Hiya noob here

worthingsaxovtr

worthingsaxovtr

worthingsaxovtr

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Joined
1 May 2007
Posts
339
hello there

just like to say Hi, recently purchased some goodies from overclockers and needed some help. Its been a while since I last built a machine.

Have bought the following

MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Corsair 1GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x512MB)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM

1) question

on this motherboard will it autodetect the RAM or do I have to change any settings,

2) on the hard drive never used a sata hard drive before, can I just plug it in and the mobo and windows will detect it like an IDE drive

3) what you reckon of that spec, dont play games just surf the web etc

many thanks

Nigel
 
Welcome to the forums!
worthingsaxovtr said:
on this motherboard will it autodetect the RAM or do I have to change any settings
Click to expand...
It should default to being automatic. If you later want to change anything you have the option to do so.
worthingsaxovtr said:
2) on the hard drive never used a sata hard drive before, can I just plug it in and the mobo and windows will detect it like an IDE drive
Click to expand...
Again, it should default to running in IDE emulation mode wherein you don't need to load drivers or futz around with any settings.
worthingsaxovtr said:
3) what you reckon of that spec, dont play games just surf the web etc
Click to expand...
It should be darn good. You'll enjoy it, methinks. :)
 
blimey thanks for the quick reply

cple more questions is there anyway of checking my RAM has been automatically detected, gonna update the bios before I install windows as well

when you say IDE emulation mode, does this slow it down as it thinks its an IDE drive as such,

cheers
 
worthingsaxovtr said:
blimey thanks for the quick reply
Click to expand...
Not this time :p
worthingsaxovtr said:
cple more questions is there anyway of checking my RAM has been automatically detected, gonna update the bios before I install windows as well
Click to expand...
You can go into the mobo's advanced settings or whatever your BIOS calls it and see that everything lists as it should. If it just comes up as "auto" you might have to load an OS onto it to probe further. Memtest can list timings, IIRC, which would mean you wouldn't have to install anything to check.
worthingsaxovtr said:
when you say IDE emulation mode, does this slow it down as it thinks its an IDE drive as such
Click to expand...
Nope, it just means that the drive is running in a compatibility mode. It's pretty much just as fast as running in full SATA mode as you only miss out on a few SATA-only goodies like NCQ and AHCI, neither of which I think you'll miss.
 
been reading a bit more on sata drives

and decided I might as well do it properly, and not use IDE emulation

it menitions that I need to go into bios and tell it thats its a sata drive

then when installing windows I need a sata driver on a floppy.

Is this driver from the mobo website, or one included in xp or one from the hard drive manfuacturers website

cheers

nigel
 
Just go for it and get vista, dont need sata drivers then.

Running vista 64 here, no problems at all, bit nicer to use than xp too.
 
done a bit more reading

will set it in bios

then when installing windows will press the f6 and use the sata raid driver floopy disk then

guessing thats right,

might just have to bite the bullet and try it lol
 
why u going for such a powerful machine if all your going to be doing is browsing the net? what graphics card you got in it?
 
because I want to run vista on it, gonna install vista in a year after all the problems have been sorted out

BFG GeForce 8600 GT OC 256MB GDDR3

was the one I went for

and hopefully a good spec will last me 5 -6 years
 
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