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[KungFucius]

Sup guys

I came around here a week or two ago to ask around about which PC parts to buy for my new rig. Everything came and I even posted pictures(not of the Rig). I sat down and put it all together a few days ago before installing the OS. I would have done it sooner, but finals are breathing down my neck and the PC can wait. I scheduled a bit of overnight time to install the OS, but the Hard drive doesn't seem to be recognized on my Z77 Extreme mobo's bios. The optical drive definitely has power, but I don't know if it is actually reading the CD. The hard drive issue comes first, though. It is definitely not detected and I'm not sure why.

I'd appreciate a bit of help so I can actually get to the desktop. I've been wanting to install the OS before finals so I can at least have a little peace of mind.

Rig:
Rosewill CHALLENGER-U3 Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Rosewill Green Series RG630-S12 630W
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
Samsung Electronics Extreme Low Voltage 30nm UDIMM 8 Dual Channel Kit DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM MV-3V4G3D/US
Asus 24xDVD-RW Serial ATA Internal OEM Drive DRW-24B1ST (Black)
Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Is there any particular reason you went with a Sandy Bridge CPU over the IB? The i5 3570k is unlocked too and 5 bucks cheaper.

The new Bioses are weird. I just put together one and it took a few minutes to figure that out. I have an extreme 6 arriving today so I will play with it tonight. Should be the same thing as yours.

I would start simple. Hook up just the HDD with power and SATA cable, then boot into the bios. Connect it to SATA 0 or 1 first. If you have no luck, move it down to the lower SAta just to see what it does, these are Sata 2 slots so don't keep it that way. There is probably a different menu in the bios for each controller.

Looking at the pic of the mobo the 2 grey SATA slots are SATA III, but their labeling is interesting. The top ones say SATA A0, A1 and the Second Say SATA 0, Sata 1. There is also a sticker saying use A0/1 for your boot drive. Did you do that?

 

[kharma45]

He isn't too big into OCing. Maybe a little but I think he's pretty conservative.

Thanks for the response!

I assume that a Bronze rated Corsair CX600 is better than a no rating 700 watt Rosewill (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182278), right? Even though it is more watts, the 600 should still handle Crossfire better?

I'd avoid the CX Corsair's too, either get something like an XFX Core, Corsair TX or SeaSonic M12II.

Is there any particular reason you want to get a Sandy Bridge CPU over the IB? The i5 3570k is unlocked too and 5 bucks cheaper.

He's already bought the stuff, and I presume the reason was he got a good deal on it.

 

[th3dude]

I'd avoid the CX Corsair's too, either get something like an XFX Core, Corsair TX or SeaSonic M12II.

Problem is my budget for this is more in the 50-60 dollar range. Those are more 80-90.

 

[kennah]

This is one of those "you buy cheap, you buy twice" situations. You don't ever want to go cheap on powersupply. A good one will protect your computer in a surge. A bad one will take everything else down with it.

 

[Sarcasm]

I may be going to the local place (I live in Taiwan don't mention online) and going to be hopefully purchasing an SSD.

How is an Intel 335? 240GB. Any I should keep an eye out? They won't have anything and mostly won't have a lot of brands mentioned either..I prob will see an intel one for sure though.

 

[Darkone]

Could you link us to the power supply model you're using and also confirm how did you connect the power cables to the card? (this is, all directly from PSU, using molex adaptors, etc...)

The PSU is 600W Therlmaltec tough power, i have for 5 years, maybe more.
And yes, its connected with molex adapters, the shutdowns started recently, i played before and i had no crashes.

 

[KungFucius]

This is one of those "you buy cheap, you buy twice" situations. You don't ever want to go cheap on powersupply. A good one will protect your computer in a surge. A bad one will take everything else down with it.

A good one will also last. I bought a nice 450W PSU a long time ago for the first wave of AMD x64 chips. ( or right before I did that build) I still have this unit running the i7 unit I am using now. ANd it has been on for essentially 8 years straight. It cost me 100 bucks at the time and the only reason it is not in my gaming/HTPC machine is because it was not powerful enough for my Radeon 4870. ANd it was just barely not powerful enough, games ran but I got hard crashes every once in a while. This is a 1366 intel system so the CPU and GPU were both drawing a lot of juice. If I put in a more modern GPU or removed some fans and legacy HDDs it would work fine.

What I am getting at is that nice PSUs last long and are guaranteed to deliver so you will likely be able to reuse this thing for the better part of a decade.

I also have another interesting story about a shitty PSU. I did my Ph.D. in experimental physics. We used windows PCs for data acquisition and people in the lab had built the units themselves using cheap case/psu combos. Our experiments were very sensitive to electrical noise and we eventually traced one source of noise to one of the lab computers. And the noise was not on the PC actually doing the measurement, it was coming from one across the room. The PSU in this thing was so shitty, it fucked up experiments across the room, even when it was wired to a completely different circuit breaker.

So a shitty PSU is not only bad for you, it can be bad for everyone nearby.

 

[CyanideFuse]

I have the extreme dread that my HDD might be having issues.

Since yesterday the HDD has been periodically making a ticking/clicking sound. It isn't constant and tends to be in batches of around 2 click/tick sounds.

I have run a full scan disk and the report came back clean; no bad sectors etc. I have also used Defraggler to run a health check on the disk and that comes back okay.

I used the system yesterday for around 2hours and then it started. I ran a disk check and used the system for the rest of the day without a sound.

Today, I managed to use it for around 6 hours before it started; once it did start it was quite frequent: 2 click/ticks every 10-20 seconds, sometimes longer.

I haven't had any read/write disk errors when accessing files and the HDD seems to be accessing as normal; there isn't any extra access or slow access.

I am concerned that there is a problem with the disk or that the PSU might be on its way out as I have read that a faulty power supply (?) can make these tick sounds.

There doesn't seem to be a problem with any other components whilst idle or playing heavy-load games.

The system is around 6 months old and this is the first instance of an issue.

PSU: Xigmatek 600W
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LX
HDD: Hitachi 500GB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
CPU: I5-3570k (3.4GHz not overclocked)
RAM: x2 4GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz
GPU: Zotac GTX 670 2GB (not overclocked)

Any advice would be gratefully received.

 

[beje]

The PSU is 600W Therlmaltec tough power, i have for 5 years, maybe more.
And yes, its connected with molex adapters, the shutdowns started recently, i played before and i had no crashes.

Then I'm not really sure. Maybe you can try a different combination of molex cables. Also, borrowing a PSU from a friend for cross-testing would be a good idea.

 

[scogoth]

The PSU is 600W Therlmaltec tough power, i have for 5 years, maybe more.
And yes, its connected with molex adapters, the shutdowns started recently, i played before and i had no crashes.

Is it a multi rail PSU? Maybe you have too much connected on one rail and that's causing a lack of power to the GPU

 

[garath]

The PSU is 600W Therlmaltec tough power, i have for 5 years, maybe more.
And yes, its connected with molex adapters, the shutdowns started recently, i played before and i had no crashes.

It could be giving out. Hard to say that with enough certainty to say go buy a new PSU.

 

[Baconsaurus Rex]

How bad is it that the temperature during gaming of the GPU is around 65 C, can it make the PC shut down?

I had problems with my videocard this summer, fans would randomly stop working, and I monitored the temperature of my card on time to see how high it could go. It would auto-shutdown at 125 C

65 is ok

 

[Xdrive05]

I had problems with my videocard this summer, fans would randomly stop working, and I monitored the temperature of my card on time to see how high it could go. It would auto-shutdown at 125 C

65 is ok

Yikes.

My old evga 8800GT when OCed would regularly hit 95 C when benching, and 92C in games. After a break-in of AS5 you could drop about 5 C from both those numbers, but still warm.

Yeah, 65 is great.

 

[ithorien]

I had problems with my videocard this summer, fans would randomly stop working, and I monitored the temperature of my card on time to see how high it could go. It would auto-shutdown at 125 C

65 is ok

From my experience with my wife's 670, 65 degrees is standard under load temp like it's been said. She idles at around 35-40.

 

[Infinite Justice]

Problem is my budget for this is more in the 50-60 dollar range. Those are more 80-90.

I would say to get the Antec BP550 as that usually goes for $65 and its an OP recommended part but the crossfire thing might change that

and yea i think its better to get a known good one than a cheap one given the importance of the part in the overall scheme of things

 

[pr0cs]

Anyone have any links to sites that give recommendations on building a HTPC?
Seems next to impossible to build anything that isn't monstrously huge for < $400 and has HDMI output.

 

[mkenyon]

Anyone have any links to sites that give recommendations on building a HTPC?
Seems next to impossible to build anything that isn't monstrously huge for < $400 and has HDMI output.

Small Form Factor Guide in the OP.

Do you want it to play games? If yes, follow the budget guide. If no, then look at a Socket FM2 board with an AMD Fusion processor. If you need it to just surf the web and play movies, then look at an E-450 ITX board that has a processor already soldered on the socket.

Problem is my budget for this is more in the 50-60 dollar range. Those are more 80-90.

If you are scratching by to Crossfire with a crappy PSU, you shouldn't be doing it. I missed the original post, but what cards are you planning on using?

 

[th3dude]

Small Form Factor Guide in the OP.

Do you want it to play games? If yes, follow the budget guide. If no, then look at a Socket FM2 board with an AMD Fusion processor. If you need it to just surf the web and play movies, then look at an E-450 ITX board that has a processor already soldered on the socket.

If you are scratching by to Crossfire with a crappy PSU, you shouldn't be doing it. I missed the original post, but what cards are you planning on using?

He'll be running a 7850. No immediate plans to Crossfire, but I wanted to be able to give him the ability if possible.

 

[Ty4on]

I had problems with my videocard this summer, fans would randomly stop working, and I monitored the temperature of my card on time to see how high it could go. It would auto-shutdown at 125 C

65 is ok

Damn, thought all cards shut down at around 105.

 

[garath]

He'll be running a 7850. No immediate plans to Crossfire, but I wanted to be able to give him the ability if possible.

Honestly if you want to put crossfire on the table as a future option, go for a quality PSU.

 

[Holden]

Hey, for the Standard PC build in the OP (574$). How much would a system like that cost if I were to pick one up from a store like Micro Center?

 

[mkenyon]

He'll be running a 7850. No immediate plans to Crossfire, but I wanted to be able to give him the ability if possible.

Don't bother crossfiring with a card like that. Really, the only sane reason to crossfire/SLI is to get performance that would otherwise be unreachable with a single card. Get the Antec BP550 from the OP, and when the 7850 isn't up to snuff, replace it with a similarly priced card. Make sure you get the 2GB version.

Hey, for the Standard PC build in the OP (574$). How much would a system like that cost if I were to pick one up from a store like Micro Center?

Go to Microcenter and look at the prebuilts, compare prices.

 

[SolarPowered]

I don't know if it's the same as my Asrock Pro3 board, but try pressing F11 during POST to activate the device boot menu. You should see all your connected hard and optical drives as well as stuff like thumb drives or even SD cards, and chose to boot from one (and then boot from DVD). If your hard drive is not here... have you made sure you have it connected to the power supply as well as to the motherboard? Have you tried different SATA ports/cables just in case? All we make stupid mistakes so don't worry.

This right here might be it. My optical drive and hard drive are both connected to the power supply, but not the motherboard. I found that strange, but I didn't see any cables that were supposed to connect to the SATA ports towards the bottom right. Do I have to buy these extra cables to connect the two components to the motherboard? I would have no problem ordering them right now if that were the case.

I've got Amazon Prime so I can probably get them faster on Amazon for anyone who wants to provide a cable to buy.

Is there any particular reason you went with a Sandy Bridge CPU over the IB? The i5 3570k is unlocked too and 5 bucks cheaper.

I would start simple. Hook up just the HDD with power and SATA cable, then boot into the bios. Connect it to SATA 0 or 1 first. If you have no luck, move it down to the lower SAta just to see what it does, these are Sata 2 slots so don't keep it that way. There is probably a different menu in the bios for each controller.

Looking at the pic of the mobo the 2 grey SATA slots are SATA III, but their labeling is interesting. The top ones say SATA A0, A1 and the Second Say SATA 0, Sata 1. There is also a sticker saying use A0/1 for your boot drive. Did you do that?

Nope, I didn't see any cables for those slots so I assumed they weren't needed. I found it strange, but this is my first time putting a computer together so I let it slide. I think I might need extra cables for those SATA slots on the bottom right that you are looking at.

He's already bought the stuff, and I presume the reason was he got a good deal on it.

Pretty much

Getting a deal on a k series Intel CPU is a bitch though. Definitely my least enjoyed chase out of all the components. AMD needs to be competitive again...

 

[Birbo]

Anyone have any links to sites that give recommendations on building a HTPC?
Seems next to impossible to build anything that isn't monstrously huge for < $400 and has HDMI output.

This is the article that made me want to build my first PC. Of course, I've now gone quite a bit over that budget.

 

[Infinite Justice]

This right here might be it. My optical drive and hard drive are both connected to the power supply, but not the motherboard. I found that strange, but I didn't see any cables that were supposed to connect to the SATA ports towards the bottom right. Do I have to buy these extra cables to connect the two components to the motherboard? I would have no problem ordering them right now if that were the case.

I've got Amazon Prime so I can probably get them faster on Amazon for anyone who wants to provide a cable to buy.

Nope, I didn't see any cables for those slots so I assumed they weren't needed. I found it strange, but this is my first time putting a computer together so I let it slide. I think I might need extra cables for those SATA slots on the bottom right that you are looking at.

Pretty much

Getting a deal on a k series Intel CPU is a bitch though. Definitely my least enjoyed chase out of all the components. AMD needs to be competitive again...

so you didn't see cable(s) that looked like this

or this

if you didn't you will need them to connect the parts to the Mobo, so in that case you will have to buy some.


IIRC the motherboard would normally come with one of these cables but maybe not? (for the PC i recently built my motherboard came with 2)

 

[beje]

This right here might be it. My optical drive and hard drive are both connected to the power supply, but not the motherboard. I found that strange, but I didn't see any cables that were supposed to connect to the SATA ports towards the bottom right. Do I have to buy these extra cables to connect the two components to the motherboard? I would have no problem ordering them right now if that were the case.

I've got Amazon Prime so I can probably get them faster on Amazon for anyone who wants to provide a cable to buy.

Nope, I didn't see any cables for those slots so I assumed they weren't needed. I found it strange, but this is my first time putting a computer together so I let it slide. I think I might need extra cables for those SATA slots on the bottom right that you are looking at.

They usually come with the motherboard. Heck, even my cheap-ass Asrock Pro3 came with two SATA 3 cables. Look for them, they are flat and the connector is small and L-shaped. Also, check your motherboard manual to see which SATA ports are SATA 3 and go with those.

If you are definitely sure you didn't have any SATA cable bundled with any of your components, get any SATA cable that states "SATA III", "SATA 3.0" or "SATA 6Gbps"

 

[NoRéN]

This right here might be it. My optical drive and hard drive are both connected to the power supply, but not the motherboard. I found that strange, but I didn't see any cables that were supposed to connect to the SATA ports towards the bottom right. Do I have to buy these extra cables to connect the two components to the motherboard? I would have no problem ordering them right now if that were the case.

I've got Amazon Prime so I can probably get them faster on Amazon for anyone who wants to provide a cable to buy.

Nope, I didn't see any cables for those slots so I assumed they weren't needed. I found it strange, but this is my first time putting a computer together so I let it slide. I think I might need extra cables for those SATA slots on the bottom right that you are looking at.

Pretty much

Getting a deal on a k series Intel CPU is a bitch though. Definitely my least enjoyed chase out of all the components. AMD needs to be competitive again...

No cables came with the motherboard?

 

[SolarPowered]

I did the simple thing and checked the newegg page for pictures. Saw the SATA cables and immediately recognized my mistake. The little bag that carried two cables looked like it just had ordinary black cable ties so I dismissed it at first. Hooked both the hard drive and optical drive up and everything seems to be in working order. Windows is installing and I have 931GB of space on my hard drive.

Thanks a bunch

 

[NoRéN]

I did the simple thing and checked the newegg page for pictures. Saw the SATA cables and immediately recognized my mistake. The little bag that carried two cables looked like it just had ordinary black cable ties so I dismissed it at first. Hooked both the hard drive and optical drive up and everything seems to be in working order. Windows is installing and I have 931GB of space on my hard drive.

Thanks a bunch

I did the same thing. I saw them and put the bag next to another bag that actually had black twist ties.

 

[mkenyon]

Got in the mail yesterday:

Gigabyte Z77 UP7
3570K
Megahalems Black

Ton o' fans
Noctua NF-F12
Corsair SP Quiet Edition
Cougar CF-V12
Arctic Cooling F12
BitFenix Spectre Pro
Scythe GT AP-14
Phobya G-Silent 1200
Noiseblocker eloop 1300
Swiftech Helix

I'll be testing these fans on radiator and heatsink duty. Going to look at best performer, best performer:$, and subjective noise.

 

[scogoth]

Got in the mail yesterday:

Gigabyte Z77 UP7
3570K
Megahalems Black

Ton o' fans
Noctua NF-F12
Corsair SP Quiet Edition
Cougar CF-V12
Arctic Cooling F12
BitFenix Spectre Pro
Scythe GT AP-14
Phobya G-Silent 1200
Noiseblocker eloop 1300
Swiftech Helix

I'll be testing these fans on radiator and heatsink duty. Going to look at best performer, best performer:$, and subjective noise.

Can you also do low fin density and high fin density to see how that affects the fan performance?

 

[kennah]

Can't wait

 

[mkenyon]

Was planning on that very thing. Ordered an XSPC EX and RX 120 rad.

 

[mkenyon]

Anyone see any good SSD sales around?

 

[Infinite Justice]

Anyone see any good SSD sales around?

not really imo unless you want a 128GB 840 pro for $150 at newegg

damn the 830s have gone up in price again.

 

[mkenyon]

Wish I would have had some forethought on those HyperX 3K SSDs a few weeks ago and bought some extras.

 

[The Frankman]

not really imo unless you want a 128GB 840 pro for $150 at newegg

damn the 830s have gone up in price again.

Would this count as a decent sale? A-Data Premier Pro SP900 64GB 2.5" SSD is $69.99 @ NewEgg

 

[mkenyon]

Nah. Looking for a 128-256 for ~$0.70:GB

 

[Ty4on]

Anyone see any good SSD sales around?

Samsung 830 128GB for 128$ in Norway. Don't remember how cheap they were for you, but I haven't seen 830s be much cheaper. Compare it to the cheapest 3570k at 280$.

Probably some of the last, the store I got my 830 just upped the price and is out of stock.

Edit: They were that cheap?

 

[Exuro]

There was a Kingston 128GB sale last Friday for $80 so I assume he's looking for something around that.

 

[mkenyon]

Yep. 256GB for $150ish would be cool too.

 

[Infinite Justice]

Would this count as a decent sale? A-Data Premier Pro SP900 64GB 2.5" SSD is $69.99 @ NewEgg

I'm honestly not sure since the brand is kinda unknown to me (in regard to their ssds) and i personally think that is a lot to pay for 64GB but maybe this Samsung 840 120GB for 98 bucks on amazon could work? (even though the 840s are still "new").

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009NHAF06/?tag=neogaf0e-20

And as said before its a shame the 830s are not going for 80-90 bucks as much

 

[NoRéN]

Yep. 256GB for $150ish would be cool too.

The kingston 256gb and Sandisk 256gb were the only one's I saw hit that price point on black friday.

 

[StickSoldier]

Hey guys, I was looking to help my friend build a cheap gaming computer and this is what I put together. I'm wondering if someone can look and see if these pieces are compatible with each other before I purchase anything. This is the first time I've actually put pieces together so I wanna make sure I get them right.

Ooops one sec forgot pics and links one sec.

DVD
Case
Motherboard
Video Card
Ram
Power Supply
Hard Drive
CPU

 

[mkenyon]

Is the total less than the budget or standard build in the OP?

*edit*

Wait, you have an AMD Fusion CPU with a discrete NVIDIA card. The point of the Fusion series is that they have a GPU on-die.

 

[Salsa]

got the Silent Cat in the hyper 212 evo. Temps are cooler but that's probably cause I never took into consideration that it being a case fan.. it doesnt react according to temperature, it just spins as fasts as it can (1600rpm) from the get go, idle or stressing. Mh, didnt think of that.

 

[StickSoldier]

Is the total less than the budget or standard build in the OP?

*edit*

Wait, you have an AMD Fusion CPU with a discrete NVIDIA card. The point of the Fusion series is that they have a GPU on-die.

Ah really? I was only looking at it because I assumed that the socket type on motherboard was the same CPU. When I filtered out the cpus with the FM2 socket type and that's what came up so I wasn't sure.

Edit: I haven't even looked at OP, I'm going to check it out real quick.

 

[teh_pwn]

i5s below 700 were dual cores + HT back in the Nehalem days, except they had Turbo Boost, whereas the i3s never have.

Anyways, Haswell leaks came out, via vr-zone.com:

http://chinese.vr-zone.com/43824/in...luding-4770k-4670k-for-overclocking-12112012/

No spec bumps for us. :/ Guess Intel's more focused on IGP and power efficiency.

Yeah, just a meager 10% improvement in per clock performance. Pretty freakin lame. I'm still going to wait because I want to get 2013 GPUs anyway. If Haswell-EX has DDR4 and 6 core with comparable OC limits I may go for that.

Hopefully Intel is just breaking the tick/tock cycle and Broadwell will be the next major bump. But I'm not holding my breath. We at least have GPUs, SSDs, and Google fiber internet to look forward to.

 

[mkenyon]

Edit: I haven't even looked at OP, I'm going to check it out real quick.

Shame on you!

But yeah, FM2 = A series processors, the whole chipset and socket is made for the fusion stuff.

Yeah, just a meager 10% improvement in per clock performance. Pretty freakin lame. I'm still going to wait because I want to get 2013 GPUs anyway. If Haswell-EX has DDR4 and 6 core with comparable OC limits I may go for that.

It's all still rumors. Hell, Ivy still doesn't outclass Sandy due to the heatwall. There is speculation that they will ship with decent IMC's, and as a result, we might be able to overclock the i3s and non-K i5s, which could be huge.

 

[teh_pwn]

It's all still rumors. Hell, Ivy still doesn't outclass Sandy due to the heatwall. There is speculation that they will ship with decent IMC's, and as a result, we might be able to overclock the i3s and non-K i5s, which could be huge.

I hope you're right. CPU performance isn't just for personal use, it's a huge bottleneck at work for FPGA compilations.