Finally ordered my parts: Now a few questions

[FalvinP]

I finally ordered the parts for my pc update. A new piece of hardware for this update is a large Intel 520 SSD.

I’m not going to do any SSD caching. I’ll put Windows and programs on the ssd and then put data on one or two WD Caviar black spin drives.

I’ve looked at various SSD “tweaking” and “optimizing” guides on the internet and am somewhat confused as to which suggested procedures of each I would need to perform on my system. Some of them deal with retaining usable space on the drive, which I don’t need to worry about, since it’s a large ssd and others deal with performance of the drive itself. I do know that I need to disable auto disk defragmentation in Windows, since ssds don’t need to be defraged. Can someone lead me to a guide that will meet my needs?

I know that I will need to plug the ssd into the first port on the Intel (gray) controller on the motherboard. How do I know which port (top or bottom) is the first port? I’ve looked in the manual and don’t see anything that would tell me which is the first port. I don’t have the motherboard yet (Asus P8-Z77-V Deluxe) so I can’t look on the board itself. I suppose I could look in the bios to see which port it shows up on once it’s plugged in.

The parts should be here tomorrow. I’ve upgraded my Lian Li A70A case to usb 3.0 and have bought the top panel that allows two more fans to be installed, if needed. I also bought a 2.5” hard drive bay adapter that allows the ssd to slide right into the cool drive rails just like the 3.5 drives.

Thanks for your help.

Oh, I almost forgot..... Will my current video card (BFG Geforce 7950 GT OC) be better the the Intel 4000 graphics on the i7 cpu? I realize I can't use the LucidLogix Virtu MVP feature of the motherboard, since it only supports Nvidia GF series 4xx or 5xx (and some AMD) graphics cards.

[renowilliams]

I'm not sure you will see any tagible benefits to tweaking your ssd. I would just ensure you have the latest firmware.Intel has its own toolbox for their drives available at their site.

As for your video card,it will definatley be better that the intel 4000 graphics.

[glc]

The ports are numbered, the first port will be the one with the lower number.

[FalvinP]

I got my parts and spent several days going very slowly putting things together. I first did an out of box build with four sticks of memory, the cpu and the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo cooler. Everything worked fine. Still out of the box, I then added the video card. Again, everything worked properly.

I then installed everything in the case. Inside the case I had only the dvd burner and the Intel SSD plugged in and ready to go.

Since I plan to overclock, using the “automatic” feature in the Asus software, I not only added the aftermarket heatsink, with two Noctua fans in a push/pull configuration, but two more 120mm Silenx Thermistor fans in the top of the case. The Silenx fans are connected directly to the Corsair 520 watt power supply (via a two pin molex connector which I thought a little odd), since the directions say to disable the automatic fan control if they are to be plugged into the motherboard. I didn’t want to do this, since I am real excited to investigate the Fan Xpert 2 software.

All the other fans are connected to fan headers on the motherboard. Two pairs of fans are connected to two fan headers by way of a splitter that allows two fans to be connected to a single fan header. Before I ordered the splitters, I contacted Asus directly and the tech I talked to said it was ok to do this and still use the Fan Xpert software.

Though it may be serious overkill, the big Lian Li case now has a total of 10, 120mm, fans, including the two on the heatsink. There are two fans at the front of the case, directly in front of the HDD rack, two fans directly behind the HDD rack, two fans at the upper rear, and two fans in the top rear. This is a tall case, designed so the power supply could go in either the top or the bottom. The PSU is installed in the bottom.

The only peripherals I had connected were a set of speakers and the network cable from the router, plugged in to the Intel network connection.

Everything worked fine. The boot up got to the point where it says something like “boot device needed, enter setup. I then spent around half an hour or so looking through the bios. I changed the date and time, using 24 hr format, since I didn’t see any am or pm section. It was 16:00 when I did this. A while later I tried to change the time to a single digit hour, but I couldn’t save it for some reason. Every time I’d restart, it would show the previous time.

Another thing I changed in the bios was to put the primary video card as my 7950 GT OC rather than the Intel 4000 graphics. Finally, in preparation for installing Windows, I changed the boot order on the first screen to the dvd drive. I then turned off the computer and went to bed.

This morning I turned on the computer. I heard a successful post beep and then saw the Asus splash screen. It then went to the dos line saying something about a boot device. A couple of seconds later, I heard a “snap” or a ”pop” and the computer went dead. Pressing the “on” button on the case or on the motherboard does nothing.

Power seems to be getting to the motherboard, since the onboard “on” and “reset” buttons are backlit.

I just noticed that the led next to the EPU switch was lit. I probably bumped it when I attached the HD audio leads from the front panel. I switched it off and the computer still would not turn on.

None of the various warning leds on the motherboard are lit and the debug led is dark, where before it would run through a series of codes at bootup and land on A0 or maybe AD for boot device since there was no boot device installed yet.

Since it was such a sudden shutdown, I’m wondering if it’s a thermal issue. I suppose I could reinstall the heat sink. Maybe the thermal paste was applied improperly. If this was the case, you’d think that a failure would show up before now.

I’d hate to think the board is defective. Does anyone have any ideas as to what the next step in finding the problem would be? I suppose I’ll have no option but to reseat the cpu and/or reinstall the heatsink. This is really sad, because I am very proud that I finally did some basic cable management. At least I didn't use zip ties,so it will be easy to get the cables apart if the need arises.

[glc]

Back out of the case and start from scratch.

[FalvinP]

Yeah....... that's what I figured. If there's a catastrophic failure of the cpu or heatsink, that's where it will show up.

[David M]

The SR-71 Blackbird can travel at 2,070.101 knots.



It does not need to be tweaked to go 2,080 knots.

[FalvinP]

I’m still having problems. One thing I realize that I didn’t mention before is that the night before, while I was looking through the bios, and while my GT 7950 OC video card was in the computer, I noticed a very brief burnt smell. Nothing happened to the display or anything, so I just disregarded it. When the machine failed to power on at all the next morning, I posted my question and was advised to take the mb out of the case again and start from scratch. By doing that, I was able to power on and boot normally with the discrete video card out of the mb. When the card was installed back into the pci-e slot, the unit failed to power on at all. As I said before, nothing appears on the mb…..no leds and the power and reset buttons are dark.

I then installed and uninstalled the video card three times, with power on attempts between each time, to confirm, at least to me, that the video card was the reason for no power up.

I then reinstalled the mb back into the case. I then attached everything that was attached at end of the previous night, except for the video card. I attached one item at a time, keeping notes in Microsoft One Note (a very useful program btw) as to exactly to what headers or ports everything is connected to.

I’m not going to post my One List, unless it’s needed.

Everything seemed to work normally. I waited overnight again and then, with only the ssd plugged in, installed Windows 7. Everything went normally. I then installed Norton Internet Secury and performed Windows updates etc. etc. I then downloaded and installed various drivers and software from the Asus site, including the the Lucid Virtu v2111120856. I didn’t install the Lucid wizard thing. After I installed this, I got an error message that I didn’t write down, having to do with the video. I just assumed that it didn’t like the fact that there was no video card attached.

But, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking about that brief burnt smell I noticed a couple of nights earlier. I wondered if by any chance I had broken the first pci-e slot that the video card was installed to. To test my theory, I bought a very cheap evga GT 430 card. I plugged the card in, but I had a problem. The card is very short and when the business end of the card was attached and secured by the thumb screw to the open expansion slot, the card could not be fully seated into the pci-e slot. The unit would not power on.

I removed the video card and powered on and, to my surprise, the board was still dead……. No leds etc.

So, it would seem that there is either something wrong with my two video cards, which seems unlikely, or there is a problem with the mb.

To eliminate a third possible failure, I first exchanged the power cord to the power supply with another cord I had. No joy.

I then unplugged the power supply and attached it to my old P5K motherboard. I guess I’ll keep it around, just to diagnose some issues, like whether the power supply works. By shorting the power button pins, the mb powered on normally. The cpu fan turned on and the orange led lit up, so it would seem the power supply is OK.

Next, I plugged in both video cards to the old mb in turn. First, I installed the new GT 430 and then the 7950. Each time they appeared to function normally. At least, their fans were turning. I didn’t have a monitor attached when I did this.

Did I fry my motherboard by not getting the new video card fully seating in the pci-e slot? Or did something happen when I had the burn smell? I guess I’ve stumbled into eliminating everything but the motherboard as the source of the problem.

Any further advice would be welcome and very much appreciated.

[glc]

If you bought the motherboard from Newegg less than 30 days ago, get a RMA exchange.

[FalvinP]

Do I tell them anything about the "burn" smell? If it was my fault, I wouldn't feel right if I exchanged it as defective. sometimes I'm too honest for my own good....lol

[jdeb]

No way of telling if you did something wrong. Just send it back. If they ask, tell them that the PCIE slot is bad.

[FalvinP]

Thank you for the reply.