Question about storage configuration

[Dave in Houston]

Dear PCMech,

I'm about to rebuild an old Pentium 4 box and get rid of the IDE drives.

The case I'm using has a hot swap bay in front and I want to make sure that I can make it work.

I'm using an i3-550 with this: Newegg.com - ASUS P7H55-M LE LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

From what I understand, in order for hot swap to work, I need to set the storage option to AHCI rather than IDE. Further, for a box with no IDE drives, AHCI is probably the better choice anyway.

I'd be grateful if the experts can verify.

Thanks!

Dave

[rwest]

Yes. That is correect. Sata drives are hot swappable under AHCI.

If the storage is set for ide, I don't think the SATA drives are supposed to be hot swapped, but I think some folks have done it.

And yes AHCI is better than ide. It's newer technology and it also supports Native Command Queing. If your new drive/s support NCQ then you will be taking full advantage of the newer technolgy.

Another note: The board you selected does not show support for 6gb/s. When selecting your drives pay attention to this detail. There's not a lot of difference in price...but there is some.

[Dave in Houston]

Thanks!

And no worry about the SATA speed... I already own the drives, and they are not of the faster variety.

[Dave in Houston]

As I mentioned in the original post, I'm about to rebuild an old box.

Right now, the PSU is a Cooler Master RS-460 which is working fine. I've also got a Corsair 400CX sitting on a shelf as a spare/test unit. Which one should I put in the box, and which one should sit on the shelf?

I plan to use an old GT-210 video card that I already own. Or would the i3-550's onboard video be a better choice?

Thanks!

Dave

[glc]

The 400CX is a great PSU, it was made by Seasonic. The GT210, if nothing else, will let the system have all the onboard video memory back and take some load off the CPU.

[Dave in Houston]

Then 400CX it shall be, along with the GT210. Thanks, GLC!

[Dave in Houston]

Black ice in Houston (!) prevented me from going to work today, so I started putting this box together.

Booted the system and ran diagnostics with the parts sitting on the table, no problems.

I put the MB in the case, and I'm now trying to connect the front panel header. I am building in an Antec 200 case. Newegg.com - Antec Two Hundred Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

On this case, the power LED connect to the front panel has two conductors with a blank in between. On the motherboard, the power LED is two adjacent pins on the header, so the connector to the LED won't connect to both.

What's the easiest, cleanest way to get the connection made? Slice the connector apart? Some kind of adapter? Or something else?

Thanks for advising an amateur builder, and best regards,

Dave

[glc]

If there is not an alternate power LED connection that's 3 pins wide (a lot of motherboards have this, check your manual) the best way is this:

Figure out which lead needs to be moved from the outside to the center. Take a scribe or pin and lift the flap over the connector slightly and pull the wire out of the plastic connector. Reinsert it into the center hole.

[Dave in Houston]

Thanks, GLC, for the advice on the LED connection. It was easy to move the necessary connector, and the power LED works fine.

After I put the components in the case, in preparation for installing Windows, I changed the SATA configuration to AHCI. After that, memory diagnostics ran fine, but the HDD diganostic hung. Note that the HDD had been installed in the old system, set up as IDE.

I went into the bios and changeb back to IDE, and the HDD diagnostic ran fine, so I just changed it back to AHCI and installed Windows 7.

I've got another hard drive that I'd like to read from the hot swap bay. It was also in the old system before I changed to AHCI. Will it be possible to read it?

Thanks again!

Dave

[glc]

Yes, it's just the OS drive you will have issues with changing from IDE to AHCI.

[Dave in Houston]

Thanks again!