Calis does the Upgrade Thing

Well, after my spending spree last Sunday, pieces have been trickling in all week. I now have them all. I'd be obliged if any interested in me not getting blown up watch this space - someone might need to tell me which colour wire I'm supposed to cut, while an LED display ticks toward zero and a solitary drop of sweat trickles down my forehead.

Milo, these parts look ... amazing. The motherboard and case are particularly impressive. I can't wait to blow ... set ... them up.

 

Yep, although if you ever get to the point where thermal protection kicks in, then you've really messed up somewhere. I haven't read any definite temp where the protection kicks in, but people seem to think it's in the mid-60s to 70s Celsius. That's really hot. Even with the stock heatsink it should never get that hot. Anything over 50C at full load and I'd take it apart and make sure the heatsink is making good contact with the heat spreader on the chip.

You only need to put a very small amount to compensate for the irregularities in the surfaces of the die (or heat spreader in the P4's case) and the heatsink itself. Metal-to-metal contact will transfer heat better than metal-thermal compound-metal. So the idea is you use thermal compound to fill in the gaps between metal that would normally be filled with air, which is not a good heat conductor.

Another reason to not use a thick layer is that the stuff is conductive and gets runny as it heats up. Don't want a silver based compound dripping around the motherboard.

Easy. Shoot the hostage.

Have fun! It's a piece of cake.

 

^^Bahmp^^

Well, how's the build going, Fatman? Can't wait to hear how it's going/went.

Anyway, while I'm here, I thought I'd list a few programs that you can download to test your new system:

(Note, if these aren't linked, I'll try to come back later and link them. You could also Google for them; They're really popular programs and should be easy to find)

• SiSoft Sandra Benchmarking Suite (all around benchmarking/sys info/burn in type program. Free version is good. Most popularly used to benchmark the memory subsystem)
• 3D Mark 2001 SE --Warning, this one's big. ~40mb--(Vid card benchmark)
• Prime 95 (Another stress testing program. This one pegs your CPU at 100% crunching prime numbers until it either (a)crashes, (b)makes an error in calculation, or (c)you stop the test. This one really heats up your CPU and when used with a monitoring program can tell you if you need better cooling in your case or on the chip.)
• Hot CPU Tester(Similiar to Prime95, only more eXtRem3. This one really brings a system to it's knees. This is the only thing that my o/c'ed system chokes on. It fails on the Complex Matrix Test which annoys me, but... oh well. My system isn't 100% stable it seems, though it seems to run everything including Prime95 and SuperPi without a hitch.)
• SuperPi (Yet another number cruncher. This ones just fun to calculate out to 16 or 32 million digits and then read how only the most powerful supercomputers could do this type of thing in the olden days (like 5 years ago))
• Asus Probe, grab the latest one from your local Asus site. This is one that everyone who uses an Asus mobo should have. Especially P4S533 owners, since the more popular Motherboard Monitor program is incompatible with our mobos. This one monitors your fan speeds (if applicable), your CPU and Mobo temps, and the line voltages from your PSU. Very handy.

EDIT - Linked for your clicking pleasure.

 

Thanks, Milo. It all looks good except the Asus Probe, which sounds painful.

I haven't put it together yet. I was waiting for the weekend (plus I was finishing a NWN module), so expect it all to happen today and tomorrow.

 

Milo, my first question just reared its matte black head. My processor installation instructions say something to the effect of:

My heatsink DOES have black gunk on it and there is no syringe provided.

This leaves me with the option of going out and getting some Arctic Silver or going with the thermal compound as is.

My questions are:
- Do I need to do the Arctic Silver thing?
- If I do it, do I need to get rid of the black gunk?

BTW, given the relative speed of my new system (classified rather carefully in my head as "fast enough") I'm in two minds whether to overclock.

 

Nah, Frankie says, "Relax, when Asus Probe wants to come."

Really, it's a useful program. It can clue you into all kinds of possible problems. For instance, if you're getting random reboots, check your line voltages. If they're low, that's most likely the cause and it's time to RMA your PSU. If your temps are soaring, check your CPU fan speed and see if it's underperforming. Things like that.

Not necessarily Arctic Silver 3, although that's what everyone says is best. I wouldn't have any trouble using the cheaper alternatives, though. Arctic Silver 2 or Arctic Alumina. Even the generic thermal paste you can buy at an electronics store. It's a difference of a couple dollars either way, so I went with AS 3. I figured the extra $2 was worth the peace of mind.

You definitely need to get rid of that black gunk if you're going to use some thermal paste. The best was is to scrape it off with something like a credit card or a fingernail. A razor blade or anything metal would scratch the surface of the heatsink if you're not careful. Get as much of that crap off as you can and then swab it clean with rubbing alcohol and a tissue.

Once it's clean, dab a tiny amount of Arctic Silver onto the bottom of the heatsink. Really tiny, like the head of a pin. Wrap your finger in plastic wrap or something and smear the AS in good. Then wipe the heatsink clean again. This will fill in the little irregularities in the heatsink surface.

Then put another tiny amount onto the surface of the CPU and smear it out into an even, paper-thin layer. Attach heatsink. Done.

I understand that. Once you have your OS and the necessary drivers installed, though, I'd o/c just to check it out. You won't damage it unless you seriously increase the voltages and set the RAM timings too high. What I did was set my system up at stock speed, let it burn in for awhile, and then ran all the benchmarks. Then I o/c'ed it to what I felt was a comfortable level - nothing extreme - and ran the benchmarks again. I decided that the bump it gave me in performance outweighed any risk from overclocking since all I had to do was slightly increase the voltage. My temps are still very good (43C @ After hours of 100% CPU load), and the system just felt snappier.

If you're still hesitant, I'd suggest that you try o/c'ing at least once. You may not even need to increase voltages at all to hit a 133mhz bus. For reasons I can get into (if you want), you'll want to limit your bus speed to either the stock 100mhz or 133mhz. These are the only "safe" speeds with this motherboard. Any other bus speeds means running all of your other components out-of-spec, which I wasn't willing to do.

 

Thanks. Well, I actually went with the Intel heat compound in the end. The deciding factor was that rubbing it off voids the 3 year warranty. I assume the compound it comes with must me at least adequate, so didn't want to void my warranty just to boost the heat-efficiency a bit.

As for overclocking, I'll certainly at least give it a try. When I said I'm in two minds whether to use it, I meant long term. I expect the way things will pan out is that I'll leave it as it comes until the point I think my system is struggling with new releases again. At that point, I press a little red button, say "Turbo boost, Kit" and wait for the wooshing noise accompanied by some meaningless quip in a nasal pseudo-computer-generated voice. I think holding an ace up my sleeve will keep me feeling better about my system for longer.

BTW, progress report: I have most of the hardware set up (just doing the connectors). I've been held up a bit by a couple of visits from one Mr L A Z B'stard. Hardest bit so far? Working out Pin 1 on my ancient floppy (oo-er). It IS the one nearest the power supply, usually, right?

 

Haha, I forgot how to hook up floppies! I don't even have one in my new computer. The WinXP backup disc that I made has virtual floppies that I can boot from, both Win98 and NTFS Dos.

For what it's worth, I think the twisted side of the floppy cable goes closest to the power supply connector. If that doesn't work, then I'm 99% sure that turning it around will solve the problem.

EDIT - I like your o/c'ing perspective. I think I may go with that. Even though my system is stable with all the programs I run, it still fails that damn Complex Matrix test on Hot CPU Tester. Even though I have no idea what this signifies, it bugs me. So I think I'll back it off until it's too slow for current games.

 

Thanks a lot! I just hope that get it wrong the first time isn't a blowing-myself-up moment.

I had wondered whether to bother with a floppy drive, but then it occurred to me my CD drive would be elevated to dustiest component, which made me uncomfortable. I think I'll keep one to distract the invading dust particles from the strategically important targets.

 

Last little conundrum. I have three ground connectors for the front USB ports. The instructions only refer to two.

They are labelled: (1)GROUND, (1)GROUND and (2)GROUND

Yes, two of them are labelled identically. Any ideas as to which two I should connect to the USB header GROUND pins? I'll try looking it up on Antec and ASUS.

BTW, I have connected all the USB front port pins to one of the USB headers (USB2) on the motherboard (as explained in the Antec instructions). It seemed straight-forward enough except for this GROUND thing. Can you tell me if I'm about to switch off my IDE as you described previously?

 

Nah, nothing's going to blow up. The worst that will happen is that it won't work and you'll have to open the case back up and switch the cable around. Odds are you'll never notice if it works or not, though... I can't even remember the time I needed a floppy. If it's small enough to fit on a floppy, I'd either e-mail it or burn it on a CD-RW or a multisession scratch CDR.

The brown one is safe to leave off. I think.

Don't let my uncertainty scare you. I left off the brown one, and while I'm not sure if my front USB ports are working, I do know that my secondary IDE channel is. So I assume that my front USB ports are working with the way I set them up.

I'll open up my case and check it out...

Ok, here's how mine are set up. There's two extra USB connector blocks. I forget how they're numbered, but the one closest to the backplane is hooked up to the extra USB slot card thing that Asus bundled in. The one closer to the front of the case is hooked up to the front USB connectors.

Now, the pin layout goes like this (I may be numbering them incorrectly, but that won't matter as long as you get the positions right):

Code:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
(6) (7) (8) (9) (x)

So there's 5 pins on top, 4 on the bottom, right? This is how I hooked them up:

• First (top) Row:
  • (1) Red
  • (2) White
  • (3) Green
  • (4) Blue
  • (5) Open -- No connector, leave the brown one off
• Second (bottom) Row:
  • (6) Orange
  • (7) Yellow
  • (8) Gray
  • (9) Black
  • (x) No pin

You only need to hook up 8 pins in order for it to work. Give it a try and let me know if your front USB ports work this way.

 

Thanks for that. The only thing is, I might be using my front USB (for a joystick or Sheriff's AssCamâ„¢), so I'd quite like them to work. I think at least one should work, even if I leave the wrong connector off (making one port ungrounded), so I'll go with your pin layout.

BTW, to satisfy my curiosity: exactly HOW did those people disable their secndary IDE's?

One last question (for now). My case (like yours, I assume) has a six pin auxillary power supply not supported by the motherboard. The motherboard does have a standard 12V connector, though. I haven't connected anything up to it - should I have connected a 12V lead from the PSU to it?

 

By hooking up their front USB connectors to the motherboard headers incorrectly. When done whichever way they did it, it temporarily shorts out the secondary IDE port. I'm not exactly sure how they screwed it up, other than they "followed the directions". I'm assuming that they either (a)followed the Antec's directions rather than Asus' or (b) just plain hooked it up incorrectly. Asus' directions weren't the clearest but I think they are correct for the most part. The only thing to disregard is the whole 3 ground wires thing.

I'll tell you what, later on I'll try to find a USB device and test the front connectors. I'm pretty sure one of my trackballs has USB...

The short answer is this: Definitely hook up the standard 12v mobo connector, the long rectangular one near the CPU slot. Also, hook up either the square 4 pin are the standard 4 pin molex one. The square one is the extra lead that makes a PSU P4 compliant or not. Asus included the standard 4 pin molex header on their mobo so that people with older power supplies could still use the mobo.

What difference using the newer P4 over the older molex header makes... I'm not sure. I've read of people hooking up all three with no ill effects. I wouldn't (and didn't), though.

 

Monday
----------
Considering changing my name to Sheriff LazyBastard. Got home late from work and didn't do anything but veg for some time. Watched Shallow Hal.

When I DID get around to making some progress, I found I had almost every connector on the wrong way around, and had to change them before (a) my power would work and (b) my LED's would work.

A big thanks to the "darkest is generally positive" advice from the manuals. One day I'm gonna write me a manual. Yeah, see ... then yuse punks'll get what's commin' to ya, see ...

Anyways, I did and viola! (small violin), I got to see my BIOS. I set that up, then came to report.

BTW, my idle chip temp is currently 38C. Is that bad?

 

Haha, I had the same problem. I hooked up the power and reset buttons the right way, but not the HDD indicator.

Nah, that's not too bad. It's the temps at load that count, though. Run Prime95 for a couple of hours and see where your temps are. I'd feel comfortable with anything below 50C. 50C-55C and I'd start thinking about better cooling. 56C+ and I'd definitely make sure my heatsink is on correctly and check if the fan is running at the right speed.

 

Serious problem Number 1 just raised its head. Stay tuned ...

 

Okay, I was happily installing windows, but when I restart my POST check throws and error. It says:

Checking the BIOS/Power Menu/Hardware Monitor submenu I saw my POWER FAN RPM is in red.

I did a quick technical assessment (put my hand near the power fan outlet) and the expelled air does seem almost hot (rather than just a little warm).

According to the monitor, the POWER FAN is running at between 1720 - 1780 RPM

My questions are:

- Did you have this problem?
- What is your fan running at?
- What do you think my problem is?
- Do you have any suggestions?

My only theory so far (half-assed, since I didn't have time to consult my ass fully) is that, since I have the fan monitor cable from my PSU plugged into the motherboard, maybe my power fan is being regulated by the motherboard temp instead of the PSU temp and so is not going at a high enough RPM.

 

I had the same problem, it's nothing to worry about.

The problem is, ironically, due to your choice of a good PSU. The 330w True Power PSU that your case came regulates it's own fan speed, so as your case heats up, it increases it's own fan speed to compensate. When temps are low, it slows the fan to reduce noise. Since case temps are low when you first turn on the computer, the fan spins sub-2000rpm and BIOS picks this up as a potential problem.

The way I solved it was to go into BIOS and set it to ignore the PSU fan level.

 

Thanks, I'll ignore the red writing. This fits in nicely with my general attitude to danger signs.

 

Last night, I got to a stage we might call complete. All my devices are working and data transferred over. When I switch on now, I'm switching on my new comp.

The only remaining issues are an unrecognised device on my device manager and the fact that installing the Asus bus mastering throws 2000 for a loop if I install it (always finds the same new piece of hardware on boot, every boot). I'll look into them.

I'll do the probe thing at some point, too, but for now I can tell you it is DAMN fast compared my old comp. Everything seems so responsive and I actually have 3D capability. Now I just have to sit back and enjoy myself until the first game compatability issue arises ...

A big thank you to Milho. You advice has turned out to be sound on every issue.

Also, sorry to Calis for hijacking his thread. I shall return it - slightly soiled - shortly.