First build....a few quick ?s

[nismo]

Aspire XDreamer 350W with front LCD temp dislpay
Asus P4P800 Deluxe
Intel 2.8C
WD 80G HD ATA100
Mushkin 512M PC-3200 DDR
PowerColor Radeon 9600 Pro
Liteon 52x32x52x CD-RW
Sony 17" LCD
(using integrated sound for now)


1. At the time of ordering I didn't think about running 2x256 in dual channel. Will there be a loss in performance from this instead of running 2x256s in dual channel? Is Mushkin a good brand of ram? The friend helping me build my rig has some Mushkin Black special stuff. He advised me on Mushkin.

2. Both my CDRW and HD are OEM so I don't think they come with cables. I bought a triple ended cable to hook them up to the mobo. Was this a good idea? Should I set the HD to master and the CDRW to slave? Will I see any loss?

3. This is my first build and first post. Any comments or suggestions are welcomed.

[Jimmy White]

looks good what response time does the sony monitor have?

1. yes there is a performance loss just running 1 stick compared to 2 but have 1 stick of 512 lets you have dual channel 1gb if you get another 512 stick. Mushkin is a very good brand of memory make sure it has a CAS of 2 or 2.5.

2. the motherboard comes with IDE cables so dont worry about that. HDD to Master or cable select and CDRW to master (i think) as its on a different cable

3. what are you going to use it for? all looks good might want to check what PSU that case comes with (brand) as there are brands to avoid.
good PSU's:
Antec
Sparkle
Enlight
Enermax
Tagan

Hope that helps

[nismo]

The Sony has a response time of 16ms...is that good/bad/decent?

The Mushkin has a Cas Latency: 2.5-4-4....Any problems with that?

It doesnt' say what the name of the PSU...the case is Item # N82E16811144001 on newegg.com.

Thanks a lot, just using it for general stuff, web, light gaming, stuff like that.

[Jimmy White]

The monitor has a good response time

That ram CAS is good no problems there

May want to get a good quality 350w PSU from brands in my other post

Looks like a solid system

Edit: may want to make sure that the Hard drive has a 7200rpm and 8mb cache

[nismo]

Yes the HD is the WD SE 80gig with 7200rpm and 8mb buff. I'll research a better PSU. Thanks again for your input. The parts should be here today (4-8-04). Hope all goes well.

[nismo]

I checked the Asus website and checked under the P4P800 deluxe board and it lists all the ram that is ( for optimum performance and overclocking capabilites. ) Mushkin isn't on the list. Am I going to run into problems?

[Karnevil9]

Everything looks OK. There is not that much of a loss by running one stick of ram, only about 5% to 20% percent difference, but it was already pinted out, it gives you the ability to upgrade to 1 gig later so I would leave it as is.

Don't hook the CD-R/W to the same cable as the Hard drive. There is a chance of performance loss that way. Rule of thumb, Hard drives on the same cable with other hard drives and optical devices with other optical devices. If you have only have one device on each cable you can use master, cable select or single set up which is what WD recommends in that situation. I found that Lite on likes to be master drive for some reason. I had problems with it when I tried it any other way.

[nismo]

So when you use indepent wires for hd and optical drive, set the hd to cable select or master (my choice?) and set the lite on cdrw to master?

[Panama Red]

Like Asus, Mushkin has a compatability chart too. Here's a link to the Asus page so you can verify that your selected ram will work ok.

http://www.mushkin.com/epages/Mushki...880#asusp4p800

[kram 2.0]

The Aspire X-Dreamer comes with a faulty PSU. It comes with DEER, a PSU that is known to mess up system very often. I would get an Enermax or Sparkle.

With the motherboard, dual channel RAM are supported. I would, like you said, do a double 256 DDR - dual channeling gets you more efficiency and power.

I think that right now, you can upgrade to the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT for only 10 USD more at Newegg, if I'm correct. The extra memory speed and core speed makes the biggest of difference when gaming. You might want to consider it, if you have a little extra money.

Hope that helps,
kram

[nismo]

All of its PSUs are faulty or just a lot have been faulty? When you say its been known to mess up system what do you mean, like fry other hardware? Also, later on when I get some more money I'll be buying another stick of 512. And the gaming isn't a big deal to me so the 5600 is alright. Also all these parts are in hand so I kinda wanna put this together today or tomorow so choices have been made.

[Cricket]

Originally posted by kram8806 The Aspire X-Dreamer comes with a faulty PSU.

You gotta stop using the term "faulty" when talking about poor quality power supplies. "Faulty" means the power supply is already defective and we don't know if that's the case with all power supplies that come in cases. The power supplies that come in Aspire cases are "low quality", not "faulty".

Originally posted by nismo All of its PSUs are faulty or just a lot have been faulty?

What he meant was the power supply is a "low quality" unit, not faulty or defective. The power supply will most likely work fine, but since it uses low quality parts it could have a short life span, cause weird power related problems or if it decides to die prematurely, it could damage anything connected to it (just about everything in the case).

Originally posted by nismo When you say its been known to mess up system what do you mean, like fry other hardware?

It's been known to happen when low quality power supplies die. Sometimes they send a huge surge of power to the system and parts get fried.

If you're serious about building and owning a killer computer, never use a generic or low quality power supply.

Cricket

[demandred55]

I have that case. The PSU was not faulty but I did order a new one on advice from this forum. I initially built the computer using the supplied PSU and when my new one arrived (Antec SmartBlue 350w) I swapped it in. I guess it's your personal choice to take a chance that a cheap generic PSU like the one supplied with the case wll a) not be faulty initially and burn out your components (like I did) and/or b) will surivive for any length of time (as I was unwilling to do.)

I think much of the PSU advice on this forum should be taken with a grain of salt. Even the ones that "are known to be faulty" may still have a very low failure rate but this being a priimarily a forum for people who have problems, it seems that most people who do have problems with PSUs have cheap ones. There is no real way for anyone here to compare the relative failure rates, it's all anecdotal.

That being said, it is a relatively small investment when you consider the ramifications of using a faulty PSU with your brand new, $1000+ worth of equipment. Worst case, the whole system could be fried. Slightly better, but perhaps more maddening, would be one that appears to be fine but is so poor at regulating the voltages that your components do not work correctly, leaving you to spend hours and hours trying to diagnose all of your software and hhardware to no avail. Or, you may have reduced performance, but not realize it.

It's all up to you. I decided it wasn't worth the risk of entrusting my thousand-plus dollars worth of new components to a $10 PSU. The extra $50 I spent on the Antec PSU gives me priceless peace of mind.

[nismo]

Sounds like I should run by the local computer shop and pick up a quality PSU. I would order one from the egg but I don't want to wait again. Thanks for the advice.

[demandred55]

If the price difference is extreme, you could always build it with the stock PSU and then swap in the new one when it arrives. There is a slight risk that something bad could happen in the meantime but, as I said, I did it and had no problems. I noticed no difference in performance with the new PSU, but I did notice the voltages being closer to spec.

[Karnevil9]

"So when you use indepent wires for hd and optical drive, set the hd to cable select or master (my choice?) and set the lite on cdrw to master?"

WD hard drives have an option to select for single. I have tried all ways and haven't noticed a difference, between that, cable select or master..

You can use Cable select for the lite on also, but put the lite on CD r/w first on the wire. If it doesn't give you any problems, great, but if you notice any, then try master.

Have fun building your system, and take your time. Post back to let us know how it goes.

[kram 2.0]

Originally posted by Cricket You gotta stop using the term "faulty" when talking about poor quality power supplies. "Faulty" means the power supply is already defective and we don't know if that's the case with all power supplies that come in cases. The power supplies that come in Aspire cases are "low quality", not "faulty". Cricket

Sorry about the naming - about a very sizable majority of the people around this forum tend to brand the Aspire brand PSU "Deer" to be very low quality, thus generally causing faulty performance with the computer. But my point - not swapping the PSU on the Aspire case would mean that you are taking a risk, as with all generic cases. Again, sorry about the bad choice of words there.

Hope that helps,
kram

[bmrmrb]

i have a similar system to the one you are building (same CPU, GPU, CD-RW and Motherboard). i have the Liteon as slave to my DVD-ROM and i have no trouble. one thing i will say is don't be suprised if it "whines" a little. i don't mind a gentle hum but this thing screeches. i only use it for copying CD's so it doesnt bother me too much. the motherboard comes with every cable concieved by man, x2. except an audio cable, like the one you bought. the 9600Pro is also a great card, DVD's play great (not that that will bother you), and all of my games play fine. including MS Flight Simulator 2002 Pro, which used to make my old TNT2 freeze within minutes.

as to the jumpers on your harddrive, look at the WD site they will probably have the manual on there and it should be pretty straight forward.

good luck with your build! what operating system will it be running?

[nismo]

Thanks for everyone's advice. The build went great. The directiosn that come with the Asus mobo are excellent and helped a lot. Plugged everything in turned it on and I was in business. At first I had XP Pro installed and it wasn't recognizing my USB Host Controller so I formated and installed XP Home and it was all good. This thing smokes, no lag, no hard drive chatter no nothing. At idle the temp readout says 74.7 F and under full gaming it only reaches 81.4 F. I'm not sure what the norm is but I think its ok. No problems so far. Thanks again. Also, the PSU that came with the case has been good so far.

[discodanman45]

nismo, if you don't like to wait for power supplies buy one from www.zipzoomfly.com I got my power supply from them in less than 24 hours! They use free 2nd shipping on almost all orders, their prices are almost exactly the same as newegg's but they include the shipping in their price. The usually have good prices on Sparkle units, so check it out!