Building Up
I was offline over the weekend working on putting together the PC for SWMBO that I've mentioned before. I started gathering parts in June and finally bought the last two pieces (Seagate SATA 160GB hard drive and Sony floppy drive) this past weekend.
I had already installed the Intel 2.8GHz Pentium IV, Intel 865GBF-L motherboard, 1GB of Kingston RAM, Sony 700A Dual Layer DVD burner, and 380W Antec TruePower power supply into the Intel Thermally Advantaged Chassis compliant Antec 2650-BQE case.
In addition, I used an Antec Cobra round data cable for the floppy drive and Mad Dog ATA/IDE round data cable for the Sony DVD burner. Each cable makes things tidier in the case and allows better air flow than the standard flat ribbon cables.
When I first powered it up I got power to the motherboard, fans, and drives but it would not boot. After scratching my head and trying to flip around some of the front panel connectors (power and reset) I still couldn't get it going. So I went back to the manual and read the section on trouble shooting. The first item on the list was whether I had hooked up the 4 pin power to the motherboard. Hmmm. I had plugged in the 20-pin one but a four-pin? Doh! So I plugged in the four-pin power next to the CPU socket and all was well.
Since I like to partition the drive into two, so I can keep the operating system and applications separate from the data, I use an old Windows 98 boot disk to boot from. I them use fdisk to set the partitions and then boot off of the Windows CD to start the install. I don't know if the Windows install CD allows you to partition the disk so if you know of a way, please leave a comment below.
That's where I'm at right now because when I got to the point where I'm supposed to register with MS, the product key I was given when I ordered XP Pro from Sales International didn't work. By that I mean the error back from MS is that the key had already been used more than 25 times. Hmmm. If this was a legitimate copy of Windows XP that should not have occurred. While I can't say for sure whether they are selling pirate copies I would be very careful about buying anything from them. Not recommended.
Another strange thing that happened is that the Intel motherboard monitoring software detected an overheating of the CPU. Yet, when I put my hand on the CPU fan housing, it was actually cool to the touch. I'm not sure why the overheat condition occurred or whether I should be concerned about this. In any case (pun not intended), I may add a second fan (the Antec case comes with a single 120mm fan in addition to the two in the power supply) and see if that helps. More as I know more.
Aloha!
Comments
Dan,
I just put the finishing touches on a similar system, with a 3.0E P4 and an Antec 1650B case (a little smaller, but 3 internal 3.5 bays). Very nice, has the "snorkel" from the outside to near the CPU fan.
I installed an 80mm Antec case fan in the front, below the drives, but I doubt it made much difference. I connected the PSU monitor to the rear fan header and the front fan to the front fan header, so the Active Monitor software could control speed of the front fan.
When I was testing, the system would "idle" at 48C on the CPU and 31-35 on the other two motherboard sensors. The PSU fan was running right around 1K RPM, and the front fan was running about 1400 RPM. If I stressed the CPU the CPU went well past 60F and one of the motherboard sensors went past 50C and the Intel Active Monitor complained.
I confirmed that the front fan was blowing in (it was), and then added a second fan between the side panel and the snorkel, blowing straight down on the CPU heat sink and fan.
It didn't make that much difference in the idle temperature, but I wrote a simple program in VB to stress the CPU:
10 GOTO 10
This worked quite well. After a half hour of stressing, the system settled down to running at 59C on the CPU and 48C on the hottest motherboard temperature sensor. The system had turned the two 80mm fans up to 100% full speed (about 2600RPM), and the power supply fan may have been working a little harder too (but it wasn't hooked to the monitor).
Now a 3.0E processor is a Prescott, which seems to run about 10C or so hotter from the earlier Northwood processors in the same environment. And a 3.0E disapates more wattage than a 2.8, too. I think that if you add a fan to the "snorkel", you'll be fine.
Posted by: Gary Berg | October 12, 2004 03:05 PM
The install of WinNt4 and Win2000 alows to (re)partition the drive. But it's an option that gets auto-answered if you don't change the setting withing a set time (15 or 30s or something like that).
If the CPU complains about heat and the CPU cooler remains cold it may indicate a bad contact between the two so the cooler isn't cooling the chip. An extra fan won't help in that situation.
Posted by: sjon | October 12, 2004 09:21 PM