building my own PC

[Draft Dodger]

well, finally taking the plunge - I think I now have all the parts necessary to build my own system; I'll probably sit down with it this weekend.

I've been accumulating parts all summer - just got the last 2 components (memory and cpu heatsink/fan) today.

any tips or tricks to keep in mind when I assemble this baby?

[Buccaneer]

Yes, anti-static wrist straps. Also, keep screws straight and easy, don't force.

[Draft Dodger]

the cynic in me wants to believe that the wrist straps are a crock...

I like the screwing info.

[Alan T]

I hardly ever use wrist straps and work on equipment all the time. You will wish to God that you did use anti-static straps the one time you fry an expensive piece of equipment accidentally. They aren't really a crock, but you generally can get by with other methods of de-charging..


I guess the point I am making is.. anti-static wrist wraps do have a purpose, but if you don't use them, its just a gamble, you may or may not get by unstung

[Fritz]

shuffle you feet on the carpet then lick the contacts on your RAM.

-----------
Read advice:

if you are putting the motherboad in the case yourself make sure to put enough support under the part of the board that holds your cards. New boards often have tight slots (mmmmmmm) and people like to push the cards in with a little force. if you have inadequate support under them it is possible to flex the board enough to damage it. The damage may be slight, so the effects could be irregular and hard to track down.

I assume your board has two controlers for hard drives/cd rom and another for the floppy. Some may not agree, but I suggest you put the hard drive and CD on seperate controllers.

[Draft Dodger]

Originally posted by Fritz
I assume your board has two controlers for hard drives/cd rom and another for the floppy. Some may not agree, but I suggest you put the hard drive and CD on seperate controllers.

it does and I will.

[Buccaneer]

I put both of my HD into their own slots on the Ultra ATA-133 card, bypassing the MB connection.

Also, do away with ribbon cables - go with rounded cables instead.

[Draft Dodger]

I guess I'm on the right track - I do have some rounded cables (they came with the mobo)

[Easy Mac]

On a similar note in an attempted thread aside:

Should I go with a Maxtor ATA-133 80 gb hd or a WD ATA-100 80 gb hd w/ an 8 mb cache? They are about a $10 difference, so money isn't too big a factor. Is the Maxtor faster or are they about the same due to the WD cache size? Also, is it worth partioning the HD, and how should I (like 30 gb for games, 20 for apps and 20 for music and 10 for the OS or something like that?) And is it good that my Motherboard has Serial ATA on it? Getting a new computer since I may have fried this one... dammit I hate unexpected costs.

[j51]

Storage Review

More information about hard drives than you'll ever need

[daedalus]

Originally posted by Fritz
I assume your board has two controlers for hard drives/cd rom and another for the floppy. Some may not agree, but I suggest you put the hard drive and CD on seperate controllers.

I've always heard that and intend to do so when I do this, but what is that reasoning for it?

[sabotai]

ALWAYS keeps the hard drive and CD ROM on seperate cables. Don't ask why...just do it! (At one time I did know why, but I have forgotten)

And I have found, in my own personal experience, that Maxtor makes a better hard drive. They have for me, and everyone else I know, lasted longer than any other brand of hard drive.

[Alan T]

Its primarily for improved performance.

Think of it as the interstate. You have 50 cars to get from point A to point B. Would you rather squeeze all 50 cars down one 2 lane highway together, or split them up between two highways that are 2 lanes each.. (unless you are in Massachusetts in which you would put in about 30 rotaries, remove all road signs and really gridlock the place.. but thats a different story)..

Basically hard drives and CDRoms are your busiest I/O devices usually in a system. So to split them across two controllers gives you better performance when doing disk reads/writes at the same time as CDrom reads/writes.

[Samdari]

Originally posted by Alan T
So to split them across two controllers gives you better performance when doing disk reads/writes at the same time as CDrom reads/writes.

The thing is, this hardly ever happens. It is far more frequently done in sequence. Having them on different IDE controllers will not result in performance differences large enough for humans to notice (although, there is also no compelling reason not to do so, its importance is just overrated).

By far the biggest performance hit in Windows computing is virtual memory. Thus the best advice is, buy more RAM. Take what you have bought, double it, and then go buy more.

[Alan T]

Yes, on IDE systems, you generally will not see a huge amount of improvement from this. Its just a small tuning thing that helps a little.

If you are worried about I/O performance, you generally just look for faster disk. Go to higher RPM SCSI drives or such... That really only matters on systems with alot of Read/writes. Database servers or whatnot. On home systems, your biggest bottle necks generally are:

1. Internet connection speed.
2. Video card performance
3. Amount of RAM in system
4. Processor speed

You used to have a bottleneck being things like CDROM drive speed or size of hard drives, but those have become so cheap, no one should ever really be trapped in by that.

Also other things can effect performance a bit more than most people think about such as Processory BUS speed.