Help with building new system, please..

[jbenj01]

Here's what I have so far:

1. Asus P4C800 Deluxe mobo
2. P4 3.0G/800fsb chip, retail w/fan+heatsink
3. RaidMax ATX box w/420W power supply, 80mm fans, etc..
4. Pioneer A05 writer
5. Lite-On CD/DVD reader
6. ATI Radeon AIW 7500 video card
7. OS Win2000

Can someone please recommend/advise respects hdd, memory and whatever else I will need to set up/optimize new system for multi-tasking?

How to set up primary/secondary/master/slave?
Which hard drive?
Which memory?
Whatever else?

I'm making this my primary system to do video/dvd 'stuff', including multi-tasking... Thanks..

[MickeyNBK]

Well SCSI would be the fastest but you get more space for the money from IDEs. This will depend greatly on your budget. A nice SCSI 10,000 rpm raid would be ideal but very expensive. Second best would be an SATA raid. Third would be an IDE 7200 RPM (with 8bm cache) raid. Minimum you should have one drive for your OS and programs and one for your data. I installed a 40gb 7200 Western Digital for my operating system drive and a 200gb 7200 Western digital Special Edition (8mb of cache) for my data drive. I already had the 40gb drive and I chose the 200gb based on price and the 3 year warrenty vs Maxtors 1year (plus I got it for $80, long explination). Since we will be thrashing the hell out of these drives I feel better with a 3 year warrenty.

To set Primary/Master or Slave the drive should have a jumper (and include directions for setting this or check the manufatures web site).

I went with a matched pair of Corsair XMS Low Latency 400mhz DDR ram running and my motherboard enabled Dual Channel for the ram (you should have 2 banks that contain 2 slots for ram (bank1 slot 0 and slot 1 then bank2 slot 0 and slot 1) instert one stick of ram in bank1 slot 0 and one in Bank2 slot 0 to enable dual channel (if you board supports it).

Also you may want to add a little extra cooling for your hard drives. I bought most of my stuff from newegg.

Check out www.tomshardware.com for hardware recommendations.

[jbenj01]

You're right, the SCSI/SATA setups are $$ for the space.. I went with a 120G/8MB WD IDE hdd for now, but will eventually upgrade to a RAID setup.. Will have to read up on it.. But tell me this, you say you have a 40G for applications and a 200G for data --> How large is your RAID setup? After a little reading, I thought for RAID, the 2 hdd's had to be of same size, no?? In your case, is it 80G (40G x 2)??

Didn't know about the memory having to be in separate banks for DDR to work--thanks! I've got 2 sticks of some Samsung DDR400/PC3200 RAM laying around somewhere--this is Crucial memory, no?? But I'm hesitant to use it in my new system b/c it's second hand stuff that a friend gave me (he works in computer shop). If it's bad memory, will it damage my system in any way?

One positive note is about the Intel heatsink/fan -- I was nervous about installing it due to using a screwdriver to latch the heatsink/fan to the motherboard (like i had to do with my AMD setup)--i was afraid the sd would slip and scrape/damage my mobo.. WELL, no worries, with the Intel, it has 'levers' that protrude from the top of the heatsink--once in place, you just have to push the levers into place until securely fastened to the mobo.. :) I'm not mistake, am I?? I'm assembling later today..

[MickeyNBK]

Actually I'm not using a raid currently. For a raid you do need drives of the same size (I think you can fudge it but you would only end up with the size of your smallest drive). I preffer to use a seperate drive for my OS.

Provided that you install the ram correctly (hard to install it wrong) even if it is bad you can just remove it. Not sure if Samsung is the same as Crucial or not.

The intel heatsink is the easiest I've ever installed, sounds like you got it right.

I've had my new system up and running for a week now!! Now I just need some more case fans and round IDE, floppy and SCSI cables and I should be set. So far the only bad thing about it is trying to play dvds from the hard drive, they play waaaay to fast.

[jbenj01]

Any significant difference in performance? After searching, I noticed the smallest hdd availabe @ ATA133 and 8MB buffer/cache was 60G --> 40G and below are only available @ ATA100/2MB (for IDE)..

I'm thinking maybe sticking with a 60G--this way, if I decide for the RAID setup, I could go up to 120G, yes? Thanks for the advice/info

[MickeyNBK]

With the 40gb drives you should be alright with 2mb of cache but the bigger drives really tend to crawl. I had a few 20gb ata 100s with 2mb and they were fast but when I got a 100gb drive with 2mb it was slow compared to the 20s. Maybe 60gb is the point where you start to notice the speed decrease. 60gb drives should be good, look for rebates. I'd personaly go for the Western Digitals because of the 3 year warrenty (only on the 8mb special edition drives) instead of Maxtor who only offers one year.

[jbenj01]

I picked up a smaller 40gb serial ATA hdd for my OS (Win2k) and apps.. In additon, i have three dvd drives--a LiteOn reader and two burners. I'm trying to set it up for optimum performance/speed, etc..

My SATA drive is hooked up to one of the serial ATA ports; i attached my LiteOn reader to the Primary IDE channel, my Pioneer burner to the Secondary IDE channel.. I haven't hooked up my other burner yet b/c now i'm second guessing how i have set it up... because i'm getting confused as to which s/b Master and which s/b Slave vs. which pieces s/b on separate channels... ??

When i checked in BIOS, it's telling me that i do NOT have a 'Master/Primary' drive set up..?? Huh??!

[MickeyNBK]

What do you mean by s/b?

Also check to see what the jumper is set to on the lite-on. It may be setup as Slave/Primary on the first IDE channel. Are your DVD burners the same model? Is the system booting at this point? If not then you may need to set SATA drive up as a boot device.

[jbenj01]

s/b = should be = which should be master, slave and on which channels they should be connected.

Will check tonite to see what Lite-On jumper is set to (didn't change it from factory default setting---just hooked that sucker up, as is..). My 2 burners are both Pioneers--the A05 & 106 (also have that pos Sony external DRX500UL but the damned thing stopped working after just 6 months with very minimal usage :angry: )

As for booting, yes, system is booting, as I have set in BIOS to boot from the SATA.. BUT.. what's strange is that, at boot up, there's a brief/quick message that says, "BIOS is not installed", and then continues to give another message, "Primary Master Drive ATAPI incompatible. Press F1 to continue" (to continue boot-up).. not sure what that's about.. ??

[MickeyNBK]

"BIOS is not installed" would typically be displayed if you had a SCSI controller on your system but I didn't see a mention of one. I haven't used any SATA drives myself so could this message be related to that? I don't know. ATAPI sounds as if it's trying to boot from the Lite-On. There should be a setting in the bios to disable the stop on errors message you are getting.

[jbenj01]

I know my mobo does have a Promise SATA RAID controller on board, but I have nothing hooked up to it. Could that be the 'problem'? if so, how to solve?

Thanks for your help.. I will try to read up some more--if can't solve, then I will call Asus support.. yikes! that's a scary thought.. :(

[jbenj01]

I think i figured 'most' of it out.. but now my system will NOT recognize my 2nd DVD burner--Pioneer 106... ??

I have connected the Lite-On reader as slave and the 106 as master onto the secondary IDE channel, both linked together by one IDE ribbon cable. My Pioneer A05 is alone on the primary IDE channel..

what am i doing incorrectly or why is my system not picking up the Pioneer 106? thanks.

[MickeyNBK]

First thing to try would be disconnecting the Lite-on and just Pioneer 106. This will let you know if the two are conflicting in anyway. Check the jumper settings, confirm the IDE cable connection and the power connection. If all else fails see if it works in another PC.