Matt's Upgrade Thread

[kcnychief]

PM me your address, I can drop some SATA cables in the mail as I have a bunch. If I put them in the mail tomorrow (Saturday), you should have them Monday/Tuesday.

Depending on when the fans arrive, that may work out. And will save you a lot of money vs. compUSA.

 

[madmatt]

You are such a nice person. Why are you so kind? You just want me to take you to Vegas in November.

 

[kcnychief]

Thanks for the compliment

I have an abundance of cables, and you live relatively close. Let me know within the next two hours and I can get them out tomorrow, your choice

 

[Sazar]

You are such a nice person. Why are you so kind? You just want me to take you to Vegas in November.

Holy ****.

No ****ing way.

While getting absolutely smashed tonite, me and some m8's decided Vegas in november

If yer there, ****, that would be totally awesome :smoker:

And yes, I am a little drunk.

 

[madmatt]

Saz. Week after Thanksgiving. November 29 through December 4.

 

[madmatt]

Okay, here's an update.

I installed the power supply, the motherboard, hard drives (using the suspension system), floppy drive, memory, and processor (minus the heatsink). I hid all the wires and made every thing look tidy.

I am waiting on the two 92mm fans which should be in on Monday. After which I will rip apart this box and then install the DVD/CD drives, the video card, and the sound card.

So here's a few questions.

1.) I still need a better heatsink. I went to CompUSA to see if I could find the 92mm fans I wanted (I couldn't). I looked at the Zalman 9500 heatsink and it is in fact huge which concerns me. So I would like something a bit smaller but just as quiet. It must be LGA775 compatible. Any recommendations?

2.) I was unaware before I made the purchase that this motherboard has two sets of SATA connectors. One set of black connectors (Intel Matrix Storage Technology) and one set of blue (Silicon Image SATA Controller). What is the difference and which should I use?

3.) My floppy drive is black. Does anyone know if there are pure white floppy drives out there? I looked on eBay and everyone listed as white was actually beige.

Thank you.

 

[kcnychief]

White Floppy drives are out there, although it may arrive beige:

http://store.yahoo.com/alan-fm/fd-235hf.html

I believe, and I could be wrong, the Intel Matrix are more RAID friendly. Don't quote me on that, however :smoker:

 

[madmatt]

How can it be white but beige at the same time? *confused*

That's what I thought but then I wondered why they had two sets.

 

[kcnychief]

The only reason I said that is eventhough it is advertised as white, it may in fact be beige. When I searched, a lot were marketed as "white/beige".

 

[madmatt]

*sigh* The case is really nice. Not crowded like a lot of people said. It is slightly larger than the XPS 400 case. The stealth drives for the CD drives are nice. But the floppy drive isn't stealth so I need either pure white or silver might do.

 

[kcnychief]

Why not just slipstream your drivers and not have a floppy at all?

I also have a USB floppy, as I find a lot of the machines I come across have non-functional floppy drives.

 

[madmatt]

Floppy drives may be old but it is still functional and still needed in my opinion.

 

[Sazar]

Just paint it.

 

[madmatt]

I'm not an artist.

 

[kcnychief]

Have someone else paint it

Send it to me and I can do it.

 

[Sazar]

I'm not an artist.

lol, just pop off the front bezel and friggin spray it.

 

[madmatt]

I found one that is "cold gray" and two people with the same case say it looks awesome.

Saz, what do you think about my heatsink question? I'm pondering using the stock heatsink because all the really good heatsinks are huge.

 

[Sazar]

That's what I use.

I got a speed-fan controller, set the stock cooler to about 40% speed setting and its relatively silent. Naturally my stock cooler is not the same as yours lol but you can try it and see if it works. If not, you can always get a new one.

 

[Sazar]

Okay, here's an update.

I installed the power supply, the motherboard, hard drives (using the suspension system), floppy drive, memory, and processor (minus the heatsink). I hid all the wires and made every thing look tidy.

I am waiting on the two 92mm fans which should be in on Monday. After which I will rip apart this box and then install the DVD/CD drives, the video card, and the sound card.

So here's a few questions.

1.) I still need a better heatsink. I went to CompUSA to see if I could find the 92mm fans I wanted (I couldn't). I looked at the Zalman 9500 heatsink and it is in fact huge which concerns me. So I would like something a bit smaller but just as quiet. It must be LGA775 compatible. Any recommendations?

If you are not happy with the stock one, look on some forums and see what other suggestions exist. The 9500 is gigantic.

2.) I was unaware before I made the purchase that this motherboard has two sets of SATA connectors. One set of black connectors (Intel Matrix Storage Technology) and one set of blue (Silicon Image SATA Controller). What is the difference and which should I use?

They are all s-ata (not 2) so it shouldn't matter. They are color-coded to differentiate when you are putting a RAID config together.

If you read the technical documents, this will be explained in some detail (although it is still pretty vague).

 

[kcnychief]

Madmatt - I think the stock should be more than sufficient for you, especially if you are concerned with size. Unless you OC, I don't really see a reason to get anything else. Of course you could run stock for awhile and monitor the temps, if you think it's running too warm, then you could upgrade.

At the moment, not a sensible purcahse IMO.