College system

[Familyman]

Thanks glc.

I think the case leads for the power LED are two single wires, labeled ‘-P LED’ and ‘+P LED’ so that should make it easy.

There are front panel audio connectors on the case. Since we will be installing a sound card would it be better to enable the front panel connectors? I’ve been reading the online Intel board technical product specification. It looks to me like we can enable the front or back audio connectors but not both at the same time.

Do we need to do anything with the BIOS jumper?

[Spyda]

if you arent using onboard audio, set the jumper to off or no on the AC'97 audio

[glc]

If you are using a sound card, you need to disable the onboard audio in BIOS, not with jumpers. To use the front panel audio connectors, the sound card has to have the appropriate connectors, the ones on the motherboard are only for the onboard audio.

[Familyman]

Thanks.

The motherboard, processor and RAM have arrived.

There was no heat sink compound in the box. On the back of the heat sink there is some tape that has a black film on it. I scratched some off accidentally when I opened the box (too much coffee. And if the truth were known, I’m as excited as a three year old at Christmas). The part I scratched is on the edge and would not make contact with the processor if that's a problem. The diagram that came with the processor doesn’t show the tape on the heat sink and there are no written instructions, just pictures. Do we leave the tape on or peal it off? Do I need to get some heat sink compound and if so what type/brand? I’d like to have everything ready to go when junior gets home.

[Spyda]

the black stuff is the thermal pad, peel the tape off before installing the heatsink over the CPU

[Familyman]

It’s not plastic tape. It’s aluminum or something with a black coating. It’s stuck on real good. What should I use to get it off?

[Hazydeth]

I;m building a cheap P4 system for my friend(about 700$) heres what I put in, maybe you would like the same thing.
Asus P4PE
P4 2.4 Ghz
Kingston 512 2700
WD 40 GB Special Edition
Lite-On 52x burner
Radeon 9500 Graohics card
Sparkle 300 Watt PSU
Chemning Aluminum Case

(all from newegg)

Let me know what you think, this would be good p4 solution)

Hope this link works... http://secure.newegg.com/app/WishR.asp?ID=265488

[Hazydeth]

ahhhhh....i didnt know you already ordered lol I had no idea this thread had 3 pages! Sorry about that

[Familyman]

No problem. That looks like it will be a nice system. I got the motherboard, processor, memory, floppy drive, speakers and sound card from Newegg.

Good luck with it.

[Hazydeth]

Thanks, Same to you.

[Familyman]

I have a also have a question about the front panel USB connectors. There was no manual with the case. The leads are labeled 1+D, 1-D, 1-VCC and ground. The pins are 1 USB_FNT_PWR, 2 USB_FNT1#, 5 USB_FNT1, 7 ground. I got the ground but can’t figure out the rest.

[glc]

There is no protective tape on that pad - the black stuff is the thermal transfer material, and it's stuck to a foil patch that's glued to the heatsink with 2 thin glue beads. I'd just drop it on as is, it should be fine.

If you do want to remove the pad and use compound, you need to work a plastic tool or a toothpick under the foil and peel the whole thing off, finish by removing the glue strips with acetone or alcohol.

PWR = VCC
1# = +D
1 = -D

[TimPoet]

I think it's best to get 2 sticks of RAM for diagnostic purposes. Crucial is great and 512 MBs total is a good start.
If you want to keep it under $800, then you may want to stick with onboard graphics and sound until he just can't stand it any longer and get him a video card for Christmas.

[glc]

He may be pleasantly surprised with the 845GE onboard video - it's supposedly GF2 quality. The Soundmax isn't that great though.

[Familyman]

Thanks glc. That’s exactly what my son said but I wanted to make sure. I didn’t want to risk damaging the processor.

It’s alive.

Windows is loaded and silent boot is disabled. We’re getting “We apologize for the inconvenience, but windows did not start successfully.” We tried safe mode but no joy. We seem to be stuck. Should we have partitioned the drive? When we were loading XP it would not respond to the F8 key, so we shut it down and switched keyboards.

We have double-checked and rechecked the BIOS jumper and it’s in normal.

[i3OSS]

if your installing xp, make sure your bios reads the cd rom first before the floppy. and XP should do a quick format for you.

[Familyman]

I think windows is installed. Can get to the C:\WINDOWS> prompt using the repair console.

Just can’t get it to start. Still getting “We apologize for the inconvenience, but windows did not start successfully.”

[Familyman]

Since the hardware part seems to have gone well and getting windows to start seems to be a software issue I’ve started this thread in the
Windows XP/2000/NT forum. I hope that’s OK.

[jeresimo]

You did not mention what course he is going to pursue? Sometimes, Laptop is practical for college student.

[Familyman]

At the moment he’s interested in kinesiology and psychology. I don’t think he’d do well with a laptop. He’s a little on the absentminded side.

[Spyda]

hehe, hed have a job losing a tower

[Familyman]

Yes, and he likes music. I remember how much I liked music when I was his age. He has done well and we are very proud of him. I want to give him something he will use and enjoy. So far this has been a really fun project for us.

We have XP up & running now.

We’ve loaded some of the drivers from the CD that came with the motherboard. The USB 2.0 driver and the patch for XP would not install. Also, we weren’t sure if we should install the Intel Application accelerator or not so we didn’t.

I will try to post some pics

[Spyda]

if you load SP1 on, it has native support for USB 2.0

[glc]

The USB issues you describe are addressed on the Intel support page for that board. If you can get the drives running in DMA mode you don't need the IAA. You check that in device manager, properties of the controllers (not the drives).

[Familyman]

Thanks. We’ll try that.

[Familyman]

And here it is.

[easyco16]

Originally posted by Familyman We can always add a video card later if my son gets into gaming. I got him a game to see if he likes it.

damn, i wish my dad encouraged me to play video games by buying me some...lol

[strossos]

Originally posted by easyco16 damn, i wish my dad encouraged me to play video games by buying me some...lol

ah man ya! and i wish my dad was nice enough to buy me a computer, i have to get my own computer with my own money, but thats alright
'


looks like a nice system

[TimPoet]

How much did it come to and what are the specs?

[easyco16]

Originally posted by strossos ah man ya! and i wish my dad was nice enough to buy me a computer, i have to get my own computer with my own money, but thats alright

Ya, my dad wont buy me one either, whatever i get is with my own money...which, like you said, is alrite