First Build Help! Heatsink Problem

Bah

I'm in the middle of my first build, and I've ran into a few problems. Here's what I'm using:

Antec Sonata ATX Case (PSU included)
Gigabyte GA8i915P LGA775 Motherboard
Intel P4 3.0 GHz LGA775 CPU
1GB Geil Value RAM
128MB Leadtek nVidia 6600GT (PCI-E)
Samsung Spinpoint 160GB SATA Drive
NEC DVD-RW
Samsung DVD-ROM
Windows XP Home OEM (Including SP2)

When I opened the Processor box (retail version), I took out the processor and heatsink. The processor looked fine, but the heat sink seemed to be missing some thermal compound/pad - a small corner of the silver bottom seemed to have been scratched away. I thought maybe this was normal, so I continued.
So I try powering on, and all seems to go ok, until I start to install windows. There was something about not detecting a hard drive (may have something to do with SATA drivers?), so I restarted and had a look around the BIOS before I tried to install again - and noticed that my CPU temp was at 67/68 degrees! Surely that can't be good??? I set a temperature alarm for the CPU for when it gets over 70 degrees, and immediately when I exited the bios the alarm sounded. I switched off immediately and havent turend it on since.

Pictures:

I had taken one before I installed it, since it didn't look quite right
And here's what it's like now, after I just took it out:

And the processor:


So I'm basically asking what I should do about my insanely high temps and messed up thermal compound situation. Any advice?

OfflerCrocGod

Buy a proper Heatsink and fan combination and some good thermal paste. Never use the sh*t that comes packaged as default with the CPU, it's really not good at all when compared to stuff from Thearmalright and Zalman. Get some artic silver for your thermal paste HiTiDE has some and get some quiet case fans Papst are good. Apart from cheap cooling the rest of the rig looks good.

Bah

Ok, I've reseated the heat sink, and the temps are back down to mid 40s - BUT - there's another problem:
When I try to install windows, it won't detect my hard drive - I've installed the SATA drivers, but it just wont detect it. I checked in the BIOS, and it detects it - but Windows just refuses and keeps rebooting at a certain point in the install process because it says there's no hard drive!

str8_away

Was it windows xp?
Was the HD new? Do you need to format it?
(last time I got a brand new HD was years ago and I need to partition it and format it myself)

Was the message saying that there is no DH or asking you create patition?

The Muppet

Bah wrote:

Ok, I've reseated the heat sink, and the temps are back down to mid 40s - BUT - there's another problem:
When I try to install windows, it won't detect my hard drive - I've installed the SATA drivers, but it just wont detect it. I checked in the BIOS, and it detects it - but Windows just refuses and keeps rebooting at a certain point in the install process because it says there's no hard drive!

Is there a SATA/IDE jumper on the mainboard that needs to be set to SATA ?

Giblet

Bah wrote:

Ok, I've reseated the heat sink, and the temps are back down to mid 40s - BUT - there's another problem:
When I try to install windows, it won't detect my hard drive - I've installed the SATA drivers, but it just wont detect it. I checked in the BIOS, and it detects it - but Windows just refuses and keeps rebooting at a certain point in the install process because it says there's no hard drive!

You may have to set up a Single Drive Striped array

Bah

Giblet wrote:

You may have to set up a Single Drive Striped array

There doesn't seem to be an option for that, besides, the SATA drive isn't detected, so I doubt I could set up any kind of array until it's found?

Is there a SATA/IDE jumper on the mainboard that needs to be set to SATA ?

Not that I know of - doesn't seem to be mentioned in the manual either

1]Was it windows xp?
2]Was the HD new? Do you need to format it?
(last time I got a brand new HD was years ago and I need to partition it and format it myself)
3]Was the message saying that there is no DH or asking you create patition?

1] Yes, Windows XP Home OEM
2] Yeah, brand new Samsung SATA and an old IDE (I'm pretty sure the old IDE is now totally broken though, since it wont work in other computers now either
3] The message was saying that there was no disk, didn't mention anything about a partition. Just that it couldn't install because there wasn't anything there to install onto

Giblet

Bah wrote:

I checked in the BIOS, and it detects it - but Windows just refuses and keeps rebooting at a certain point in the install process because it says there's no hard drive!

If it detects it in the bios, and not windows, a Single Drive Array will fix this.

Go into Integrated Perhiperals(or advanced) -> OnBoard Devices. Enable Primary Master raid and Secondary Master Raid, and enable all the SATA port your HDD is on.

Save and exit.

When you restart, you should see a NVRaid startup, which will ask you to press f12, press it, and you should see your drive. Move it from the left column to the right column. Make sure it's Striped, and the size is 64k.

Save and exit, and you drive should show up as a Healthy Stripe.

Go into the bios again, go into Boot priorities, and you should see your drive as a Stripe. Use the + key to put this at the top.

Make sure the boot order has HDD booting as first.

You should then be able to install WinXP.

Also did you press f6 when you loaded the OS, for the SATA drivers?

Bah

Giblet wrote:

If it detects it in the bios, and not windows, a Single Drive Array will fix this.

Ok, so I enabled SATA RAID, restarted and got into the "VIA Tech RAID BIOS" - which doesn't detect any drives. :mad: . Still getting the NTLDR problem, and still can't setup the single drive array.

Giblet

Bah wrote:

Ok, so I enabled SATA RAID, restarted and got into the "VIA Tech RAID BIOS" - which doesn't detect any drives. :mad: . Still getting the NTLDR problem, and still can't setup the single drive array.

Did you enable the sata port for the drive?

Bah

Giblet wrote:

Did you enable the sata port for the drive?

I don't know how! There's no mention of enabling the port in the manual, or in the BIOS - only changing it from RAID to something else (ACHSI? - in college right now, can't remember what it was, nothing I recognised anyway). I'll have to have another look at it when I get home...