computer building

cooks

am building a computer and was wondering if the following parts are suitable and compatible with each other:
upgrade kit intel p4 2.8ghz pc 800 512mb,
sapphire radeon 9200 atlantis 258mb ddr,
creative soundblaster audigy 2 pci,
maxtor ide ata-133 160gb 7200rpm 8mb ,
q-tec psu atx 550w dual ffan,
sky hawk midi tower.
as im a first time computer builder any advice would be appreciated to ensure i dont make a mess of it.
am thinking of buying the parts from komplett.ie as it seems to have the best selcetion

Ryo Hazuki

Looks fine to me.

Just be careful when your putting it together. Discharge static etc.

Just use your best judgement. Theres nothing too hard in terms of construction.

The only thing that might cause problems is mounting the board into the case, Just mark the correct holes with a pen/marker and screw it in.


Yes, buy from komplett, Ive used them many times and the service and delivery was great.

Col_Loki

Would recomend getting the case else where as komplett.ie are based in norway so the shipping cost wont be nice.

Try www.elara.ie (nice antec & TT cases) or www.hitide.ie (nice cheiftec cases).

Just as a by the way (you prob know - i didnt the first time) that the motherboards come with on board sound which is normally very good. Unless sound is a major thing, would recomend mabye getting a better graphics card instead of the audigy2??

cooks

excellent cheers for info
any ideas on a good graphics card?
wasnt sure if the sound card on boards was too good so ill give the new card a miss for now and buy a better graphics card

BKtje

Sorry if you mentioned it in your post btu i can't see it

What motherboard are you actually getting/got?

damnyanks

MSI865PE mobo


From komplett site ITs part of the upgrade package.

cooks

the upgrade package from komplett comeswith motherboard, ram and intel chip.
the motherboard is an msi 865pe neo-ls mainboard s478/800mhz
i865pe, sata, atx, lan, dual ddr400
thought it was the best option to buy the upgrade package to ensure those parts would work together and i dont have much experience with motherboards

Col_Loki

I thought the exact same first time around..... theres actually not too much you can go wrong with once you know the things too look out for.....

Ram wise you need Pc3200 , how much is up to you. The "Cl2" , Cl2.5, Cl3, gives you info on the ram timings - the lower the cl number the better it will perform. ECC ram is error correction ram , which is mainly for server boards (u dont need that stuff).

Motherboard wise, socket 478 (P4) which will support 800mhz FSB.

The 2.8ghz 800mhz FSB P4 chip also...........

Personally i wouldnt be mad about MSI boards (i hate em) , would prob recomend the Abit IS7 or IC7. I know the onboard sound is pretty impressive on them boards aswell & supports surround sound.

Graphics card wise, the Fx5200 & Fx5600 are pretty poor performers for the money (even though they have Dx9 support) . Tis a bad time to be buying a graphics card IMO (is there ever a good one) , would prob recomend getting a Ti4200 for the min and mabye upgrading a bit down the road. The Ti4200 will out perform the 9200, Fx5200 with no problems at all. Fx5600 is a little better - but not enough to warent the money IMO.

Try creative , free delivery and €99 for the Ti4200 ?? One thing about this card, have the newest drivers downloaded first and if possible dont use the supplied cd (drivers arent great at all) .

Best of luck with it anyway, you'll be grand.

Loki

whosurpaddy

Originally posted by COL_LOKI
creative , free delivery and €99 for the Ti4200

where were u 2 weeks ago when i was buyin my card

seriously tho thats a great price for that card

cooks

cheers for the assistance in helping me choose the components.
this is the revised list from komplett,any thoughts would be greatly appreciated:

Abit IS7 Mainboard for S478/800mhz
- I865PE,SATA,ATX,Dual-DDR,1394,Raid, LAN

Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz Boxed PC800
- Socket PGA478, 512kB "Northwood"

Corsair Value S. PC3200 DDR-DIMM 512MB
- Unbuffered, Non-parity, 64Megx64, CL2.5

Q-Tec PSU ATX 550W Dual Fan
- PSU for PIII/AMD/P4 CPUs

Maxtor IDE ATA-133 160GB 7200RPM 8MB
- DiamondMax Plus 9

Sky Hawk PSR4609D7 Miditower, Silver
- Aluminium case, without power supply

ti 4200 from creative

rabbitinlights

I agree about staying away from MSI MoBos, that Abit is great, i have the IC-7 and its perfect, onboard sound is amazing, i have it running through my floorstanders and it sounds really good, i went for a 2.4Ghz P4 and and with the money i saved i bought 1 gig (2 x 512Mb) of matched PC3200 CL2 Corsair ram (dual DDR board) Im waiting a while to buy a GFX Card cus now aint a good time, although the TI4200 does look a great deal.....

It was my first time building too and just make sure you have a big area to work on and lay everything out so your not looking for that last screw......

Abit supply a great manual for building so just stick to that and you will be fine, kinda scary pressing the power button that first time, but very rewarding when it works!!

Good luck

Sean

Carnate

Setup looks good, apart from the MSI board, have to agree with the Guys n Gals on that.

Intel 865PE Chipset Pentium 4 Mainboard
SATA RAID, DUAL DDR 400, AGP 8X, USB 2.0
SoftMenu™ Technology

The Harddrive, i would go Sata if you can afford it faster access, and this board does support it and the data transfare rate is great.

Sky Hawk PSR4609D7 1.0mm Aluminum ATX Mid Tower LCD/Light Module Jupiter Case, Front USB 2.0, Silver

STANDARD FEATURES

Material: 1.0 mm anodized Aluminum Alloy resisting dust & fingerprint.

Front Jacks: Dual Front USB version 2.0, Microphone, earphone.

Drive Bays: 10-Bays - 4 x 5.25” (external), 2 x 3.5” (external), & 4 x 3.5” (internal)

Expansion Slots: 7 slots with screwdriver-free thumbscrews

Motherboard: ATX, Micro ATX, P3, P4

Dimension: 7.9” (W) x 16.2” (H) x 19.3” (D)

Color: Silver

LIGHT FEATURES

LCD/Light Module: Always-on (even system off) power from USB output. LCD Displays time, temp., and HDD/System-on/off status.

Multi-Color Light: Auto mode - automatically change colors every 2 seconds; Manual mode – manually choose and lock the colors.

Temperature Sensor: 23” long wire sensor, placed anywhere in the enclosure.

Chassis: All-Folded Edges to strengthen the structure and keep from cutting fingers.

Bezel: Integrate Aluminum Stripe/film, Plexiglas, painted/plated plastic, and LCD/Light Module with style.

Packing: Polyethylene (PE) foams, better protection from damage in shipping.

OPTIONAL FEATURES

Optional: Power Supply
This case can fit a total of 3 fans as described below.
Optional: One 60x60x25mm DC Fan can be mounted on the rear of case.
Optional: One 80x80x25mm DC Fan can be mounted behind the front panel as intake fan.
Optional: One CPU VentiDuct with built-in 80x80x25mm DC Fan can be mounted on the rear of case.



Also remember a couple of cooling fans help out with cooling, if your going to try Overclocking at a later stage.

The case looks nice but does not come with extra fans, this is a Must, so Maplins is a good place for 60mm fans(they also come in different colors)

Hope this helps.

and Have fun, if you need help in assembling it just post here.

BigEejit

As you are going for a hyperthreading processor you should know that to use this feature you will need to use Microsoft XP (i think some linux distros support hyperthreading as well) ... Windows 2000 and below does not support hyperthreading and you will need to disable it in the bios ... some Abit boards seem to report their temperatures 10 degrees celcius higher with hyperthreading turned off (as well as generally reporting temps higher in general)

I have a IC7-G and I had to disable the onboard sound because of crackles ... they were there all the time, they did not drown the sound by any means, but they drove me mental so I put in an old sound blaster card ... no crackles at all now

If you have some time on your hands and want to find out about abit boards, have a look at forum.abit-usa.com ... there are lots of horror stories there, but dont think the boards are terrible because of that, its the first place most people end up on when something has gone wrong, and depending on the amount of time they wasted some will want to "vent some steam at length"... the sound problem I mentioned is unfortunately quite common ... I've never used the microphone jack, but is supposed to be practically unusable ... also some people (me included) had to fiddle with their memory voltage just to install XP ... (using very good quality Mushkin ram, had to up the voltage :rolleyes: )

[edit]
That creative 4200 is 64Mb and may not be a agp 8x board (debatable whether or not this will make a difference) ...
[/edit]

Ryo Hazuki

Abit M/B's are quite good.

Im using a KD7 (KT400) one myself, and Ive never had any problems with it, except that Voodoo3's wont fit in the AGP Slot, possibly cause the card is just too old, and has a different PCB shape.

Other than that, Its Great.

Col_Loki

That creative 4200 is 64Mb and may not be a agp 8x board (debatable whether or not this will make a difference) ...

AFAIK the creative Ti4200's only come in 8x AGP these days, unless its an old batch (have one myself). The 8x doesent even make all that much difference, small increase but not huge.

If you have some time on your hands and want to find out about abit boards, have a look at forum.abit-usa.com ... there are lots of horror stories there, but dont think the boards are terrible because of that, its the first place most people end up on when something has gone wrong, and depending on the amount of time they wasted some will want to "vent some steam at length"... the sound problem I mentioned is unfortunately quite common ... I've never used the microphone jack, but is supposed to be practically unusable ... also some people (me included) had to fiddle with their memory voltage just to install XP ... (using very good quality Mushkin ram, had to up the voltage )

Yea the manufacturer boards are always full of horror stories, you should visit the MSI boards - now thats scary!! Granted if your having problems with your board thats where your going to go, your talking USA, England, Ireland ........... the ammount of boards abit sell your expecting some problems .

Just curious was the sound always crackling or was it just when you were overclocking?? Had the same problem with an ASUS board where the sound cut off when i pushed the FSB - that is common. Since you have an intel rig im betting that FSB is nicely up there??

Cooks, im liking that system very much !! Looks like its going to be a good system.

Creamy Goodness

i've bought a q-tec power supply before and what i say to u is don't do it you'll be rma'ing it in no time go for enermax or chieftec remember without good power supply you ain't going nowhere.


i have similar spec to yours:

Intel P4 3.00Ghz 800FSB| 1GB (2 x 512mb)Twin Mos PC3200 DDR RAM (Dual Channel) | Abit IC7-G | 120gig IBM HDD | 128MB Geforce4 ti4200 | Sound Blaster Audigy 2 OEM | Creative Labs 6700 6.1 Speakers | Dell 17" Monitor CRT | 16X Samsung DVD player | Asus (52x24x52) CD Writer | Windows XP Pro SP1

cooks

this is the final draft of what im going to buy. is there any suggestions or conflicts between these parts? any further advice is greatly appreciated
abit IS7 mainboard for S478/800mhz,
Intel Pentium 4 2.8Ghz boxed PC800,
Corsair Value S. PC3200 DDr-Dimm 512MB(x2),
Maxtor IDE ATA-133 160GB 7200rpm 8MB,
Sky Hawk PSR4609D7 Midi tower,
Enermax POwer Supply ATX 431W

damnyanks

Komplett are doing a sale on HD's

120gb for 99 euro.

Also maybe downgrade to the 2.4 version of your processer


Could save you around 150. Could put that into more ram or better graphics card.