First time upgrading anything major, any tips?

tomanders91 · 6 Nov 2007 at 20:16

Just ordered the following last night, will arrive tommorow:

Gigabyte p35 ds3p - got the P version after reading lots of reviews that it is slightly more stable than the R version, and better with 4gb of ram

arctic cooler 7

corsair 520w psu

4g of geil ultra low latency ram

Already got a 8800gts 640 and E6400 which i will keep untill i get a quad next year.

This is the first time ive ever upgraded anything properly, ive changed a few ram sticks before but thats about it, and i wont have internet connection whilst doing it as this is the only computer in the house, although i do know someone who can help if i run into problems.

Has anyone got any tips for doing it? The process etc? what should i put on the mobo before putting it in the case etc, i pretty much no i need to take it slow and read the manuels and stuff.

One question i have though, as this system was prebuilt (although a custom prebuilt) and i presume the E6400 has some thermal paste on it, but the arctic cooler has some preapllied, so should i just leave that? (ive got some artic thermal stuff aswell just in case).

Also, i understand that when buying a new mobo (esp with these p35 gigabytes), when you first start up you should go into the bios and adjust settings, memory voltages/timings etc, can anyone tell me the essential things to check/adjust so its the most stable i can get it?

Cheers

Tom

edit: Just wondering, is there a chance that the gigabyte (I no the ip35-e's sometimes do) p35 board might no have usb keyboard support not enabled in the bios? If so im screwed unless i bought a ps/2 one.

edit 2: How does the RMA process work? What if i get duff ram or something?

tomanders91 · 6 Nov 2007 at 20:38

thanks very much for the advice

I got the stuff from ocuk so i guess i would just have to ring them up if i have any problems. Maybe i should buy some TIM stuff from ocuk for like £4 or something, not sure i have anything around the house to get it off.

tomanders91 · 7 Nov 2007 at 15:40

ok ive received the stuff today, i wont be building until i get a spare copy of vista 64bit from a friend that should be saturday or monday, any more advice or is that basicly it?

cheers

tomanders91 · 7 Nov 2007 at 15:46

thanks melbourne

, i bought some of the akasa cable ties with the parts aswell, so i will do that lol.

tomanders91 · 7 Nov 2007 at 16:00

ok cheers, so its safe putting it behind the motherboard?

Also back to the thermal paste, the arctic freezer has some preapllied, its ment to be MX-1 which is pretty good, so is that ok? Im pretty confused though, do you mostly put the paste on the heatsink or the actualy cpu surface? Or both?

tomanders91 · 7 Nov 2007 at 16:10

thanks

wont i have some old stuff on my e6400 though? which i would need to remove.

Oh well i have some alcohol spirit wipe cleaner stuff somewhere which should do the trick if needed.

tomanders91 · 7 Nov 2007 at 21:36

just looked at all my stuff, the manuels aswell etc just got a few questions:

1: Where abouts on the motherboard do you plug the cable from the dvd and cd drives into? I cant see it on the layout map anywhere?

2: In the motherboard manuel, it says usb keyboard support default for MS-DOS is disabled, is that for the bios?

3: With the power supply, i thought all the cables needed would just be the ones coming out of the main part, but theres lots of different sockets etc on the side with loads of extra cables, am i going to need all them?

4: When i put in my 8800, theres seems to be a few extra pci-e express power connectors on the motherboard, i presume these are for xfire? Do i just need to connect the psu to the 8800 and the 8800 to the motherboard?

5: Wow the arctic cooler is big lol, dwarves the stock one, but in the manuel it says you need to remove the fan before installing, then put it back on when its installed :S Is that only if you have trouble fitting in the case?

cheers

tomanders91 · 8 Nov 2007 at 15:37

thanks for the replies, pretty confident about it all now

Semi-pro wrestler, the reason i asked about the usb keyboard support is thats the only sort of keyboard ive got, and im worried i wont be able to get into bios unless i go and buy a ps/2 one