First Build, Some Questions

[mcahren]

Hello,

1) I bought an extra fan for my medium tower case. Should I mount it in the front, below the drive bays, or the back, under the power supply? Should it be sucking in, or blowing out?

2) The MOBO came with a template thingy that should apparently mount to the rear of the case to identify the various ports. How do you mount that thing to the box?

3) So far, the processor temperature is running around 42 - 46 degrees. is this normal? How can I monitor this without going to the bios screen?

Thanks,

McAhren


ECS K7S5A
ATHALON XP 1800+
CRUCIAL DDR 512MB
BEST DATA GEFORCE 400MX NVIDIA APG 64MB
WD 120GB 8MB CACHE

[PMich]

McAhren,
Welcome to PC Mechanic!!

1) If you are going to use a single case fan, I would put it in the front bottom and it should should be pulling air into the case.

2)The port cutout template should just snap onto the back of the case.

3) If you want to monitor temps outside the BIOS, you will need to download a program like motherboard monitor. A google search will find a site for you to download from.

[Floppyman]

Here's the Motherboard Monitor website:

http://mbm.livewiredev.com

[Cricket]

Hi mcahren,

If you only have the 1 80mm case fan, I would put it on the rear and have it blowing out. That way, you know the heated air is being actively pushed out of your system. And since it will create a vacuum effect, cool air will be drawn in through the front fan opening and go across your motherboard and CPU.

When you can, get another 80mm case fan and install it in the front.

:) Cricket

[mcahren]

Thanks for the advice! I am going to leave the fan on the back of the box, pumping air out, and I am going to get another fan for the front to pump air in.

Another Question:

I installed Motherboard Monitor 4, but the temperatures are way off. MM reports that temperature sensor 1 is around 600 degrees! Does this have to do with the voltage settings? How do I know how to configure MM correctly?

Thanks again, this is a really great board!

[juppy]

Hi mcahren,

Good idea on getting another fan for the front. As for the temperature settings in Motherboard Monitor, you just have to set it to read different sensors to find which one you need. If you know what the cpu temp is from the BIOS, just assign a sensor, one at a time, to be read and the one that is close to the BIOS reading is probably the one you want. I ran into the same problem. When I set it to one of the sensors it came up as being 127°C. I knew there was no way that was my cpu temp so I eventually found one named Winbond that was the cpu (yours may be named different depending on the mobo....don't know if these names are standard for all or not). HTH

[JCB]

Get motherboard monitor, that proggie rocks.

[jca08]

not sure if mbm4 was a mistake or not but i think there's a new one, mbm5 out that i like a lot. just read through the help files that are included with the program and there are detailed step by step instructions on configuring everything. i'll admit, all those options were a little daunting at first, but the instructions really do make it simple and you'll understand what all the different settings are when you're done reading it. good luck...

josh