After the products arrived yesterday at 4:00 pm, I started my very first build. Before going any further, let me tell you proudly that I'm one of the luckiest persons to recieve that evga free mobo with geforce 7800gt deal. I saved my card hours before the deal ended, and fortunately when I moved it back to order it was still enabled. I searched but found that the deal was over, and I was really lucky
Though I was nervous about installing the CPU and the heatsink/fan, it was far easier than I thought. I needed to apply a little more pressure than I expected to attach the heatsink to one of the sides, though.
I fumbled around for a bit trying to attaach the I/O shield that came with the motherboard. I was trying to install it from the outside, and after getting hints from the EVGA forum I installed it correctly. (I accidentally bent one of the closed portions thinking that supposed to be the ethernet port, only to find that it was supposed to be the one right above it, so there's an ugly hole there now..)
Attaching the motherboard to the Case was a major pain, especially since there was no removable motherboard tray. After a while I aligned it and screwed it in. I connected all the basic cables, once again with some hints from the evga forums (a couple of the case cables were different that shown in the manual). After a break, I installed everything else. At this time, I'm out of the 4-pin connectors (there were 8). This means I'd have to buy an external enclosure for my other HDD sitting outside.
The major pain of the day was putting the case back together. I really hate this case as a result, for all its looks. It was virtually impossible, and took a very long time (especially with the rounded cables protruding out.
Somehow, someway I managed to close it at last..but it still isn't completely closed, so I can't screw it in, so I decided to leave it like that. There're some small spaces that can be seen in the front and the back as a result, but I think that won't be an issue (maybe it could help a bit with some airflow).
Case : Raidmax Samurai (2 120mm fans built in).
Apex 500W (20A@12v). - Yeah I know, but it was too late and it has a lot of great reviews, so hopefully it should be fine.
Processor : Athlon 65 3500+.
RAM : OCZ value 2*1GB (3-4-4-8).
MOBO : evga nf4 SLI (free).
Graphics : evga 7800 GT.
Sound: Turtle Beach Riviera.
Maxtor Maxline III 250GB SATA.
My regrets: Going for the Raidmax case. I just thought that it'd be easy to set up and the good looks would help. The paint job is cool, but it already came with some scratches here and there...Oh well, no one else sees my PC so I guess that's ok.
Then I installed XP pro (yes, even after reading about it I still made the mistake of installing it with my IDE drive on, and still forgot the F6 part - was eating). As a result, my PC refuses to boot from the SATA drive and I have to boot from my IDE one.
At this point I was too impatient to go back and do it again, so the install was complete, did the updates, installed the necessary software for protection, and ran memtest for an hour without any issues (couldn't wait more).
So I'll have to create an image, then reformat and reinstall once again, without connecting my IDE drive (opening the case again and putting it back is giving me nightmares). I've heard that it isn't necessary to disconnect the IDE drive, and also that it is, so not sure which one is correct.
Ran 3dmark 2005 just to see how things are (fell asleep during the test lol), and woke up to find a score of 7229. Seems like pretty much the expected score in the range.
CPU temperature - 37 idle, I think it was 45-49 load.
System temp - 42. Seems good enough.
I don't plan on overclocking except after maybe an year or so. However, I'll definitely overclock my graphics card soon, especially since it has lifetime warranty and overclocking is covered I bought BF2, and hopefully would play it later today.
Overall, it was too much work but I'm completely satisfied with my very first build (except for the case) especially since ther weren't any errors to make things bad. And this has boosted my self confidence to an astronimical level I made some pretty basic mistakes, but the experience is always handy.
Though I was nervous about installing the CPU and the heatsink/fan, it was far easier than I thought. I needed to apply a little more pressure than I expected to attach the heatsink to one of the sides, though.
I fumbled around for a bit trying to attaach the I/O shield that came with the motherboard. I was trying to install it from the outside, and after getting hints from the EVGA forum I installed it correctly. (I accidentally bent one of the closed portions thinking that supposed to be the ethernet port, only to find that it was supposed to be the one right above it, so there's an ugly hole there now..)
Attaching the motherboard to the Case was a major pain, especially since there was no removable motherboard tray. After a while I aligned it and screwed it in. I connected all the basic cables, once again with some hints from the evga forums (a couple of the case cables were different that shown in the manual). After a break, I installed everything else. At this time, I'm out of the 4-pin connectors (there were 8). This means I'd have to buy an external enclosure for my other HDD sitting outside.
The major pain of the day was putting the case back together. I really hate this case as a result, for all its looks. It was virtually impossible, and took a very long time (especially with the rounded cables protruding out.
Somehow, someway I managed to close it at last..but it still isn't completely closed, so I can't screw it in, so I decided to leave it like that. There're some small spaces that can be seen in the front and the back as a result, but I think that won't be an issue (maybe it could help a bit with some airflow).
Case : Raidmax Samurai (2 120mm fans built in).
Apex 500W (20A@12v). - Yeah I know, but it was too late and it has a lot of great reviews, so hopefully it should be fine.
Processor : Athlon 65 3500+.
RAM : OCZ value 2*1GB (3-4-4-8).
MOBO : evga nf4 SLI (free).
Graphics : evga 7800 GT.
Sound: Turtle Beach Riviera.
Maxtor Maxline III 250GB SATA.
My regrets: Going for the Raidmax case. I just thought that it'd be easy to set up and the good looks would help. The paint job is cool, but it already came with some scratches here and there...Oh well, no one else sees my PC so I guess that's ok.
Then I installed XP pro (yes, even after reading about it I still made the mistake of installing it with my IDE drive on, and still forgot the F6 part - was eating). As a result, my PC refuses to boot from the SATA drive and I have to boot from my IDE one.
At this point I was too impatient to go back and do it again, so the install was complete, did the updates, installed the necessary software for protection, and ran memtest for an hour without any issues (couldn't wait more).
So I'll have to create an image, then reformat and reinstall once again, without connecting my IDE drive (opening the case again and putting it back is giving me nightmares). I've heard that it isn't necessary to disconnect the IDE drive, and also that it is, so not sure which one is correct.
Ran 3dmark 2005 just to see how things are (fell asleep during the test lol), and woke up to find a score of 7229. Seems like pretty much the expected score in the range.
CPU temperature - 37 idle, I think it was 45-49 load.
System temp - 42. Seems good enough.
I don't plan on overclocking except after maybe an year or so. However, I'll definitely overclock my graphics card soon, especially since it has lifetime warranty and overclocking is covered I bought BF2, and hopefully would play it later today.
Overall, it was too much work but I'm completely satisfied with my very first build (except for the case) especially since ther weren't any errors to make things bad. And this has boosted my self confidence to an astronimical level I made some pretty basic mistakes, but the experience is always handy.