balforth
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I originally didn't have my own thread, mainly because I was embarassed of my cable mismanagement skills, but after being shown the err of my ways, I decided to post one so I could seperate it out of the main gaming htpc thread and show some before/after pics.
So here is my parts list:
Main Hardware
Since building it, I have learned that I should route several of my cables underneath my motherboard. When the 2 Gentle Typhoon fans come in, I will strip everything back out and do some cable re-routing.
I was googling stuff every step of the way. I found the same problem with the rubber fan mounts -- I thought I was going to break them I was pulling them through so hard. I was surprised how tight of a fit everything was in that case -- I had to take the CD bay out to get the motherboard to fit in.
I was also surprised at the new technique of applying thermal paste -- just using a dot in the center and plopping on the cooler without spreading it. I wasn't entirely sure how to set all the fancy little jumpers like TPU etc, so I left it all at default. On first boot, I got a blank screen. I think the code on the motherboard was A3 or something like that. The book said it meant "drive event" or something else very non descript. I started scrambling and searching the internet. Then I changed HDMI inputs on the TV.... DOH. Everything was fine -- the drive event was that I didn't have any bootable media in the computer.
So I flashed my ASUS p8p67 deluxe bios to 1003, the Crucial c300 SSD was already at rev 0006. I disabled the Marvel controller as I'm only using the Intel. My memory is showing up as 1333 instead of 1600, which I heard was a problem. But all the settings were set to auto... so I'll have to play with that later.
I heard win7 only takes like 10-15 minutes to install on the crucial ssds. I didn't time it, but it sure seemed like it took 20-30 minutes. It was pretty late so I only got to install video, audio, and usb drivers. I also quickly installed firefox, xbmc, real temp, and folding@home. I'm having some video problems -- when it autodetects my resolution as 1900x1080, the picture extends off my screen on all sides, and the picture is not sharp at all -- it looks like I'm NOT at the native resolution. When I resize the boundaries with nVidia's tool so it fits my TV, it sets it to 1842x1026, and still looks crappy -- fonts are jagged and blurry. Not sure what to do about that.
Coretemps were between 30 and 32 in the BIOS when I first turned it on. I wasn't sure how to stress/load test it, but I started folding and temps rose to 45-48. It was like 01:00 in the morning by this time, so I left it run overnight. This morning, I turned the TV on, moved the mouse, hit keys on the keyboard, and coudn't get the computer to do anything -- no picture. I hit power, hit reset, nothing. So I held power in and it seemed like it turned it off. I waited a few seconds and hit power again to turn it on and it said "Resuming windows" or "Waking up" or whatever it says after it's been put to sleep, so I'm not quite sure what happened there.
One thing that immediately struck me a superbly awesome was audio. I'm used to having a headphone jack -> RCA cable plugged into the laptop with tons of EMI and background noise. Now audio is, well, you get it.
Not sure how good the Windows Experience Index is for really rating a system, but that's all I have at the moment. Highest score possible currently is 7.9. I have the XMP profile loaded for my memory, so it's running at 1600, and I'm currently running my processor with a multiplier of 45 (=4.5GHz) and a vcore of 1.32V. Here are my numbers:
Windows Experience Index Scores
I'm hoping to get my cooling in order and see if I can get my CPU score to 7.9. I haven't done a thing with my video card yet, but it seems like if I could mildly push it, it could get to 7.9 as well.
Lots more configuration and playing to begin/continue tonight. Thanks to everybody who helped me put this together, especially Razor!
So here is my parts list:
Main Hardware
- Silverstone LC17b Case
- Corsair HX850W PSU
- Intel i5-2500k CPU
- ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Motherboard
- 2x4GB G.SKILL Ripjaws PC1600 DDR3 RAM
- Gigabyte GTX-470 Super Overclocked
- Crucial C300 SATA3 64GB SSD
- WD Caviar 7200RPM SATA3 1TB HD
- HP SATA BluRay
- Noctua NH-U9B SE2 92mm SSO CPU Cooler (fans currently on CPU heatsink, to be moved to front case later)
- 2 x Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm Case Fan
- 2 x Scythe Gentle Typhoon 92mm Case Fan (on the way) (to be used on CPU heatsink)
- 2 x 80mm Fan Gaskets
- 2 x 92mm Fan Gaskets
- Logitech K800 Wireless Illuminated Keyboard
- Logitech Wireless Performance Mouse MX
- Logitech Harmony One Remote
- Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
- XBMC - Aeon MQ
- MakeMKV (for ripping BDs and DVDs)
- Handbrake (for conversion to H.264)
- Media Center Master (automatic renaming, and metadata scraping)
- 2.5 inch to 3.5 inch SSD mounting kit
- Rubber chasis fan gaskets
- Gelid GC-Extreme thermal paste
Since building it, I have learned that I should route several of my cables underneath my motherboard. When the 2 Gentle Typhoon fans come in, I will strip everything back out and do some cable re-routing.
I was googling stuff every step of the way. I found the same problem with the rubber fan mounts -- I thought I was going to break them I was pulling them through so hard. I was surprised how tight of a fit everything was in that case -- I had to take the CD bay out to get the motherboard to fit in.
I was also surprised at the new technique of applying thermal paste -- just using a dot in the center and plopping on the cooler without spreading it. I wasn't entirely sure how to set all the fancy little jumpers like TPU etc, so I left it all at default. On first boot, I got a blank screen. I think the code on the motherboard was A3 or something like that. The book said it meant "drive event" or something else very non descript. I started scrambling and searching the internet. Then I changed HDMI inputs on the TV.... DOH. Everything was fine -- the drive event was that I didn't have any bootable media in the computer.
So I flashed my ASUS p8p67 deluxe bios to 1003, the Crucial c300 SSD was already at rev 0006. I disabled the Marvel controller as I'm only using the Intel. My memory is showing up as 1333 instead of 1600, which I heard was a problem. But all the settings were set to auto... so I'll have to play with that later.
I heard win7 only takes like 10-15 minutes to install on the crucial ssds. I didn't time it, but it sure seemed like it took 20-30 minutes. It was pretty late so I only got to install video, audio, and usb drivers. I also quickly installed firefox, xbmc, real temp, and folding@home. I'm having some video problems -- when it autodetects my resolution as 1900x1080, the picture extends off my screen on all sides, and the picture is not sharp at all -- it looks like I'm NOT at the native resolution. When I resize the boundaries with nVidia's tool so it fits my TV, it sets it to 1842x1026, and still looks crappy -- fonts are jagged and blurry. Not sure what to do about that.
Coretemps were between 30 and 32 in the BIOS when I first turned it on. I wasn't sure how to stress/load test it, but I started folding and temps rose to 45-48. It was like 01:00 in the morning by this time, so I left it run overnight. This morning, I turned the TV on, moved the mouse, hit keys on the keyboard, and coudn't get the computer to do anything -- no picture. I hit power, hit reset, nothing. So I held power in and it seemed like it turned it off. I waited a few seconds and hit power again to turn it on and it said "Resuming windows" or "Waking up" or whatever it says after it's been put to sleep, so I'm not quite sure what happened there.
One thing that immediately struck me a superbly awesome was audio. I'm used to having a headphone jack -> RCA cable plugged into the laptop with tons of EMI and background noise. Now audio is, well, you get it.
Not sure how good the Windows Experience Index is for really rating a system, but that's all I have at the moment. Highest score possible currently is 7.9. I have the XMP profile loaded for my memory, so it's running at 1600, and I'm currently running my processor with a multiplier of 45 (=4.5GHz) and a vcore of 1.32V. Here are my numbers:
Windows Experience Index Scores
I'm hoping to get my cooling in order and see if I can get my CPU score to 7.9. I haven't done a thing with my video card yet, but it seems like if I could mildly push it, it could get to 7.9 as well.
Lots more configuration and playing to begin/continue tonight. Thanks to everybody who helped me put this together, especially Razor!
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