Sorry Other Vista Discussions Discuss Sorry in the Windows Vista forums; Sorry I've not been around much lately, but I'm working some issues. I did take a little time off and built a PC. I used a AMD 64 ...

[felix8406]

Sorry I've not been around much lately, but I'm working some issues. I did take a little time off and built a PC. I used a AMD 64 CPU running at 2.4Mhz, 2GB RAM, a 250 HD and a 256 RAM NVidia Card; all for $155.00 US. I had the case w/600 watts modular power supply; the keyboard/mouse and a DVD recorder...older parts, but still functional.

It got a Vista Experience of 4.3, so it wasn't too bad at all. My next step is to installl a 500GB SATA drive, but that'll have to wait.

[Snuffy]

Hope all goes well, with the new setup.

I'm having major installation problems... Vista will not complete installation.
see my other post.

[felix8406]

I just replied to your other post. Hope you can get your issue sorted out.

[Znod]

Good job Felix. My you have expensive tastes though.

[felix8406]

Thanks. You're right; from the start I set my mind up that money was not going to be the issue.

There's one thing I wanted to add; many people go out and purchase the quietest cooling fan and coolest fan grills. A quiet cooling fan is fine, even if it cost more, but the grills, specially the fancy ones, are not designed by people with knowledge in physics. Most fancy looking grills create air turbulence just before the rush of air reaches the fan. It might not seem like a lot at first, until one runs the cooling fans without the grills…the sound level just drops dramatically.

Grills can protect fans and fingers, especially if you have little children, but the best bet are the ones with round wires, as they provide better transition as the air goes through. Or get a larger fan, 120mm, that can draw a larger amount of air at lower speed…the lower speed reduces noise substantially.

[felix8406]

Most everyone know that CPU cooling is important, but many may not know about the importance of the bracket that mounts the heat-sink to the cpu. This bracket does two main duties; it supports the heat-sink to the CPU and act as spring to allow for expansion of the CPU and heat-sink during PC operation. If the spring tensions is weaken, like during removal and installation or is just old, it might allow for the heat-sink to shift or vibrate.

In my case, it caused the CPU to run almost 10 degrees warmer. I did not buy a new one, but I modified it a little (bent it) to increase its tension. That did the trick, but I must keep an eye on the temperature. It has been three days and so far all is well.

So the moral of this post is; if your cpu is running hotter than usual, it might be due to the spring tension of the bracket.

[felix8406]

Except for some cabling management, I'm about done building my PC. I spent closed to $200.00 US and got a Vista experience of 4.9. The last thing I did was to disable two of the 80m fans and install a 120m. Noise level went down significantly and cooling efficiency went up. I'm not planning to install the cover, so I used .020" steel wire to hold the fan in place and right in front of the fan-less video card and the RAM chips; as the air bounces off the motherboard, it gets around the hard drive.

I have not being able to install Win XP on the SATA drive though. It goes through the installation process, including installing the SATA drivers, but went it restarts, it doesn't recognize the hard drive. I downloaded the latest NVIDIA Raid drivers, extracted the files using RAR and copied them to both, a flash drive and a floppy, but still get the same results.

By the way, if you have a damage hard drive, do not throw it away. I had a WD 160GB HD that went bad a while back. Last night I decided to check with Western Digital and they are going to replace it for free...minus postage and handling to send the driver to them. So if you suspect your HD is broken, check with the manufacture…they might be nice enough to fix it or get you a refurbished one.

Correction on the HD; it was a Seagate, not WD.

[Snuffy]

What have I missed that your using NVidia Raid/sata drivers.

it doesn't recognize the hard drive. I downloaded the latest NVIDIA Raid drivers,

unless your Mobo is NVidia... I use the Sata drivers from Maxtor and
Western Digital..they all so are my HDDs, and are the exact drivers that my Mobo ASRock furnishes. also I find XP Sata drivers do not work on Vista.

I'm not happy with the Maxtor Sata but it does work...

[felix8406]

I gave up on installing XP on the SATA drive. I'll be getting the HD from Seagate sometime today, so I'll install XP on that drive instead. It's an EIDE HD, so it should work just fine.

[Snuffy]

1. You did insure the pin configure for your Sata was moved to 1-2,
many are shipped set to 5-6. I set all mine to 300 using switch 1-2.
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2. you did check during boot at all HDD were found in proper sequence...and then check the boot sequence.
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3. If all HDD are not seen or in proper sequence, redo step 2. after reboot.
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I found if the sequence on boot is set wrong or if the HDD is not seen during post, then you have problems.... yesterdays was that simple... boot sequence was set wrong...

You still never mentioned your mobo manufacture.
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Seen on another forum where same problem, only he used NT sata drivers....I recommended using Win2000 (NOT NT), that solved his Sata driver problem...

Snuffy