master"
"Serial ATA Port1 Mode: Secondary Slave"

Does this look OK?


pk

 

Ooops, that should be
"SATA Mode: IDE"

pk

 

OK. I think I understand that a SATA device is still going to be detected as an IDE device, since that is what it is. But my gut still told me that something was not quite right since on POST it says "Sec Master Disk: LBA, ATA 100, 80GB"

The ATA 100 does not look right to me. So I installed PCWizard and looked at the HD profile. Sure enough it says "Interface: SATA 2.0" but down lower it says "SATA - 150: NO"

<<< Drives >>>
> Number of Hard Disk : 1
>> General Information
SMART : Version 1.1
IDE Controller : Intel Corporation 82801EB (ICH5) SATA Controller
>> Informations Hard Disk WDC WD800JD-00LSA0
IDE Controller : 82801EB (ICH5) SATA Controller
IDE Channel : #2 - Master Drive
Model : WDC WD800JD-00LSA0
Serial Number : WD-WMAM9JL01093
Revision : 06.01D06
Interface : SATA 2.0
Support : ATA/ATAPI-7
Size : 80 GB
Cache : 8 192 KB
ECC Size : 65
Multiple Sector : 16
IORDY : Yes
LBA Mode : Yes
DMA Mode : Yes
Multiword DMA Mode : 2
PIO Mode : PIO 4
UDMA Mode max. : 6 (ATA-133)
UDMA Mode Enabled : 5 (ATA-100)
SATA-150 : No
SMART : Yes - Enabled
Power Management : Yes
Acoustic Management : Yes
Security Mode : Yes
Write Cache : Yes
48-bit Address : Yes
Cylinders : 155061
Heads : 16
Sectors per Track : 63
>> SMART Information Disk WDC WD800JD-00LSA0
Health : 100% (estimated)
Performance : 90% (estimated)

Raw Read Error Rate (01) : 00000 (Threshold : 051 - Worst : 200 - Max : 200)
Spin Up Time (03) : 00A41 (Threshold : 021 - Worst : 167 - Max : 167)
Start/Stop Count (04) : 0000A (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)
Reallocated Sector Count (05) : 00000 (Threshold : 140 - Worst : 200 - Max : 200)
Seek Error Rate (07) : 00000 (Threshold : 051 - Worst : 200 - Max : 200)
Power On Hours Count (09) : 00002 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)
Spin Retry Count (0A) : 00000 (Threshold : 051 - Worst : 253 - Max : 100)
Calibration Retry Count (0B) : 00000 (Threshold : 051 - Worst : 253 - Max : 100)
Power Cycle Count (0C) : 0000A (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 100 - Max : 100)
(BE) : 0001A (Threshold : 045 - Worst : 053 - Max : 074)
Temperature (C2) : 0001A (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 096 - Max : 117)
Reallocation Event Count (C4) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 200 - Max : 200)
Current Pending Sector Count (C5) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 200 - Max : 200)
Off-Line Uncorrectable Sector Count (C6) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 253 - Max : 100)
Ultra ATA CRC Error Rate (C7) : 00000 (Threshold : 000 - Worst : 200 - Max : 200)
Write Error Rate (C8) : 00000 (Threshold : 051 - Worst : 253 - Max : 100)
>> Partitions
Hard Disk #1 : Partition #1 (74 GB)
>> Monitoring Information
WDC WD800JD-00LSA0 : 26 °C
> Number of CD-ROM Drive : 1
>> General Information
IDE Controller : Intel Corporation 82801EB (ICH5) SATA Controller
>> Informations CD-Rom LITE-ON COMBO SOHC-5232K
IDE Controller : 82801EB (ICH5) SATA Controller
IDE Channel : #1 - Master Drive
Manufacturer : LITE-ON
Model : LITE-ON COMBO SOHC-5232K
Revision : NK0H
Interface : ATA
IORDY : Yes
LBA Mode : Yes
DMA Mode : Yes
Multiword DMA Mode : 2
PIO Mode : PIO 4
UDMA Mode max. : 3 (ATA-66)
UDMA Mode Enabled : 3 (ATA-66)
Rotation Control : CLV

Mount Rainier (MRW) : Yes
Buffer Underrun : Yes
JustLink : Yes
LabelFlash : No
LightScribe : No
LightScribe Drive Speed : No
SolidBurn : No

Method 2 : Yes
CD-Audio Support : Yes
MultiSession or Photo-CD : Yes
Side Change Capable : No

Reading CD-Rom : 52x (9173 KB/s)
Reading DVD-Rom : 16x

Writing CD-R : 52x (9173 KB/s)
Writing CD-RW : 32x

Region Code : Not Installed
User Changes : 5
Vendor Changes : 4
RPC Phase II : Yes
> Drives Letters : A:\ C:\ D:\
>> General Information
Boot Drive : C:\
>> Disk #0, Partition #0
Bootable : Yes
Active : Yes
Primary : Yes
Type : Installable File System
Number of Blocks : 156 280 257
Block Size : 512 bytes
Size : 80 015 491 584 bytes
Offset : 32 256 bytes
> Floppy Disk : 3½" HD (1.44 Mo)
> Drive C: (Hard Disk) : 77 GB available on 80 GB
>> General Information
Disk Type : Hard Disk
Peripheral Type : ATA
Model : WDC WD800JD-00LSA0
Free Space : 97%
>> Drive Information
Volume Name : Unspecified
Serial Number : 4CEB-2D38
Files Name : 255
File Management : NTFS
Volume is Compressed : No
Case Sensitive Search : Yes
Preserves Filename Case : Yes
Unicode Filenames : Yes
Access Control List : Yes
Named Streams : Yes
Object Identifiers : Yes
Reparse Points : Yes
Sparse Files : Yes
User Disk Quotas : Yes
Individual File Compression : Yes
Encryption : No
Share : No
>> Logical Features
Sectors per Cluster : 8
Bytes per Sector : 512
Cluster size : 4 KB
Free Clusters : 19021606
Total Clusters : 19535032
>> Physical Features
Cylinders : 9729
Heads : 255
Sectors per Track : 63
Bytes per Sector : 512


I realized that the HD that I bought is SATA II (3.0 gb/s), where my mobo only supports SATA I (150 mb/s). I am actually surprised that the mobo even detects the HD. There is a jumper on the HD to take it down to 150 mb/s.

I am thinking that maybe I need to jumper down the HD to get it to run at "true" SATA???

I am confused. I should have just stuck with regular ATA - something I understand.

I am going to call ECS tomorrow and talk to them.

I may swap this drive out for a goold ole ATA drive.

PK

 

SATA 3.0 drives have a technology in them that can detect what speed the board supports and will automatically set appropriate setting. On some older chipsets, the technology is not supported by the chipset and the jumper is necessary. It wouldn't boot if that was the case. Everything looks fine to me.

 

The board IS only 1.5 (See NewEgg and the manu site)

I really am truly amazed that this board detected the drive without it being jumpered to SATA 150.

What's even more puzzling is that it is (apparently) running as ATA100.

I am going to call ECS tomorrow. And WD if necessary.

PK

 

I know, it automatically reverted to 1.5. The 3.0 drives, for the most part, have a technology that can detect what board supports and set speed automatically without jumpering. Only certain older chipsets require jumpering. I use SATA 1.5 and I had to jumper a 3.0 drive with my VIA chipset. The drive won't work if it needs jumpering and you don't jumper. Since yours works fine, jumpering is unnecessary as your chipset supports the technology in the drive that can revert to 1.5 if necessary.