Post by sadbutrue on Nov 7, 2005 11:16:00 GMT 7
Hello everyone i'm new here so i thought it would be good to contribute to this sectionin in ESO allhere.
I'm posting this to for all the PC builders here on ESO forums. So this (hopefully) will serve as a guide for Some of the novice PC builders we might have here. Of course they can always post
for some help.
Hard Disk Drives- handling, installing advice
The HDD is the only mechanical (besides the optical drive) in your system that is gonna be containing your system's data. So be careful when transporting, installing, and even sometimes holding your HDD.
- From the time your at the store make sure you absolutely are sure what type of drive your gonna want/need before you take it off the shelf. Always place it in your cart carefully. Make sure it's not gonna suffer any unwanted vibrations from the time its placed in your cart. to the time it is installed in your rig ( i recommend using thumb screws when installing the drive in the 3.5in bay. there easy to use and provide a firm grip on the component. Remeber these platters in the HDD itself spin at a high rate (5400rpm - 10,000 rpm) so securing them properly in your case is VERY VERY important. you dont want the component to die early.
- Purchasing the right drive.
Todays applications need decent performance from a HDD, since this is the device that will be loading the application into your system memory to be processed by your CPU. Noone likes a sluggish HDD. You wanna pick out a disc that displaysan RPM speed of at least 7200(this is the mainstream standard for most drives)
and an 8MB cache (Hard drives have a cache built in to hold data that is being written to or read from the hard disk. The purpose of doing so tries to reduce the number of occasions in which data has to be physically written and read from the hard disk platter. By retaining recent data within the cache performance is increased as this memory is much faster and saves time on repeat recalls)
so 8mb is a decent amount for any mid to high end performance machine that is being built.
- Make sure that when installing your HDD ( whether it is gonna be an upgrade or a new one) Map out how your cable placement is gonna go. You wanna provide some cooling for the drive itself so you wanna place your cables to allow decent airflow. Because, although they don't generate as much heat as the CPU,Video card, or the Northbridge chip on the chipset. The platters can and will warp, causing a head to crash and destroy the platter(s) themselves. If not properly cooled. I always recommend a case that can enable you to install 2 case fans on the front for some decent intake (a good PSU is recommended )
side intake fans also helps in this.
- If your gonna want more than a single HDD in your system make sure there one bay space apart from eachother in the case. Doing so will allow airlflow between them, rendering them to run at a cooler temperature. Never ever place them right on top of eachother doing so will reduce the life of your drives over a period of time. You may not experience in the short run but if you access both drives alot (especially if there in a RAID config) then they are gonna go out faster.
- Multiple HDD's.
When installing more than one HDD it is important to setup the master/slave configurations. you "Windows" drive should be set as "Master" second drive should set as slave. With this information you need to refer to the "jumper" settings(a diagram on this is printed on the drive itself)
IDE Hard drives- Windows drive is gonna be setup as Master on the Primary IDE channel this channel is indicated on the board itself, usually blue or green in color.
The IDE cable is gonna be used in a specific, recommended manner. The colored end of the cable Should go into the matching Channel(primary ) The windows drive is gonna be placed above the secondary drive(storage drive) in the case.
Storage drive needs to be setup as "Slave" and placed below the primary drive in the case (remember ONE bay space apart) this is will be installed in the middle part of the cable. ( refer to the image)
www.imagebarrel.com/img/05/12...dcable4po1.jpg
SATA HDD's - the next generation
- SATA is the next setep in the evolution of Pc HDD interfaces. these differ in IDE drives in the fact that: They cannot be chained on a single cable. One to a cable. And that they have a "Transfer rate" of 150mb/s
(Sustained vs. Burst Transfer Rates)
(Sustained transfers refer to a continued transfer that does not occur from the drive cache. Burst rates refer to data transferred directly to/from the high speed cache. A true indicator of performance is sustained rate; however, most drives are advertised with their faster burst rate.
A typical ATA/100(IDE) hard drive bursts at about 100MB/sec from the cache, but has a sustained rate of about 26-42MB/sec, depending on the drive. If you consider a best-case scenario with the 2MB cache full of data, 100MB/sec will quickly deplete the cache and commence transferring at the lower sustained rate.
ATA/66 hard drives are typically less expensive and do not saturate the 66MB/sec bandwidth available. In fact, a hard drive with a sustained transfer rate of 26MB/sec will not even saturate available ATA/33 bandwidth.
In summary, sustained transfer rates should be considered over burst transfer rates for maximum hard drive performance.)
- Transporting your case to LAN parties.
Always take the uppermost precautions when transporting your unit to a get together, make sure your system is placed in a asfe location in your vehicle that will not be exposed to any bump(s) that you may come across on the road. (Check for pot holes )
Power Supply Units(a.k.a the PSU)- finding the Right wattage for your needs.
- When building your system You wanna kinda map out your plans. And figure out how many components are gonna be in your system. AND if your gonna be adding/ upgrading(more power hungry device(s) ).
- Bundled PSU's are 8/10, a cheapo. There OK if you're gonna be building a basic,budget word processing system for you Aunt Martha. But for any Hardcore or any gaming rig ( who wants to run the latest game engines) A seperate PSU should be purchased(provided that you love the particular case and can't get it without the PSU).
- When installing your PSU always make sure not to half *** the job and place the unit in it's proper place using ALL the screws it needs. DONT be in a hurry to build your rig.
Finding the right wattage- refer to this link www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/, Chose your Processor type then proceed with the following steps on the next page that proceeds then the following information.
If you an enthusiast and are gonna be gaming,modding, benchmarking or overclocking. Allow some head room on wattage as you may/may not wanna add some additional HDD's, lights, fans, etc to you system.
- Always purchase a unit that contains DUAL fans this helps in the removal of hot, out going air from your case. Especially after the CPU heatsink and fan removes the heat from your Intel or AMD processor. It has to go somewhere it cannot remain in your case.
- Cable management is also very important for a PSU as well. The less air flow restriction the cooler your components are gonna be.
Recommended brands:
Antec, Enermax, PC power & cooling, Tagan, OCZ, and Thermaltake.
Motherboards
The motherboard is the most important piece of hardware. It determines what kind of processor, ram, and add-on cards you will be using. With that in mind, you should try to look at a board that will fit your needs. If you think you will be upgrading in the future,get a FULL ATX form factor. This will give you enough slots for things like sound and video cards. Plus make sure that if you will be using old components, that the board supports the features you will be using. For example, if you have Serial ATA hard drives, make sure the board has SATA onboard. Otherwise, the addon card will slow down the speed of the device.
Things to look for in a chipset, include what kind of devices are including. If you will be doing alot of gaming, make sure you have a good gaming chipset. If you are planning to overclock, make sure the board supports this.
CPU's
Today, two CPU companies dominate the market. Intel and AMD. They are both good for what they accomplish. Benchmarks place the AMD Athlon 64 line above the Intel Pentium 4. But others go the other way. The best thing to do is understand what each company is trying to provide. Pentium 4s have Hyperthreading, which allows two thread to be processed at the same time. This is good, but it also slows some programs down. Another thing to keep in mind, is Hyperthreading is good because of Intel's extremely long pipeline.
AMDs use HyperTransport which is actually a clever name to try and compete with HyperThreading. HyperTransport is nothing more than a really short fast pipeline. Both accomplish the same thing. Speed. The problem is that no two benchmarks show the same results. And usually the results aren't too far apart. So the best bet is to find other people that use the computer for the things you will and see what they say.
Soon, Dual Core processors will be out, and these will have two processing cores on one chip. It will be like having two processors in one. Both AMD and Intel are planning Dual Core chips due to launch this fall. But I would expect those to be pricey.
Just remember, the CPU is also important. A good Motherboard/CPU combination can save you upgrades for a year or so. (Not that you wouldn't upgrade, just that you could live without it.)
Memory(RAM)
Random Access Memory is another important factor in building a computer. The trend for average computers right now is to have a min. of 512MB of DDR Memory. I would recommend 1 GIG or 1024MB of DDR Memory. You can start out with 512, but I would add the additional 512 shortly after building the computer. The added performance helps with games and things. It also allows you to due more with your computer and increases speed.
Another new technology is DDR2. This is a supposedly faster type of memory. Right now, however, it isn't implemented enough to be cost effective.
Hope this thread helps...
IM SAD
I'm posting this to for all the PC builders here on ESO forums. So this (hopefully) will serve as a guide for Some of the novice PC builders we might have here. Of course they can always post
for some help.
Hard Disk Drives- handling, installing advice
The HDD is the only mechanical (besides the optical drive) in your system that is gonna be containing your system's data. So be careful when transporting, installing, and even sometimes holding your HDD.
- From the time your at the store make sure you absolutely are sure what type of drive your gonna want/need before you take it off the shelf. Always place it in your cart carefully. Make sure it's not gonna suffer any unwanted vibrations from the time its placed in your cart. to the time it is installed in your rig ( i recommend using thumb screws when installing the drive in the 3.5in bay. there easy to use and provide a firm grip on the component. Remeber these platters in the HDD itself spin at a high rate (5400rpm - 10,000 rpm) so securing them properly in your case is VERY VERY important. you dont want the component to die early.
- Purchasing the right drive.
Todays applications need decent performance from a HDD, since this is the device that will be loading the application into your system memory to be processed by your CPU. Noone likes a sluggish HDD. You wanna pick out a disc that displaysan RPM speed of at least 7200(this is the mainstream standard for most drives)
and an 8MB cache (Hard drives have a cache built in to hold data that is being written to or read from the hard disk. The purpose of doing so tries to reduce the number of occasions in which data has to be physically written and read from the hard disk platter. By retaining recent data within the cache performance is increased as this memory is much faster and saves time on repeat recalls)
so 8mb is a decent amount for any mid to high end performance machine that is being built.
- Make sure that when installing your HDD ( whether it is gonna be an upgrade or a new one) Map out how your cable placement is gonna go. You wanna provide some cooling for the drive itself so you wanna place your cables to allow decent airflow. Because, although they don't generate as much heat as the CPU,Video card, or the Northbridge chip on the chipset. The platters can and will warp, causing a head to crash and destroy the platter(s) themselves. If not properly cooled. I always recommend a case that can enable you to install 2 case fans on the front for some decent intake (a good PSU is recommended )
side intake fans also helps in this.
- If your gonna want more than a single HDD in your system make sure there one bay space apart from eachother in the case. Doing so will allow airlflow between them, rendering them to run at a cooler temperature. Never ever place them right on top of eachother doing so will reduce the life of your drives over a period of time. You may not experience in the short run but if you access both drives alot (especially if there in a RAID config) then they are gonna go out faster.
- Multiple HDD's.
When installing more than one HDD it is important to setup the master/slave configurations. you "Windows" drive should be set as "Master" second drive should set as slave. With this information you need to refer to the "jumper" settings(a diagram on this is printed on the drive itself)
IDE Hard drives- Windows drive is gonna be setup as Master on the Primary IDE channel this channel is indicated on the board itself, usually blue or green in color.
The IDE cable is gonna be used in a specific, recommended manner. The colored end of the cable Should go into the matching Channel(primary ) The windows drive is gonna be placed above the secondary drive(storage drive) in the case.
Storage drive needs to be setup as "Slave" and placed below the primary drive in the case (remember ONE bay space apart) this is will be installed in the middle part of the cable. ( refer to the image)
www.imagebarrel.com/img/05/12...dcable4po1.jpg
SATA HDD's - the next generation
- SATA is the next setep in the evolution of Pc HDD interfaces. these differ in IDE drives in the fact that: They cannot be chained on a single cable. One to a cable. And that they have a "Transfer rate" of 150mb/s
(Sustained vs. Burst Transfer Rates)
(Sustained transfers refer to a continued transfer that does not occur from the drive cache. Burst rates refer to data transferred directly to/from the high speed cache. A true indicator of performance is sustained rate; however, most drives are advertised with their faster burst rate.
A typical ATA/100(IDE) hard drive bursts at about 100MB/sec from the cache, but has a sustained rate of about 26-42MB/sec, depending on the drive. If you consider a best-case scenario with the 2MB cache full of data, 100MB/sec will quickly deplete the cache and commence transferring at the lower sustained rate.
ATA/66 hard drives are typically less expensive and do not saturate the 66MB/sec bandwidth available. In fact, a hard drive with a sustained transfer rate of 26MB/sec will not even saturate available ATA/33 bandwidth.
In summary, sustained transfer rates should be considered over burst transfer rates for maximum hard drive performance.)
- Transporting your case to LAN parties.
Always take the uppermost precautions when transporting your unit to a get together, make sure your system is placed in a asfe location in your vehicle that will not be exposed to any bump(s) that you may come across on the road. (Check for pot holes )
Power Supply Units(a.k.a the PSU)- finding the Right wattage for your needs.
- When building your system You wanna kinda map out your plans. And figure out how many components are gonna be in your system. AND if your gonna be adding/ upgrading(more power hungry device(s) ).
- Bundled PSU's are 8/10, a cheapo. There OK if you're gonna be building a basic,budget word processing system for you Aunt Martha. But for any Hardcore or any gaming rig ( who wants to run the latest game engines) A seperate PSU should be purchased(provided that you love the particular case and can't get it without the PSU).
- When installing your PSU always make sure not to half *** the job and place the unit in it's proper place using ALL the screws it needs. DONT be in a hurry to build your rig.
Finding the right wattage- refer to this link www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/, Chose your Processor type then proceed with the following steps on the next page that proceeds then the following information.
If you an enthusiast and are gonna be gaming,modding, benchmarking or overclocking. Allow some head room on wattage as you may/may not wanna add some additional HDD's, lights, fans, etc to you system.
- Always purchase a unit that contains DUAL fans this helps in the removal of hot, out going air from your case. Especially after the CPU heatsink and fan removes the heat from your Intel or AMD processor. It has to go somewhere it cannot remain in your case.
- Cable management is also very important for a PSU as well. The less air flow restriction the cooler your components are gonna be.
Recommended brands:
Antec, Enermax, PC power & cooling, Tagan, OCZ, and Thermaltake.
Motherboards
The motherboard is the most important piece of hardware. It determines what kind of processor, ram, and add-on cards you will be using. With that in mind, you should try to look at a board that will fit your needs. If you think you will be upgrading in the future,get a FULL ATX form factor. This will give you enough slots for things like sound and video cards. Plus make sure that if you will be using old components, that the board supports the features you will be using. For example, if you have Serial ATA hard drives, make sure the board has SATA onboard. Otherwise, the addon card will slow down the speed of the device.
Things to look for in a chipset, include what kind of devices are including. If you will be doing alot of gaming, make sure you have a good gaming chipset. If you are planning to overclock, make sure the board supports this.
CPU's
Today, two CPU companies dominate the market. Intel and AMD. They are both good for what they accomplish. Benchmarks place the AMD Athlon 64 line above the Intel Pentium 4. But others go the other way. The best thing to do is understand what each company is trying to provide. Pentium 4s have Hyperthreading, which allows two thread to be processed at the same time. This is good, but it also slows some programs down. Another thing to keep in mind, is Hyperthreading is good because of Intel's extremely long pipeline.
AMDs use HyperTransport which is actually a clever name to try and compete with HyperThreading. HyperTransport is nothing more than a really short fast pipeline. Both accomplish the same thing. Speed. The problem is that no two benchmarks show the same results. And usually the results aren't too far apart. So the best bet is to find other people that use the computer for the things you will and see what they say.
Soon, Dual Core processors will be out, and these will have two processing cores on one chip. It will be like having two processors in one. Both AMD and Intel are planning Dual Core chips due to launch this fall. But I would expect those to be pricey.
Just remember, the CPU is also important. A good Motherboard/CPU combination can save you upgrades for a year or so. (Not that you wouldn't upgrade, just that you could live without it.)
Memory(RAM)
Random Access Memory is another important factor in building a computer. The trend for average computers right now is to have a min. of 512MB of DDR Memory. I would recommend 1 GIG or 1024MB of DDR Memory. You can start out with 512, but I would add the additional 512 shortly after building the computer. The added performance helps with games and things. It also allows you to due more with your computer and increases speed.
Another new technology is DDR2. This is a supposedly faster type of memory. Right now, however, it isn't implemented enough to be cost effective.
Hope this thread helps...
IM SAD