First time build planned - thoughts on components?

ionapaul

Hi all,

Planning to build my first system later this month following a trip to the States, where I plan to pick up pre-ordered components from NewEgg.com (will get case, power supply, CPU fan, mouse, keyboard here in Ireland because of luggage/weight reasons) from a friend's house.
Please let me know what you think of the below components and if there are any glaring problems with my choices so far (haven't ordered anything yet, still thinking about it all). I have never even installed so much as a modem or floppy drive before, so I hope the process isn't too difficult - that said, I am not particularly slow and have a few screwdrivers hanging around the house

Asus A7N8X motherboard
Athlon XP 3000+ 'Barton', 333 FSB
2 x Corsair Value 512mb DDR400, 184 pin
Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
SoundBlaster Augigy ES PCI
Seagate 80gb 7200 RPM IDE
Lite-On CD-R/DVD combo (48xCD-R/16xDVD)

All above from NewEgg.com, mostly OEM stuff

Chieftec Dragon Midi ATX case, w/360W power
Spire WhisperRock IV CPU fan
EKL PAPST case fan

Above from Komplett.ie, plus need a mouse/keyboard, floppy, and monitor

I have an installation copy of Windows XP in my current machine I plan to use - is this ok? If I 'retire' the machine it is on right now?

I would plan to use the machine mostly for web surfing (DSL) and gaming and I am not obsessive about having the fastest machine or anything like that, just want something that is really good for a relatively cheap price!

Any thoughts? Do I need a dedicated ethernet card or will the on-board meet my requirements?

K!LL!@N

I built a similar enough system about 6 months ago.
Like you, i'd never built a system before.
It can be quite nerve wracking the first time.
I'm sure you've read up on what needs doing, right?
If you have then you shouldn't have any trouble.
Really, the only thing that gave me any trouble was putting the heatsink on the cpu.
I must have spent over an hour putting it on.
I'd cleaned the bottom of the heatsink, put on the thermal paste make sure it was perfect.
Try to put it on, mess it up and have to repeat the process again.
I'd made the mistake of putting the motherboard into the case before putting the putting the heatsink on. There was no motherboard tray in the case, so it seemed to make sense at the time. In the end i had to remove the power supply so i could get at the other side of the heatsink.
Also, i found that i needed quite a bit of force to get the heatsink to clip on. It felt like i was using too much force, but in the end i wasn't.
After installing the heatsink/fan, the rest was a breeze.
When it came time to boot up for the first time though, i was fairly nervous.
You hear the stories about cpu's frying in seconds cos the heatsink's not making proper contact etc.
But everything booted first time, no problems at all.

There are plenty of people here to answer any questions you have.
Good luck with it.

Killian

aaf

I too am building my first system. Did a lot of research over the past 2 months, ordered my components and started my build last night. Just got the CPU, memory and motherboard installed at the mo. If you do a quick scan of the threads in this section over the last month or two, you'll find alot of threads similar to yours. For future-proofing your system, I think you'll find that the common opinion here is to go with an AMD 64 or a P4 no less than 2.8GHz. You'll therefore have to change your motherboard. If you're going the AMD route as I did, you should go for either the MSI MS-6702 K8T Neo-FIS2R or the Asus K8V Deluxe. I've gone for the latter but the MSI board is getting better reviews. You should probably go for a bigger hard drive. Get at least 160GB's and make sure it's a SATA drive - again for future-proofing. If you're planning on 'backing-up' a lot of DVD's, then I might suggest the NEC ND-2500A or the Pioneer DVR-107. These are the two best drives out there I think. I got the NEC as it's cheaper and just about the same spec as the pioneer. The Audigy is a good choice as you're a gamer. Maybe the ZS Platinum if you have the money. I think that's the best one for games. I'm not a gamer and more into my music so I've gone for an M-Audio Revolution 7.1 sound card. I'll let you know how I get on with the rest of my build and if you need any more info, just ask

BloodBath

Make sure you research what your doing before you even attempt your built. I did my first build only a week ago and it went smoothly although it took about 6 hours.

It's usually the simple things that cause problems. e.g. I had to install my heatsink and it ended up taking about 2 hours. It was the thermalright sp-94 for intel boards. It came with no instructions so I had to look it up on their site and the instructions were their were pretty lame. I had to remove the retention clip which I didn't know how to do either. All simple jobs when you know how but it's these unexpected jobs that add loads of time to your first build so research as much as you can.

Start with your mobo outside of the case on a non static surface. Ground yourself by touching a grounded radiator or another grounded surface. Firstly install your c.p.u. With intel ones one of the corners is missing a pin. You just line this up with the insert. Raise the bar, insert the c.p.u gently(it should just drop in, don'y force it), then lower the bar to lock it in. Then apply the heatsink. Clean the contact surface of the heatsink and apply a very thin layer of thermal compound to both the c.p.u and the heatsink and install it according to the heatsink guide. Easiest job next. Install your RAM using the dual memory sockets if you have them.

Now install your mobo into your case. All you need to do now is insert your graphics card into the agp slot and any relevant pci slot cards(soundcards, modems ect.)

Thats mobo installation complete. Your case instruction manual will tell you how to install your hard-drive,dvd/floppy drives.

The next hard task is attaching all the cabling. Your best bet is to read your mobo manual carefully and make sure you have it all correct before attempting to boot up.

Good luck on your first build. Can be frustrating at times but in the end it's worth it.


BloodBath.