new re-build

[bailey]

well the second pc of the many I have built over the yeard has bit the dust the other day.

the system is the asus CUSL2-C motherboard with a P3 800 cpu.

the problem is the system will not boot due the a keyboard error, says not connected.

so it has to be the ps/2 keyboard port on the MB has a problem.

now I want to replace the MB with one that will take a P4 2.5 northwood that I have left over from the first system that went bad years ago.

looking for a asus or abit MB intel based.

which one would be best for just general use.
I also know I will need to buy some ram for it too.

any suggestions ?

[Alaron]

Intel 478 boards are very hard to come by on most websites.

Any opposition to eBay? You'll find some better options there.

[bailey]

I find plenty of boards with the 845 chipset and northwood support.

but I am not excited to buy a biostar brand for 35 dollars.

[flanzig1]

This place has the ASRock P4i65g motherboard: http://www.gearxs.com/gearxs/product_info.php?cPath=75_105&products_id=8020
I used this board in a folding box and has been solid for a year.

[bailey]

well, we decided to go with the :
asus P5GPL-X se LGA 775 Intel 915PL ATX motherboard

asus EN7100GS512/TD/128M GeForce Express X16 video card

Intel Pentium 4 631 Cedar Mill 3.0 GHZ LGA 775 processor

Kingston ValueRAM 1 GB 184-pin DDR 400 (PC3200) Dual channel kit

that should get this old system updated a bit

[glc]

I wish I had gotten here earlier - Geeks has Intel D845GEBV2's in stock. Might want to grab one if you feel like putting that 2.5 to use somehow.

[bailey]

thanks GLC:
I just placed a order for one of them.
I think it will make a nice system for the work bench stuff

[glc]

It's an excellent bench board - onboard everything, an AGP slot, USB 2.0, and 6 PCI slots.

[bailey]

I know that I should know this, but my memeroy is getting bad.

I have 4 sticks of :

kingston value ram

KVR800X16/128

that I pulled out the the first system that went bad on me. it was the asus P4T.E motherboard

could I use this ram in this intel D845GEBV2 motherboard ?

thanks for your help.
bob
WB7DMX

[glc]

Nope - that's RDRAM. The 845 takes DDR.

[bailey]

ok, I am confusing myself now.

the cpu is a P4 2.5 gig, 400, 6L6EB

the board supports 400/533

the ram support is for DDR 133/266

does this mean that I want to order some kingston 184 pin DDR 333 - PC2700 for this build ?

[glc]

It will accept PC3200 if it's cheaper. You can even use PC2100 if you want. It's not dual channel so you can use a single stick.

[bailey]

very good, I just ordered 1 gig of 3200

heck now I need a case and power supply, but that will have to wait till next month.

[glc]

If you are going to use the onboard video, the Foxconn TS-1 is a bargain. It has a quality FSP-built 300 watt PSU. Nice case too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811153042

[bailey]

very good, I will have to order one next payday.

thank you very much for all your help.

[bailey]

well got the parts today and I have run into a dumb problem.

first I had to update the bios to support the p4 3.0 cpu.

then I connected the hard drive to the ide connector and the cd rom drive.
rebooted and it said no HDD detected.

went into the bios and it has the cd-rom drive as the master and the HDD as the slave.

I doubled checked that I had the jumpers set to csl and had the 80 conductor ribbon cable.
rebooted and the same problem.

I cannot get it to detect the HDD as the master boot device, I tried everything I could think of and nothing workd the way it is supposed to.
I am not using any serial devices at all.

what could I be missing here, ?

[bailey]

let me re-phrase the question this way.

should it be possible to have this motherboard boot from a ide hard drive ?

if yes, then how ?

this system was working fine with the old motherboard except the keyboard stopped working because the old mother board would not detect it. it happened all of a sudden. that is the reason for this new MB.

[liambl]

Keep in mind that to use cable select the drives have to be on the right connector, at the end for master and the middle for the slave. Have you tried forcing the drives into master/slave using the jumpers?

[bailey]

yep, I tried both approches and nothing would work correctly, I spent all day trying to get it to do something with the hard drive.

I am sending everything back to newegg as defective.

[glc]

You sure you had the right end of the cable on the motherboard?

[bailey]

yes, keep in mind that this was a good working system till the keyboard was no longer being detected, but still booted into xp fine.
the only thing that was replaced was the motherboard, cpu and the ram. and updated the bios for the newer cpu..

we are rma ing the motherboard to newegg only.
and ordered a new Asus P5GD1-FMS Intel 915P socket 775 from Geeks.com.

hopefuly this will work ok.

still am going on with the build of the other system for the 2.5 gig northwood, that is a entirely differant build.

[glc]

I'd really recommend you do better than a 915P board, but the P5GD1 is decent. You are pretty much committed to that though because you bought standard DDR.

[bailey]

yes, I agree with you but then the only thing this system will be used for is e-mail and some web surfacing, its just the extra stand-by system for the living room, some instant messageing will be used on it too. and thats about all.
well some gamming also, my brother-in law likes to play the card game that comes with xp too.

[glc]

Right, but you could have purchased better parts for an upgrade than those - such as a P5GC-VM, DDR2 ram, and a Conroe-L Celeron or a Pentium-E dual core. You bought yesterday's technology at the same price.

[bailey]

yes, but I have been away from the building for too long and I am still thinking yesterdays tech,
I may yet put the ram in this system here, the asus P4P800 and use the 2.5 northwood and the MB I got for it in the rebuild system and keep the p4 3 gig 631 cpu for a future build.
that way all I am out is the $29.00 for the 915 MB.

I will have a better idea of what I am going to end up with tomarrow.
its not over with yet.

[glc]

Looks like you took a chance on a 29 buck open box motherboard and lost the roll of the dice. It happens.

[bailey]

ok, I looked up everything you have listed, but the cpu.

what do you mean by the pentium E

I forgot and did not see it on newegg

[glc]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000340343+1050729314&Configurator=&Subcategory=343&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=

[bailey]

ok, next question:

the MB supports HT
the cpu does not

does HT not help with the dual core cpu's, or is it not needed, or no work with dual core cpu's ?
and the speed of the ddr2, how does that relate to the fsb speed ?

just want to know.

heck I may just build one of them for me self.

just thought of something, I can still use my promise ide controler cards that plug into the pci slots, right ?

[liambl]

HT tech really does nothing more than make the OS see 2 cores, the second construced from idle cpu resources. When native dual-cores appeared, since these actually have 2 cores, was not included. I personally think is a bit of a gimmik.

[bailey]

that makes sence

ddr2 ram is sure cheap too.

[glc]

Yup - and your Promise cards will work as long as the board has legacy PCI slots.

Now - if you want to build a dual core for yourself, maybe we can talk some higher end components. Don't buy a bunch of stuff yet.

[bailey]

ok:
what I ended up doing was to sell him my intel 2.5 northwood and the intel D845GEBV2 motherboard.
and the 1 gig of DDR400 , this rebuild worked just fine and everyone is happy.

all the other hardware was sent back.

[bailey]

I was so amazed on how much better this build performs with 1 gig of ram that I have ordered the necessary ram to update all my other computers to 1 gig of ram.
that should let me be happy till I go to the newer tech systems.