Associate
- Joined
- 30 Jan 2007
- Posts
- 932
- Location
- West Sussex
Hello
Just a report/thank you thread to all those who helped me with my upgrade.
On saturday I finally had time to upgrade my PC. yay. All the peices were assembled time to **** myself silly trying to upgrade on my own. I clear a space on my desk, hoist my rather heavy case onto it and begin the 4 hour operation.
First thing I need.... Vacuum cleaner, kitchen roll and compressed air. I really must clean my case more often. The metal grills infront of my two front mounted case fans were completely blocked with dust. I cleaned fans, cleaned the grills and cleaned around inside the case as I slowly removed parts. I decided to take out all the bits of the case that would get in the way (a drive caddy and a case mount bracket).
Fitted the new Corsair PSU with ease. I decided id follow Intel and ASUS's instructions and mount the cpu outside the case and heatsink assembly inside. CPU went in without any pressure and I lined up the spacers in the case perfectly so in went the screws. I kept dropping them and dropped the screwdriver a couple of times with adjitated screams of fear thrown in, but in the end it all sat in firmly. Next the heatsink assembly which you push down more than you feel you should to hear the pins either click or the low crunch of PCB as it locks in. Atleast it didnt snap the motherboard!
The P5B manual isnt very good with telling you how to install the RAM, they alternate yellow and black but they are banded as channel A and B in each colour. In the end I opted to install in the same colour slots and it worked.
Then came the graphics card. The GTS is long, im glad I couldnt afford a GTX otherwise id need a bigger case. Even the GTS caused me problems, It sat in the PCI-E slot well enough probably 2 millemetres from the southbridge heatsink. I installed my Audigy 2 next to it and then my network card. oh god the Audigy covers 3/4 of the GTS fan..... swap round the two cards and voila.. hopefully 4 centemetres is enough room. With all the components now in it was time to mess it all up by install the cables.
The power supply cables took some time to work out as the manual isnt great. Most cables went in okay except the IDE cable to the disk drives which isnt long enough. its quite tight and I may shop around and see if i can get a longer IDE cable. I decided at this point to get with the times and remove the floppy drive, mostly because the IDE port to that was unreachable now. I tried to install a chassis fan onto the motherboard directly but its right under the GTS and theres a resistor slightly bent over blocking the last pin. so instead of forcing it I decided to use the molex adapters I had instead. Now knowing the GTS is a hot mother, I decided to reverse on of the front fans to blow air onto the graphics card fan and the other to suck it out. I may yet install a rear fan as well to help out.
With it all setup I connected up the mimimum of peripherals plugged in the power supply and hit the power on. Green light on the motherboard....but....nothings going!
My worst nightmares were about to come true I thought, but then I actually thought, there must be power to the mobo, oh I havent switched it on at the front, doh!
I hit it with trepidation.... Red lights flicker on as my case fans start, CPU fan is going and I hear a single BIOS beep of sheer joy.
It had detected my new system properly. I then formated the hard drive and installed windows afresh. After a couple hours installing drivers I went to Activate windows. Now I had an OEM copy which ive reused and I was worried id have to blag my way through to microsoft inorder to get it activated, but no it activated all on its own.... Brilliant.
Now some stats:
CPU Temp at idle: 42c
RAM Temp at idle: 39c
GTS Temp at idle: 58c
3DMark06 Score: 8591
All those good?
Finally id like to thank everyone who helped by posting in my threads....
<runs off to play Supreme Commander some more>
Just a report/thank you thread to all those who helped me with my upgrade.
On saturday I finally had time to upgrade my PC. yay. All the peices were assembled time to **** myself silly trying to upgrade on my own. I clear a space on my desk, hoist my rather heavy case onto it and begin the 4 hour operation.
First thing I need.... Vacuum cleaner, kitchen roll and compressed air. I really must clean my case more often. The metal grills infront of my two front mounted case fans were completely blocked with dust. I cleaned fans, cleaned the grills and cleaned around inside the case as I slowly removed parts. I decided to take out all the bits of the case that would get in the way (a drive caddy and a case mount bracket).
Fitted the new Corsair PSU with ease. I decided id follow Intel and ASUS's instructions and mount the cpu outside the case and heatsink assembly inside. CPU went in without any pressure and I lined up the spacers in the case perfectly so in went the screws. I kept dropping them and dropped the screwdriver a couple of times with adjitated screams of fear thrown in, but in the end it all sat in firmly. Next the heatsink assembly which you push down more than you feel you should to hear the pins either click or the low crunch of PCB as it locks in. Atleast it didnt snap the motherboard!
The P5B manual isnt very good with telling you how to install the RAM, they alternate yellow and black but they are banded as channel A and B in each colour. In the end I opted to install in the same colour slots and it worked.
Then came the graphics card. The GTS is long, im glad I couldnt afford a GTX otherwise id need a bigger case. Even the GTS caused me problems, It sat in the PCI-E slot well enough probably 2 millemetres from the southbridge heatsink. I installed my Audigy 2 next to it and then my network card. oh god the Audigy covers 3/4 of the GTS fan..... swap round the two cards and voila.. hopefully 4 centemetres is enough room. With all the components now in it was time to mess it all up by install the cables.
The power supply cables took some time to work out as the manual isnt great. Most cables went in okay except the IDE cable to the disk drives which isnt long enough. its quite tight and I may shop around and see if i can get a longer IDE cable. I decided at this point to get with the times and remove the floppy drive, mostly because the IDE port to that was unreachable now. I tried to install a chassis fan onto the motherboard directly but its right under the GTS and theres a resistor slightly bent over blocking the last pin. so instead of forcing it I decided to use the molex adapters I had instead. Now knowing the GTS is a hot mother, I decided to reverse on of the front fans to blow air onto the graphics card fan and the other to suck it out. I may yet install a rear fan as well to help out.
With it all setup I connected up the mimimum of peripherals plugged in the power supply and hit the power on. Green light on the motherboard....but....nothings going!
My worst nightmares were about to come true I thought, but then I actually thought, there must be power to the mobo, oh I havent switched it on at the front, doh!I hit it with trepidation.... Red lights flicker on as my case fans start, CPU fan is going and I hear a single BIOS beep of sheer joy.
It had detected my new system properly. I then formated the hard drive and installed windows afresh. After a couple hours installing drivers I went to Activate windows. Now I had an OEM copy which ive reused and I was worried id have to blag my way through to microsoft inorder to get it activated, but no it activated all on its own.... Brilliant.
Now some stats:
CPU Temp at idle: 42c
RAM Temp at idle: 39c
GTS Temp at idle: 58c
3DMark06 Score: 8591
All those good?
Finally id like to thank everyone who helped by posting in my threads....
<runs off to play Supreme Commander some more>
