Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

[2therock]

@#$%&*(@# GPU Price Change!

The @#$%&* GPU's price dropped while is still on the truck!

MY $149.99 6850 is on a 24hr promo for $119.99 Arrrrrgh!

Never look back eh!


Other note, being a machinist I see the RASA block is not flat. Its a tad high in the center using a straight edge in the light. I will be lapping it....... only if the CPU is not low in the center eh!

Also while I'm babbling, my way of applying the right amount of therm paste is to apply what I believe is the correct amount (tiny spec) to the heat sink with a piece of plastic over the cpu. Smush it down and remove. Then remove the plastic thus half the paste.

[boondocks]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

Yeah I saw the price on the gpu's dropped.
The block is high in the center for a reason.

[boondocks]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

So how do you like that fan controller? I like the rheobus as it's functional and works very well, just can't take those bright lights all the time. So I ordered a Scythe like yours, a little more subdued light wise. I have enough night lights with all this equipment in one room.

[2therock]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

So how do you like that fan controller? I like the rheobus as it's functional and works very well, just can't take those bright lights all the time. So I ordered a Scythe like yours, a little more subdued light wise. I have enough night lights with all this equipment in one room.

So far I like it a lot. The only boon is it will only show 2 at a time as selected but its not a deal breaker because if it showed all 6 the font would be so small eh?
I read a user review that said it got too hot to touch but mine shows absolutely no signs of heat.

I am running my top fans on one controller and 4 more fans all wide open and no heat. I'm glad I read that after the purchase.

I am going to like using the temp probes.

===========================

On a side not I hit a snag with my build. Maybe two snags.

Snag 1. I went to open my old mobo retail box to look for something and noted it still had the plastic on the outside and the door sticker in there. My mobo came with no plastic and no sticcker. Hmmm. Did I get an open box? Tell me what I should have seen. Also on the static bag it had tape. Not the usual yellow message seal.

Is newegg known for trying to slip a open box in the works?

Snag 2. The upper blue heat sink on the board would not allow a push out fan setup in my case. I really need the size and config of this case so I tried a pull from the top and the lid would not allow it. So I modded it. Before that I spent an hour looking for an alternative case. It has to do with the amount of USB 2.0 & 3.0 ports and the dimensions for the fit where it will sit.

So I will be posting a NE review noting its not a Taylor made water cooler case. Just very airy.

[wazza300]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

youd be better off skipping newegg and emailing gigabyte directly for missing motherboard stickers,im sure they would send you whats missing

[boondocks]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

I've bought several Gigabyte boards in the last 2 years and none of the boxes were sealed in plastic. As far as the antistatic bag, my UD5H boards just had plain old clear tape.

You can't shift your rad over any to make room for the fans? My top mesh is 180mm wide so I just shifted mine over. A small part of 2 corners is covered in solid metal, though.
I'm getting ready to put my radiator/fan setup on top. (see post in cooling section).

[2therock]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

Thanks,

I got a Gigabyte tech on the horn and he interviewed me on it and confirmed there was no issue. He did not ask me where it was purchased.

I should have asked him on the HP power terminal on the board. I have his email so I will later. And hit hime for some stickers and any other sympathetic trinkets ......

Well I have a pull setup. Heh. I call it my case butcher build. With all the air I'll have coming in its a kinda passive Push/Pull eh?

I hammered Newegg about the promo code while mine was still in the truck and got a disclaimer canned response and a $15.00 code voucher! Here comes another fan upgrade.

Am I correct in a ball bearing fan is better suited to lay flat then a sleeved fan?

The XSPC 1650rpm fans start out 1525 and get up there after warming up a few minutes. Strange. My Yates and Rosewill's get right at it.

The sink in the way and the butcher patch job.......

It sticks out more than the pic would indicate.
No one will see it anyway so its no matter but while I wait for the CPU I piddled.

[boondocks]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

Don't look bad. At some point you might want to reverse the fans and try it, but it may take exhausting more air out of the case so other components don't heat up.
I would think ball bearing fans in general are better than sleeved as far as vibration and wear. :shrug:
My XSPC fans only run about 1550.

[2therock]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

Mercy, I was downloading all the latest drivers from Gigabyte to a flash drive and suddenly realized it has been so long (2008) since I booted a new build I have forgotten the order of what to do.

After I cross my fingers and power up and watch her boot what are the sequence of events that follow. I remember installing chip-set drivers and such but for the life of me I cannot remember...... CPU will be here Thursday.

Thanks.

[boondocks]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

When you boot into the BIOS, SATA mode will already be set for AHCI, but check it anyway unless you plan on running Raid. Probably the 3D BIOS will come up first but you can hit F1 and bring up the Advanced BIOS. Just set any RAM profiles and check that the correct voltage and timings get set, otherwise do it manually. Set up your boot order, usually best to have only OS drive attached until you get Windoze installed though. Keep your manual handy if you wonder about anything.
As for installing drivers, I usually install chipset first but doesn't matter. Or just throw the driver disk in and it will install all the Audio stuff if you want it to, there's a bunch of Creative stuff that I don't use but others like. Probably not too much newer on the Gigabyte site anyway except BIOS, use a flash drive and install whatever BIOS using Qflash, but don't worry about until you get Windoze installed and updated. There's a switch on the board for both BIOS, put it where you want it and that will be the one that gets flashed (switch with power off board, of course) but it's probably set to the 1st bios, both my boards were.
What else. All I can think of right now, there'll be people around if you get stuck on something or I'll be cruising through in the morning.
Windows will load the SATA drivers, no need for a preinstall driver for the Intel chipset.
Oh, when/if you get around to flashing a newer BIOS, look around here there's a guide somewhere. But reboot to BIOS after flashing and Load Optimized Defaults, reboot to BIOS,check all your settings again and reboot if changes made otherwise boot to Windoze.

[profJim]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte...ash-guide.html

signature hidden due to unpopular request

[2therock]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

Thanks,

What I will have is two brand new WD Black 1TB 6GB/sec drives. Optical Drive, and a Flash drive with F7 Bios and the other drivers and utilities.

So I take it I will: (You tell me if I have anything out of order)

Boot into the BIOS.
Load optimized?

Make sure the RAM is at the settings Samsung has on the box for now.
Setup my RAID1.
Set boot order
Update BIOS.
Load Windows
Chip-set drivers.
Whatever hardware drivers I am prompted for or need.
Windows Updates.

[2therock]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte...ash-guide.html

signature hidden due to unpopular request

Thanks. That post takes me back to 2008. In F7 I extract, "z77xud5h.f7", "Efiflash.exe" along with the autoexec.bat.

[profJim]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

You're welcome.

You don't need a bootable floppy or usb drive for flashing.
Extract the actual bios file (e.g. z77xud5h.f7) to a FAT32 formatted partition on a hard drive or usb drive.
Boot into QFlash and point to the usb drive with the new bios file.
Follow the procedure in the bios flashing guide and you'll be good to go.

Be sure to disable "Keep DMI Data" in the QFlash options.

[boondocks]

Re: Looking @ A New Build - Been Out Of It A While - Help Me Spend My Money

Thanks,

What I will have is two brand new WD Black 1TB 6GB/sec drives. Optical Drive, and a Flash drive with F7 Bios and the other drivers and utilities.

So I take it I will: (You tell me if I have anything out of order)

Boot into the BIOS.
Load optimized?

Make sure the RAM is at the settings Samsung has on the box for now.
Setup my RAID1.
Set boot order
Update BIOS.
Load Windows
Chip-set drivers.
Whatever hardware drivers I am prompted for or need.
Windows Updates.

Cross out Load Optimized and Update BIOS.
At very end of list and whenever you want/need to add:
Update BIOS with the guide ProfJim posted.