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Rusty
Postmaster
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 16419
Loc: Brooker, FL
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On another thread, I mentioned I was going to build a replacement for this one I'm now on. Accumulation of parts (hovering over the NewEgg website, awaiting "deals") happened over several months, as I was in no rush, but wanted something that could process astro-photos a bit more briskly. This one is 5 years old and sports a P4 2.6GHz modestly OCed to 3.0.
Finally all the parts were in place:
Lian-Li PC1200B Plus II case
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W P/S
DFI LANParty LP-LT X48 TR2 mobo
Intel E8500 Core 2 Duo Wolfdale 3.16GHz
3X Seagate Barracuda ST3500320NS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA HDDs
Ciprico 5000 PCIe RAID card
Corsair Dominator 2x2GB RAM DDR2 1066
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer soundcard
eVGA nVidia 8800 GT videocard
Noctua NH-C12P CPU HSF
Thus began the fun.
First, I installed the power supply without snarls.
Then I found, trying to mount the mobo in the case that the Lian-Li screws furnished were the wrong pitch to thread into the standoffs. NP, I have a "few" of the right pitch from my days building PCs.
Quick test insertions of the Noctua cooler proved that there wasn't enough clearance to fit it into the case, so it got shelved in favor of the Noctua NH-U12P. That fit (barely). The aftermarket HSF is because I intend to overclock this new PC; I should be able to get 3.5-3.6 GHz out of it; most of the higher-end HSFs can cool the Duos and Quads 15°C or better than the stock Intel unit in any event.
The mobo came with a decent Northbridge cooler, but without the fan supposedly included...off to the "I-shouldn't-bother-to-keep-it-but-it-may-come-in-handy-some-day" box, and a fan was located and installed.
The mobo configured, and the Ciprico RAID card connected for RAID 5 to the 3 HDDs, I booted 'er up. The BIOS showed the RAID card detected, but I couldn't get into its BIOS to configure it to be bootable. Further, the mobo was set on "CPU detect" for RAM speed. The E8500 is spec'ed at 1066 MHz, but set FSB at 800. Anyway, the initial Blue Smoke Test was a "Pass".
The RAID card came out, and I connected the HDDs to the Intel (ICH9R) SATA ports. I set the mobo jumpers to 1066 MHz for the RAM.
Reboot. Promising, so I took my ratholed XP Pro CD and started the install. F6 for the "other" RAID drivers from the floppy. All the XP install could detect was the drivers for the second (Micron) RAID controller. Allowing XP to continue the install, it detected no HDDs.
With the RAID driver floppy in hand, off to this peecee, where I copied only the Intel drivers to a floppy; using that floppy, this time the XP install successfully harvested the ICH9R drivers, and the install proceeded normally, and I partitioned the HDD array into five logical drives, and formatted the "C:" drive.
Except for my brain cramp. Here, I should have stopped the install, rebooted, but I didn't, and the initial XP install ended up with the partitioned drives being H:, I:, J:, K:, and L:, because I had connected a card reader to the USB port. Even the optical drive took precedence at G:.
So, we do the XP reinstall, deleting the first XP folder and reinstalling XP. Worked just fine; now the HDDs are C: through G:, normal.
Okay, let's just install the chipset and other mobo drivers. One doesn't usually anticipate "Not Responding" error messages from "My Computer", but I couldn't get the CDROM to cooperate with the install routine. Off again to this peecee, where I burned a copy of the mobo CD to another, and the copy worked just fine.
Finally, we're up and running,and tomorrow, I'll install protective software so I can update Windows and download updated drivers.
I've built probably hundreds of PCs, and I encourage folks to consider building their own as they can config it to their tastes and budget. I suspect had someone followed my buys of gear and tried to build one, I'd have many paid, hostile, Ninjas lurking outside my door.
The jist is that it ain't always as straightforward as it should be.
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N11GPS Fastar
TOA-130S
MK66 Std
Vintage C5
Megrez II 80mm ED Triplet APO
SolarMax 40
NJP Temma II
Sirius EQ-G
ST8XE/CFW-8(LRGBHa)/AO-7/DF-2/STV Dlx/ST237a/350D (Unmodded)/Mallincam Color Hyper Plus/DSI III Color/DSI II Pro
Two not-spoiled Golden Retrievers - Maggie and Casey
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering. - Arthur C. Clarke
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Rusty
Postmaster
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 16419
Loc: Brooker, FL
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128 patches and upgrades later, WinXP Pro's settled in...
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N11GPS Fastar
TOA-130S
MK66 Std
Vintage C5
Megrez II 80mm ED Triplet APO
SolarMax 40
NJP Temma II
Sirius EQ-G
ST8XE/CFW-8(LRGBHa)/AO-7/DF-2/STV Dlx/ST237a/350D (Unmodded)/Mallincam Color Hyper Plus/DSI III Color/DSI II Pro
Two not-spoiled Golden Retrievers - Maggie and Casey
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering. - Arthur C. Clarke
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StarWars
Postmaster
Reged: 11/26/03
Posts: 11661
Loc: Cyber Space
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post a pic... 
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Sony Digital Media player..
MX 460 earbuds
15x70 ETX125AT
FireBall XL5
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daev
Post Laureate
Reged: 03/10/04
Posts: 3484
Loc: On the edge of the desert
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when the smoke clears.... 
dave
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"Yes, I know it's flat here. When the seeing is good you can stand on your toes and see Chicago...."
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Rusty
Postmaster
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 16419
Loc: Brooker, FL
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Will do! Blue Smoke Test A (that which qualifies the PC as not being a fire hazard nor willing to consume itself on initial powerup) is a "pass". Modest overclocking started today, so Blue Smoke Test B has started (that which indicates maybe a bit too much pushing): 3.16 OCed to 3.3 GHz, and I haven't yet messed with RAM or CPU voltages. Household smoke detectors are disabled (wadda they know, anyway?  )
Fundamental glitch. The DFI mobo has a neat feature in that the BIOS can be reset to default by mashing the reset and power buttons together (rather than redoing the jumpers). Conveniently, this DFI mobo sports reset and power switches on it.
Oddly, this Lian Li case doesn't have a reset button, so I dug into the scrap box, snagged a momentary-on pushbutton, drilled out a spot, and installed it. Then found (after testing it beforehand), it doesn't work...off to Radio Shack tomorrow. Arrrggghhh!
Anyway, I ran HDTach on the RAID 5, and got results about 20-40% faster than my RAID 1 on this peecee, latency is also about 20% better.
--------------------
N11GPS Fastar
TOA-130S
MK66 Std
Vintage C5
Megrez II 80mm ED Triplet APO
SolarMax 40
NJP Temma II
Sirius EQ-G
ST8XE/CFW-8(LRGBHa)/AO-7/DF-2/STV Dlx/ST237a/350D (Unmodded)/Mallincam Color Hyper Plus/DSI III Color/DSI II Pro
Two not-spoiled Golden Retrievers - Maggie and Casey
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering. - Arthur C. Clarke
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StarWars
Postmaster
Reged: 11/26/03
Posts: 11661
Loc: Cyber Space
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Still no pic...Maybe Rusty bought a MAC.. 
ya never know.. 
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Sony Digital Media player..
MX 460 earbuds
15x70 ETX125AT
FireBall XL5
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Paul Romero
professor emeritus
Reged: 04/05/05
Posts: 557
Loc: Reno, NV
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....or went to Office Depot for the cheapie deal  
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Nexstar 11 GPS
8'x10' backyard 'skyshed'
and presenting...."Sweet Pudding", my AM 110mm FLT on 'Max', a MI-250 mount.
travel: BORG 45EDII on an Astrotrac.
"Pablito Clavo un Clavito en la Calva de un Calvito"--by Jose A.
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Patrick
Postmaster
Reged: 05/16/03
Posts: 6789
Loc: Franklin, Ohio
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Rusty,
Like building a telescope, building a computer has to be a labor of love.
Otherwise you make an excellent argument for going out and buying a Dell. 
Patrick
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Discovery 10" f/6 Split Tube Dob
Celestron C6 SCT
Denk Binoviewers
AT66ED Refractor
Oberwerk Ultra 15x70 Binocular
475B Geared Tripod & 501HDV Head
Oberwerk 9x60 Binocular
Celestron Regal 8x42 Binocular
Canon 30D DSLR
Mini EQ1
My Astronomy Pages
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basel10
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 07/15/05
Posts: 805
Loc: TN
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In the end building computers is usually a better way to go. In price ranges $800 above it is cheaper to build your own plus you get better quality and the configuration you want.
Buying a dell, sony or insert brand here can have its trials. They load up the computers with garbage ware and 5 year old buggy drivers. This gives users a very bad user experience. Windows is often blamed when in reality it is the handy dandy media player programed by a child or buggy drivers. If computer manufactures configure computers correctly more people would embrace and cherish Windows.
I recently got a Dell laptop. It had a bunch of garbage ware and configured very poorly. It was slow and would often freeze forcing me to do a hard shutdown by taking out the battery. Dell included a Windows DVD. Not a restore DVD but a Windows and windows only DVD. I formated the drive got rid of the restore partition so I can use all of the hard drive I paid for and installed windows the correct way using the latest drivers. No garbage ware only top quality software. My laptop runs great and is twice as fast and has never crashed. I have a Vista stability rating of 9.5.
That is why many build their own computers. So they can configure it the right way.
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www.knoxvilleobservers.org
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Rusty
Postmaster
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 16419
Loc: Brooker, FL
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Well, at the moment it deserves no photos. I had it up and running with no problems (except the UPS it was attached to died, and some momentary power interruptions during ay caused it to shut down. With RAID 5, it then had to Verify and Repair on bootup. Yesterday, I got a replacement UPS, which goes at this station, and the one it was on got the hand-me-down.
After running solidly around 100 hours, I moved it to this station, connected things, powered it up, and: Nothing. Well, not quite nothing - it'll start up for a second then shut down; after 5 seconds, it repeats this cycle. Removing the cards, disconnecting the drives produces the same result. I went all through it looking for loose connections, etc., and found nothing.
I suspect there's an internal fault in the mobo that's causing the P/S protection circuit to shut down.
I have an RMA request in to DFI; we'll see what happens. Still, it's irritating, as it'll take a couple of hours to replace the mobo, and another 50 to cure the thermal paste (AS5), not to mention a couple of weeks for the new one to arrive.
Anyway, basel10 is quite correct. Not only can you not configure a Dell/HP - or even Alienware or Falcon Northwest - to your specs, you're not able to take advantage of specials. Doing so on this one saved me about $400; I also employed the technique I used when I built custom PCs: Stay on the Trailing Edge of technology. Getting components just superceded generally provides 90% of the performance of the Bleeding Edge at 60% the cost.
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Patrick
Postmaster
Reged: 05/16/03
Posts: 6789
Loc: Franklin, Ohio
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Quote:
Anyway, basel10 is quite correct. Not only can you not configure a Dell/HP - or even Alienware or Falcon Northwest - to your specs,
I wasn't thinking about the cost but rather at the complexity involved in building a system. I look at all the steps and am amazed.
Patrick
--------------------
Discovery 10" f/6 Split Tube Dob
Celestron C6 SCT
Denk Binoviewers
AT66ED Refractor
Oberwerk Ultra 15x70 Binocular
475B Geared Tripod & 501HDV Head
Oberwerk 9x60 Binocular
Celestron Regal 8x42 Binocular
Canon 30D DSLR
Mini EQ1
My Astronomy Pages
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Rusty
Postmaster
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 16419
Loc: Brooker, FL
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Patrick, you're absolutely right ("It's an adventure!"), but most of the frustration should come from installing the OS and software, which is common whether one buys a box or builds one on one's own. When I built PCs, the box was relatively cheap (at least that was my mantra), but when a customer wanted me to migrate his apps to the new box, the price frequently exceeded the cost of the hardware.
With regard to DFI, I did get the intial Boeotian response from Tech Support, asking for the exact mobo (previously supplied), RAM (previously supplied), CPU (previously supplied), and power supply (previously supplied). I don't find this too frustrating, as in the past only Abit (now defunct) and ASUS, by way of online resources, went straight to the issues - and there were few. Abit, to its credit, disclosed the problems with its capacitors, and I just replaced 'em all, and never had a comeback.
What does concern me is that with Win XP and current P'n'P peripherals, even a novice should be able to build a peecee; while this mobo has tried my patience, none of the issues until this one have caused deferral of placing the PC into service.
I'm not yet foaming at the mouth, but DFI has thus far been unimpressive. Now, that's a bit unfair, as I've never had to contact Tech Support on mobos from Soyo, Abit, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, and a few others; the few issues with Matsonic boards were taken care of within hours, and all related to VIA core logic.
But I was at the point of placing this peecee into service at this station (my primary), and I don't look forward to ripping out the installation to replace the mobo...another three hours down the hopper.
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Scott K
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 09/13/07
Posts: 927
Loc: Dallas, TX & Eufaula, OK
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Quote:
What does concern me is that with Win XP and current P'n'P peripherals, even a novice should be able to build a peecee; while this mobo has tried my patience, none of the issues until this one have caused deferral of placing the PC into service.
Honestly, I think the single most difficult component to deal with for a novice is memory. In theory the memory devices now tell the motherboard what timing to use. Mostly this works, although when it doesn't, it can be exceedingly frustrating to sort out. Is the memory out of spec? The motherboard? Is the system BIOS just doing the wrong thing in terms of programming the timings?
Quote:
But I was at the point of placing this peecee into service at this station (my primary), and I don't look forward to ripping out the installation to replace the mobo...another three hours down the hopper.
Now that is a drag. Anytime I build a PC, that's always the thing I fear - having to pull the motherboard and start over. So much work thrown away and then repeated.
Best of luck with your PC.
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Rusty
Postmaster
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 16419
Loc: Brooker, FL
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I agree -the SPC of the older (DDR and prior) RAMs clued the mobo to the memory speed.
Quote:
Now that is a drag. Anytime I build a PC, that's always the thing I fear - having to pull the motherboard and start over. So much work thrown away and then repeated.
I agree, and the number of times I've had to do it in the last seven years was mostly limited to Abit boards with suspect capacitors, where I just replaced them, period.
Tomorrow, the mobo come out and gets inspected/tested on the workbench. Replacing the PCP&C 750W PSU with an Antec 650W produced the same results. There's always the potential that the weight of the CPU HSF has damaged the mobo, but this has not been reported on the forums.
Sadly, DFI's tech rep has recycled the same suggestions, and always comes back to the PSU, despite my having told him the troubleshooting procedures I've already engaged. I don't resent his defending the guys who write his paycheck, but this mobo has an history of odd failures. Nevertheless, I do wish he'd read my reports, instead of suggesting for the third time things I already did before contacting him...
Anyway, as I was typing this, DFI authorized RMA to NewEgg, where I bought it (but its 30-day RMA window has expired 8/11/08), so I've tasked DFI with clearing that with NewEgg. This is the first mobo I've RMAed to NewEgg in almost eight years...
--------------------
N11GPS Fastar
TOA-130S
MK66 Std
Vintage C5
Megrez II 80mm ED Triplet APO
SolarMax 40
NJP Temma II
Sirius EQ-G
ST8XE/CFW-8(LRGBHa)/AO-7/DF-2/STV Dlx/ST237a/350D (Unmodded)/Mallincam Color Hyper Plus/DSI III Color/DSI II Pro
Two not-spoiled Golden Retrievers - Maggie and Casey
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering. - Arthur C. Clarke
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Rusty
Postmaster
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 16419
Loc: Brooker, FL
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Mobo RMAed to DFI (once they realized the 30-day NewEgg window had expired). Sent it UPS Ground ($14 vs. $54 for 2nd-day air - where it would arrive Friday and sit around all weekend. Once I got past the Usual Kabuki Dance from Tech Support, it was easily done. But I have nothing to compare it with - the last mobo I had to RMA was 7 years ago (ASUS). Edited - it was an Abit - senility isn't pretty
--------------------
N11GPS Fastar
TOA-130S
MK66 Std
Vintage C5
Megrez II 80mm ED Triplet APO
SolarMax 40
NJP Temma II
Sirius EQ-G
ST8XE/CFW-8(LRGBHa)/AO-7/DF-2/STV Dlx/ST237a/350D (Unmodded)/Mallincam Color Hyper Plus/DSI III Color/DSI II Pro
Two not-spoiled Golden Retrievers - Maggie and Casey
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering. - Arthur C. Clarke
Edited by Rusty (08/28/08 10:42 PM)
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