Questions and thanks!

[Drayknight]

1st the thanks! I am an older guy that loves cptrs. and I just recieved my cd on building cptrs. from pc-mechanic and have already put it to good use. I have joined the forums and read some of the threads that have already helped me a lots. It is this help that I would like to thank you forum members for, we would be lost w/o you (especially me ). I have a few questions here. (1.) what exactly is sata-vs-ide and can you have both type drives on the same system? (2.) Is there really a big problem with the stock heat sink/cpu fan that comes with the intel processors as I have seen in some post? (3.) how do I determine the current temp of my cpu.

And if you guyz have time, please take a look at these items and see if I am close to being able to order and get started. I already have 3 IDE HDD's, 2 of which I want to use in the new system, but I have added another 40GB for my new operating system, the 30GB is very old! I hope I can just add the other 2 non-operating system drives to the new system as I have tons of music on them that I would like to save.

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/...istCurrent.asp

AMD Duron processor 996 MHz
512 MB Ram
Windows XP (SP-2)
Creative Audigy 2 soundcard

[jfk]

1. Yes you can have both types of drives. Some mobo's natively support both SATA and IDE, other boards my need a SATA controller card installed if they don't offer native support.

2. No idea, I haven't built an Intel system. Never had a problem with the heatsink/fans on any Intel I've owned however.

3. Many boards come with software to monitor temperatures. You can also look in the bios at bootup. Some cheaper boards don't have temperature probes so it's not an option. There are other freeware programs that can do this. Among others, Everest is great as it can give you all kinds of system information including temps. Everast Home Edition is a free download.

[Kov-Ice]

Welcome to PCMech! Which posts are you referring to about the Intel HSF problems? I've always found the standard ones that come with the processor to be more than sufficient. As for your build, which one of the entries on the wish list is the computer you're preparing?

[rspassey]

Welcome,
jfk pretty much covered all your question, but your link to parts list in't working for me, could you please either fix it, or post the parts here?

[Drayknight]

I just tried to add my list to the others at the lower portion of that screen, will add the components here (that list should show as Dray's build). I think I may drop the cpu cooling fan until I see how the stock fan performs.


COOLER MASTER CAVALIER 3 CAV-T03-UW Silver Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

US P4P800SE Socket 478 Intel 865PE ATX Intel Motherboard

Apollo FX5500 Geforce FX5500 256MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card

Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply

Intel Pentium 4 3.2E Prescott 800MHz FSB Socket 478 Processor

CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual channel

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 6K040L0 40GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA133 Hard Drive

SONY 16X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW, Model DRU800A

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 4 ACFZ4 80mm Ceramic Cooling Fan

[blue60007]

Those are all "outdated" technologies...

Switch to LGA775 socket and processor (they run a bit cooler than their 478 counterparts) with a PCI-E graphics slot (and basic PCI-E video card) and with DDR2 533 as a standard.

ASUS P5GD2-X Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 915P ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Intel Pentium 4 640
Antec Truepower II 480W
CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST380817AS 80GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
LITE-ON DVD-Burner
SAPPHIRE 100121L Radeon X700 128MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

I know you said you already have hard drives, but if they are too old, they will slow your system down, and 40GB will fill up quicker than you think (besides drives are dirt cheap). Do you know if they are 5400 or 7200RPM?

What is it you are going to be doing with this computer? and this can be adjusted accordingly.

[jayb1234]

About the only heatsink/fan related problems i have seen with Intel heatsinks are when someone installs it wrong or swaps it out because they have to have one with pretty lights and gets one that is too large and blocks access to card slots. Also swapping the stock Intel package for an aftermarket unit will void your processor warranty. Intel uses good quality units that are more than adequate for the job.

[Drayknight]

(Sorry for the delay.....don't know what happened but while trying to load a program that would tell me my CPU temp I messed up my computer and had to re-install XP)

Thanx Jayb and Kov-Ice, someone else told me that the stock CPU cooling fan was adequate.

Yes, Blue the other 2 drives I have are 7200rpm (IBM/HITACHI 80GB - Samsung SP 1604N).

I use the computers for everyday use, nothing big, just family pictures, music, yahoo and bookeeping/online banking. The 40 i was just going to add for the OS and prograams that i will be loading such as printshop and quicken and other program files. I keep all my music and pics on the other 2 drives.

I will go and look at the items that you suggested and see what I can come up with. And thanks to all you people for the info. I am a newbie and this will be my 1st build.

Dray

[blue60007]

Ok, you should be fine with those drives.

Since you arn't gaming, I would cut the video card back to a X300 (not the hypermemory ones). You could also cut the processor back to maybe a 630. You could even cut back to 512MB of RAM.

For a power supply, use the XClio 450W. It's about $52 on newegg.

[Kov-Ice]

Be sure to backup everything important on those drives. Keep a copy of things on each drive, and I'd have a copy on optical disc as well. Those two drive brands may not be the most reliable, so just practice safe storage in case one crashes and burns on you.