building comp.,what's the initial boot up like?

[FreakBaller12]

Hye I'm finallly buying the rest of the parts for my computer wednesday. I need to know what the initial boot up is going to be like. Also any tips for when I first put the computer together? I have an oem cd of xp pro and key#. Thanks

[WickeDKlowN]

MAKE SURE the mobo stand-offs in your case are right! You can very easily fry your board if they're wrong. Also, some things may require a bit of force, but don't force anything too, too much. You wouldn't want to crack your shiny new CPU by putting the HSF on wrong or something.

The first boot should be like any other boot when you have to install Windows. You might need to go into the BIOS and set soem things up(time, if your SATA controller is set to RAID or IDE, boot priority, etc.)

Other than that, Good Luck! The first build is always fun.

[FreakBaller12]

Hah, it's going to be interesting, I can tell you that. Hopfully I don't break anything though, too bad AO is going to be down, I might be needing help with certain things, anybody want to give me their AIM s/n so I can get some help when I need it friday night/saturday morning?

[WickeDKlowN]

Mine is s7rychnine if you need any help.

[xmetal2001]

Feel free to IM me at XMetal2k1 for help.

[FreakBaller12]

thanks guys, the kindness of AO is awesome

[nippinout]

First thing you want to do is just make sure you aren't going to kill anything.

Have your finger either on the power supply switch or your hand on the power cable to rip it out.

Power on and if the CPU fan doesn't spin, turn it off. If the CPU fan does spin, go into the BIOS and monitor the CPU temperature. If you don't see any smoke, you can then worry about getting XP up and running.

Good luck!

[Miscue]

Some boards don't spin up the fan until it gets warm - if you have the smart fan stuff turned on. Kinda freaked me out the first time I saw it and didn't realize what was going on.

Yup... accidentally grounding your motherboard to something... by not using your stand-offs correctly or whatever... is a sure way to fry your stuff and melt things! I've seen people fry their stuff so many times when I was selling parts...

[FreakBaller12]

Can somebody explain what stand-offs are to me, I'm still a computer newb. Also, should I ground myself to anything when I put this together? What's an easy way to do that?

[Miscue]

Can somebody explain what stand-offs are to me, I'm still a computer newb. Also, should I ground myself to anything when I put this together? What's an easy way to do that?

They are usually brass studs (10mm nuts) that thread into the case's mounting plate. Sometimes plastic/nylon is used (probably not anymore), sometimes they are metal anchors that pop into square slots, sometimes the mounting plate has built in idiot-proof nipples (I haven't seen this in a long time). Line them up with the mounting holes on the board, and then screw the board to the stand-offs. The case comes included with the stand-offs or whatever you need to mount the board.

No part of the motherboard should come into contact with anything metal, except where the standoffs are supposed to - otherwise it's like sticking a fork in a power outlet. Make sure you know WTF you are doing so you don't destroy your stuff.

As far as grounding yourself... avoid working on carpet... touch the chassis of the case to ground yourself. It's not that big of a deal... don't worry about it too much. I personally don't follow the rules I just suggested too closely... although I know I'm taking chances. When I first started building stuff a long time ago, I used to use grounding straps and stuff. I stopped being that careful long ago... unnecessary. Screwing stuff up with static discharge is a real problem... just don't be stupid about it, and you don't need to be super careful either.

[kosmo]

Step 1- Set all your boxes aside, keep them in good condition. RMA is a beautiful thing.
Step 2- Route your cables well, keep air pathways as unobstructed as possible.
Step 3- USE THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF THERMAL GREASE ON THE CPU. IT DOES NOT TAKE MUCH.
Step 4- Plug things in where they fit, dont plug them in where they dont fit.
Step 5- Be sure everything is plugged in. If it doesnt work, you probably didnt plug something in. Also, be sure to turn the power supply on. If nothing works when you press the computer button, be sure that everything is plugged in and you turned the power supply on.
Step 6- Go into bios, after making sure that CPU temp is acceptable, and set the boot order to CD drive then Hard drive. Install windows.
Step 7- Protect computer from viruses. Then download the latest drivers. The stuff you got on disk is probably outdated.
Step 8- Install at a minimum MEMTEST 86. This is necessary to make sure your RAM functions properly. Just because a computer runs and doesnt crash a lot doesnt mean your ram isnt jacked. If you installed a decent video card I would also install 3dMark03/05 and Aquamark. This is to make sure your graphics card isnt secretly jacked also. Just because it displays everything fine in windows doesnt mean that its not broken somewhere. Should either fail, put it in the box and RMA it back to the manufacturer. If they work, you have now built a "successful" computer.
Step 9- (Optional) After about a week or so of using the computer, turning it off when youre not using it, and being sure to send it through its paces so the thermal grease cures properly, go back into the bios and overclock the bejesus out of the thing. Its not hard, its not dangerous, and it can give you a much better performing computer than what you paid for.
Step 10- Drink to success! If you arent of legal drinking age, keep a tally of every time you are successful at something in order to properly toast yourself when the time comes.

[sbpyro]

Hand tools to tighten your standoffs and screws on the motherboard into the standoffs.
Because you could do some serious damage to your board if you missed with a drill.
If not and you end up trying to change out the motherboard for a newer one you may find it almost impossible to remove the old one.
(Had it happen to a friend of mine, the stand off would not come off the case and was in the wrong location for his new board.)

[FreakBaller12]

what exactly does over clocking do?
how do I install that memtest 86 and what do you mean by jacked?
Does the memtest come with the part on like a cd or something?

[kosmo]

Ok well first memtest. Video cards, memory, cpus and the like all have many different pipelines and circuits for the electricity to flow through. Many programs dont use all of them, like Windows, dont stress the parts enough to force them to use all their pipelines and circuits. Because of this, you could have a semi functional computer and not know it until you try to install something that actually uses those pipelines after your RMA period has expired. Memtest86 and 3dMark are different programs designed to stress certain parts of your computer in order to actually test these pipelines. For a videocard, if it has a bad core processor you will get graphical glitches known as artifacts. These could appear as crazy wacky colors and screwed up things while playing a game, for instance. Memory will just have errors in which the data its attempting to store and access gets screwed up, often causing the computer to freeze or programs to crash. Memtest86 runs a program to test your memory for however long you let it, and it counts the errors it has. If it cant properly run the test or it gets a high number of errors, your memory isnt up to snuff. There pretty much always will be errors though provided you leave it running long enough. But thats another tangent about ECC ram and tradeoffs for error correcting and speed. To get the program, go to www.memtest86.com and follow instructions there.

As for overclocking, heres the basic idea. The engine in the GTO is the same engine in the corvette, but it gets a lot more power in the corvette. Overclocking is the process of telling your GTO engine that it is a corvette engine so it makes more power. It is very indepth, and without specific information about what you have I cant really tell you what to do. But really all it is, in the bios theres usually something called power bios features or something a long that line. You go in there and set the FSB (front side bus) to be higher than it is stock. For example, my Athlon 64 3500 comes at a stock speed of 2.2 Ghz. Its HTT (the technical term for front side bus on athlon 64's) is 200 with a multiplier of 11. Computer companies mostly dont like people overclocking and getting more for their money so theyve locked the multiplier and the only way to increase the speed is to raise the FSB. I have mine set to 225 for a final speed of 2.475 Ghz, which is a very modest overclock. But it still makes my 250 dollar processor run faster than the stock 2.4 Ghz processor, which cost 400 bucks. For more information on this kind of stuff, visit a computer site like www.hardocp.com or their forums at www.hardforum.com Also popular is www.anandtech.com and for the much more technically inclined, www.arstechnica.com You really can learn a lot just by going to those forums and asking 1 question. (your answer will inevitably be "Try using search", but someone will point you to a really good answer)

[FreakBaller12]

Thank you Kosmo it's so much more clear for me now.In the memtest, if it spots errors what will it do, will it fix them or just tell me about it?
edit: also, How do I know how far to overclock my processor? I'm buying an AMD 64 3000 with 1.8 ghz.