Help Building My New Computer

**JimBowy** · Moderator Joined: 02 Aug 2003 Posts: 1627

Use NTFS, more secure, faster, more efficient...

SpydeR · Rated PG-13 Joined: 10 Feb 2004 Posts: 45

It came a couple days ago, here's what the final list looks like:

MB: ASUS 865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU
Cost: $130

CPU: Intel Pentium 4/ 3.0C GHz 800MHz FSB, 512KB Cache, Hyper Threading Technology
Cost: $230

RAM: Corsair XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, Low Latency (Twin Pack) 184 Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
Cost: $273

CD1: LITE-ON BLACK 16X DVD ROM Drive
Cost: $36

CD2: Lite-On Black 52X32X52 CD-RW Drive
Cost: $37

Video: SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9800PRO Video Card, 256MB DDRII, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP
Cost: $315

Sound Card: Turtle Beach 6-Channel PCI Sound Card, Model "Santa Cruz"
Cost: $49

Case w/ Power Supply: Chieftec Black Server Case with 450W Power Supply
Cost: $95

HD: Seagate 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive
Cost: $96

Speakers: Logitech Z640 5.1 Speakers
Cost: $65

Keyboard: Logitech Elite Keyboard USB/PS2 104keys
Cost: $35

Floppy: SAMSUNG SFD321B/LBL1 Black 1.44MB 3.5inch Floppy Disk Drive
Cost: $9

Extra Cooling: CoolerMaster Blue 80mm Neon LED Fan
Cost: $18 (getting 2 for $9 each, front case fans)

OS: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack SP1a - OEM
Cost: $93

TOTAL SYSTEM COST: : Subtotal $1,460.97
Tax $.00
Shipping and Handling charge
14.00
Total: 1,474.97

Some of the parts you must excuse, I kinda bought them before I read up too much on(or see your guys posts on RAID and what not), but it's all good. I build it yesterday and I ran into a couple problems though. Everytime I boot up everything works fine except for the front LED lights for the on/off, and reset button, but I also haven't given that much trial and error.

My main concern was, I tried to boot up and start loading up the OS and originally when I first tried, it when to the screen that says "Please insert media, and press any key to continue" and I had a drive reading problem, I didn't have it working right because of the Master/Slave jumpers on the back of the CD and CD Rewritable drive. I have the IDE strip now configed and reading the media I put in at the screen. (used CD-RW as Master and CD as Slave)

THEN, I booted it back up again, inserted the OS preinstall(that came with) into the main CD drive... nothing... so then I tried it again on the CD-RW drive and it actually loaded! I thought I was in the clear now, but nay, more problems. It booted up and started loading up XP Pro for some reason(though I purchased XP Home) and loaded up to the desktop but there weren't any options, instead, there was a command prompt screen that poped up and it put in a first command, which was something like

c:\blah\blah\>factory -something

very confusing, so I let that load and after about a minute or two of it doing nothing, I opened the cd drive(thinking that maybe the preinstallion was already done and now it's time for me to insert he actual Windows XP Home disk) but it then froze. I waited 2 or 3 minutes just to see if it was maybe loading something that took awhile, but nothing happened so I pushed the reset button. Now whenever it loads up it gets apast the basic bios stuff, but then crashes and restarts and repeats this untill you just shut off the power. I don't know what to do, I get I'm pretty confused this being the first time I've actually done this sorta thing.

It's fine on most of the hardware that I've seen so far, it notices the 1024 ram, HDD, CPU, MB, Both Disk drives(still not sure if they're in correctly configed though) and the Floppy drive(I think)

I do have the bios though, I can go into it, but I really don't know what I could do in there. When I start up the computer I still get the standard "Asus AI" thing that says "press del for bios", but if I just let it go it just crashes and reboots. If you guys know what might be the problem, please help.

Thanks again,
-SpydeR

**JimBowy** · Moderator Joined: 02 Aug 2003 Posts: 1627

sounds like you have a corrupt windows installation and/or an incomplete windows install

i would suggest booting off your CD-ROM again, and trying to reload windows... if I were you i'd probably format the disk and start all over again....

just be patient when your trying to do this stuff, even the best of us have trouble with simple things sometimes... andsometimes OS installs are not so easy

Spire · Posted: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 02:16:01 Post Subject:

Help me help you, what is a Preinstall??? What device did this preinstall disk come with? The Motherboard?

How did you get your Windows XP disk? Is it full version or an Update? (Green packaging is Home, Blue is Pro)

I'm thinking that you don't need to use any preinstall disk of any kind. Insert XP disk in CR-rw, restart machine, and follow directions, IE - create a partition, format partition, let windows do the rest... it should be just that easy...

AS for your case LED problems, switch the direction of your connector at the MB for the LED's. Polarity matters on LEDs.

If you happen to have AIM, you cen get me at spire9600 for a bit quicker help...

BeerCheeze · Posted: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 14:26:12 Post Subject:

Don't trust Spire.... he'll try and steal your Mhz....

HAHAHAHA!

Make sure you:

1) Put the HDD on IDE Channel 1 as Master
2) Put your DVD Drive on IDE Channel 2 as Master
3) Put your CDRW Drive on IDE Channel 2 as Slave.

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 14:28:41 Post Subject:

Although the scheme Dr EC described is best for hard drive performance... it really hoses cd to cd copying speeds... Thats another reason I love RAID... each optical drive now has its own IDE channel...

BeerCheeze · Posted: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 14:33:55 Post Subject:

I agree BB... that's one of the reasons I use RAID too. But you can get around some of that buy copying it to the HDD and the to the CDRW. But that is best when making mutiple copies.

SpydeR · Rated PG-13 Joined: 10 Feb 2004 Posts: 45

Alright good news, and yet still some bad news. First off, thanks to spire and some nice help on AIM I did get XP to run and install. It turned out to be a bios problem, my CD drive wasn't the in the first device check.

The one disk I was talking about that came with the Windows XP Home disk, is "Windows XP OEM Preinstallion Kit" and it has Service Pack 1a on it. Not sure what it's for though.

The software problem I'm having is that whenever I try to get the latest windows driver (start > windows update) it brings me to the microsoft page and I scan the computer for which updates it needs but it runs into an error: