my first build... "grasshopper" needs mentoring

eidolon · Post by **eidolon** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 6:46 am

First let me give kudo's to those who contribute to this site and to those who run the site. Kudos!
I wish I'd have found it sooner. Sure would have saved me some $$$ in shipping charges returning substandard goods.

I've purchased a Fong Kai case (FK333) into which an Asus A8V Deluxe via K8T800 Pro socket 939 motherboard with a 3400+ chip cooled with a zalman 7000b alcu is going.
Maxtor 120gb EIDE HD (7200/8MB/ATA-133)
1gb Corsair PC3200 DDR400
SilenX Pro PSU and SilenX 120mm fan as well.
I'll not be doing any overclocking.

My main concern is in regards to properly setting up the BIOS.
Which is something I've never done before.
I just don't want to make any mistakes. Or rather make any mistakes which are catastrophic.

Is the floppy drive a must?
I know I'll need to enable the quiet/cool feature.
Don't know what RAID setting is required
What's RAID mean anyhow?
Is the "instant music" option something worth enabling?... there's more but that's a start...
I'm sure there is some insight and wisdom out there in cyber space which will help make this build successful.

ALL input will be greatly appreciated.

Post by **MikeC** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 8:35 am

Welcome to SPCR, grasshopper.

floppy drive - not a must
RAID -- you have only one drive, and this is probably only for SATA drives, so disable it. RAID: google is your friend.
instant music -- only if you want to use your PC as a CD player only; most popular in cramped spaces

There's lots of discussion elsewhere on CnQ settings... please use search function.

Arzela · Post by **Arzela** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:17 am

It might be endemic (sp?) to my setup, but I've found
the onboard sound for the A8V Deluxe to be very noisy
(transmits a lot of system noise); so I disabled it.
Disable both raid controllers if you don't plan on using
raid. The board supposrts "cool and quiet", this must be
enabled in bios (you also have to install
the drivers and software from the supplied cd as
well as setting your Windows (presumebly) power management
settings to "minimal").

When I set up my system, the default bios settings
worked fine. Feel free to ask questions; that AV8 instruction manual
looks like it was written by someone who failed
his English as a Foriegn Language classes.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:48 am

MikeC wrote:floppy drive - not a must

This may be debateable. Sometimes, WinXP won't automatically detect the drive (it wants SATA drivers). I don't know if that's the case with this particular motherboard, but if it is, then rest assured, a floppy drive can save you a lot of pain.

Post by **MikeC** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:51 am

sthayashi -- he has a "Maxtor 120gb EIDE HD"

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 10:46 am

MikeC wrote:sthayashi -- he has a "Maxtor 120gb EIDE HD"

Yeah.... I.... uh.... missed that.

eidolon, listen to MikeC.

eidolon · Post by **eidolon** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:35 pm

Thanks for the rapid responses.
The received answers are just what the doctor ordered.
The insight regarding the speaker... thanks

If there's anymore to be said which will keep this novice out of harms way please don't hesitate to chime in.
I'll not be insulted by any meaningful suggestions.

eidolon · Post by **eidolon** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 8:04 pm

I just found out an interesting little tid bit. While getting a RA number in order to return the cpu fan I wasn't going to use, the customer service person told me that unless I bought a fan from them there would be no warranty on the cpu.
Well one thing lead to another... It seems I had NOT purchased a retail (in the box) version of the AMD chip. I went to the AMD website and found out AMD offers NO warranty on such a chip.
AMD will only warrant an "in the box" chip.
I returned the chip and the fan went out and found a 3500+ with the winchester core (3 yr amd warranty) for not a lot more than the chip I'm now returning.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 8:18 pm

AMD's warranty is a CYA policy. They don't warranty any OEM chip AFAIK and leave it up to the retailer. Most retailers don't warranty CPUs beyond 30 days. This is mostly due to the abuse that people put them through, and then try to RMA it. Crap like starting the processor without a heatsink. Or chipping the core by installing a heatsink like a drunk gorilla.

In AMD's case, if you basically do anything that doesn't come in the boxed package, you void your warranty. Even going so far as to say if you've used thermal paste.

Note that what I've written above is true for Athlon XP processors. I'm not as certain for the Athlon 64 processors. I think they have a different policy for the thermal paste issue.