Trials & Rewards : New PC Upgrades

What is this About?

Well, about three weeks ago I started looking on newegg for some new PC upgrades. I just felt that it was time for a rather simple upgrade. Nothing too extreme, since I have college courses coming up again in September. I think this is a fairly high-end build though, seeing as how I spent about $1260 USD on parts.

Machine Specs

Name:: UNCROWNED 2

CPU:: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale @4.0Ghz
MOBO:: EVGA nForce 750i SLI FTW
RAM:: 4GB OCZ REAPER HPC
GPU:: PNY GeForce 9800GTX XLR8 Performance Edition
HDD:: WD 250GB, WD 400GB All SATA, WD 80GB IDE, WD 20GB IDE
OS:: Vista Home Premium 64-bit
DISPLAY:: 20" Widescreen 1680 x 1050 Acer Monitor

Some Problems Faced

Well, this is the very first build I have ever had problems with. However, after taking my time I eventually solved all of my problems(except for one). See, I'm smart like a fox!

(1) One of my first problems was getting the friggin' OS to install. The ASUS DVD burner I got turned out to be dead, so I went to the store and got myself some HP DVD drive. After that, the OS installed with no problem.

(2) For some strange reason, after the OS installed and I rebooted the computer, it would not boot. I installed Vista on the 250GB SATA drive, so I made sure that the system was set to boot from it first. But still, it would not boot. So after about 30 minutes of scratching my head, I realized that the BIOS on the EVGA FTW board not only allows you to set the HDD to boot first, but it also allows you to set which HDD is booted first. So when I finally set it to boot from the 20GB IDE drive, it worked to my surprise. Now I'm wondering why the hell it's booting from the 20GB when Vista is in fact installed on the 250GB SATA. This is the only thing I have not been able to solve yet. I want the system to boot from the 250GB SATA, becuase originally that 20GB IDE was going to be my junk drive, and probably would have been reformatted many times. Oh well!

(3) Okay, I admit this one was my fault. After the machine was already build and up and running, I installed the 400GB SATA drive, but it did not show up in "Computer" tab on Vista. It was in the device manager and the BIOS but not in the Windows explorer where it should be. Then I smacked myself in the forehead, I had to initialize the drive. So I did and now that problem is solved.




























































Thoughts

Later I will get a new case for this PC, but for now it's in the NZXT Apollo Gaming Case. I had a lot of fun building this one, especially when that 9800GTX arrived. As of right now, there's only about a quarter-inch between the front of the GTX and my hard drive cage. I had to disconnect the floppy to get the GTX in there. So, no floppy drive for this machine.

EVGA 750i FTW - I'm pretty impressed with this board. My Wolfdale CPU posted and booted without any problems, the board is in fact a good overclocker. My E8400 is running at 4.0Ghz on air and it's stable. My only thing that bothered me a little is that the board only has one IDE connector.

Core 2 Duo E8400 - What can I say, it overclocks very well, it runs cool, and it's 45nanometer.

PNY 9800GTX - This was the cheapest 9800GTX I could find at $294 USD, plus there's a rebate I'm about to send in. I put this card in, set my new monitor to 1680 x 1050, fired up Crysis on veryhigh DX10 64-bit and averaged about 24fps. Then I set it to high DX9 64-bit same resolution and averaged about 35fps. Nice!

Conclusion

I'm gonna sit back and wait for Mass Effect to arrive at my door.