Planning a to build a new system. Tips appreciated!

[fogy]

What'd you wind up with?

[Janus]

I ordered the following:
MB GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R 1
VGA EVGA 012-P3-1470-AR GTX470 1
SSD 60G|OCZ OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G R 1
HD 1T|WD 7K 64M SATAIII WD1002FAEX 2
MEM 4G|GSKILL F3-12800CL9S-4GBRL R 3
PSU COOLMASTER| RSA00-AMBAJ3-US RT 1
CPU INTEL|CORE I7 950 3.06G 45N R 1
DVD BRN ASUS | DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS%
CASE CM|HAF X RC-942-KKN1 RT

To arrive this week. Will be putting it together over the weekend. Will report back on performance soon

Thank you for all your tips

[kasper3577]

I don't know how much experience you have building your own systems, but one note I wanted to add into this...some memory is finicky with some mobo's. If you find that the system won't post into the OS after you load it for the first time, take out all but one stick of the memory and change them out till you find one that will post the system(in slot 0 or 1 of the memory slots). Update all your motherboard drivers with the one stick in it. Then go back and add the others.

99% of the time when you order individual parts, everything including the bios needs to be updated desperately. My EVGA x58 Mobo was only 4 months out from the first releases and 5 bios revisions behind when I got it. Also, speaking of the bios upgrades, some companies don't add the previous updates to the most recent ones available, so make sure you get and burn copies of all of them to CD's prior to attempting to upgrade the bios.

Had I known these things prior to my first build, it would have saved me quite a bit of time in REMing Mobo's back to the manufacturer.

If you already knew this, well, we will call if food for thought for anyone else looking for information and looking at building their own system.

[Tim]

Janus, a quick recommendation, buy some really high end thermal paste. It will cost $5 more but is often very very important and can alone be the defining reason why your CPU is super not or not.

Have fun!

[Janus]

So, I got the parts. Put everything together, and was stuck with the endless gigabyte reboot loop. I mean this thing was not booting into the BIOS. I would turn it on, fans would spin for 3 secs, then it would die, then power up again, endlessly. Proceed like you mentioned (I remember this happening to me in the past), disconnected all parts except 1 drive, the keyboard, 1 memory stick (tried all combinations in all slots) and the VGA. With no luck! Went out and bought a new PSU just in case with no luck. I installed the VGA in my old system and the drives to test if they were working and they were.

So I RMA'ed the MOBO and ordered the ASUS 3 Rampage (I had my eye on that one but it was still expensive, now i got it for 280) I figured it all narrowed down to the MOBO, RAM, and CPU. So I am in a trial and error period.

I tried my hardest getting RAM DIMMS from the "tested list" but all the RAMS posted there are the stupid 2 GB sticks. None of the 4 GB ones (i am building a 12GB system) were "officially" on that list, even though the manufacturer (gskill) WAS.

So now I am waiting for the new MOBO to come. Everything else is ready. The case is awesome, the components (well what I could test at least) were working and cable management is a thing in the past.

On a side note, when I plugged the SSD and the VGA (470 nvidia) into my 8gb, q9550 system, I noticed a 30-40% increase in performance! I mean wow! Load times were almost instantanous everywhere (major cities, dungeons,etc) I was able to capture video in full HD at 35-40 FPS, when I used to be able to barely hit 30 before. Really nice. Can't wait to get the new rig working. Hopefully before cataclysm Fingers crossed

On another side note. Anyone has the ASUS 3 Rampage? And if you do could you post what DIMMS you are using with it ? I bought three of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231313 which are the highest rated on newegg and I searched the internet for incompatibility with gigabyte (and now rampage) MOBO and found little to no problems

Any other hints or ideas ?

[Janus]

Originally Posted by Tim

Janus, a quick recommendation, buy some really high end thermal paste. It will cost $5 more but is often very very important and can alone be the defining reason why your CPU is super not or not.

Have fun!

I am thinking of doing it, now that I had to unplug the fan and CPU from the old MOBO. Any particular way to wipe off the old paste from the CPU and heatsink? Or just get a cloth and wipe it?

[Tim]

All memory is essentially 2GB. I would say that 99% of all memory sold for new PCs is 2GB. Nobody really buys 4GB at all, since rarely will you find a desktop PC that needs 24GBs of ram. I have 12GB of RAM on my PC, and it is all 2GB sticks.

[Janus]

Just an update on what has happened in the past couple of days

I RMA'ed the Gigabyte mobo and got me the ASUS III Rampage. Put everything together today and it all is working fine. Windows 7 is installed, WoW is copied over to the SSD but PWNboxer is not letting me rebind my license so I am out of commission until Tim helps me get this fixed. Tim, I sent you all the info you needed (followed the directions in the sticky)

waiting patiently.....

[Tim]

Hey Janus, I answered your PM and you are up and running again, right? Just making sure (on my phone now, the PM button is too hard for me to click on my EVO phone heh).

[Janus]

Yes,

All is good to go. Still need to make a few tweaks here and there, install fraps and run some benchmarking tests. Logged in on my toons in org last night (1 AM, I was fried !) and I was getting 50-60 FPS on ultra at 1920x1280. Not too shabby