My Build Begins,

It's build day! Months of planning and trying to talk myself out of the costs are a thing of the past. My parts are here and after watching the Newegg 3 part video of how to plenty of times, the build begins. I'm off to pick up some reusable zip ties that I forgot earlier. Thanks for all of the help and input; this commutiy is one of the best hands down.

Wish me luck!

Hey That is GREAT. Just take your time building it and just follow the directions or if you get stuck just post here.

Take some pics along the way and after the build you can post pics of your Components.. I myself always read the Build logs.. it is always a good day when one gets new hardware..

Dont forget your Thermal paste for the CPU.. unless your heatsink comes with it preapplied..

OOoooooo... build day! Good luck, and hope it boots up first time!

Thermal paste, check! I'll be sure to take some pics. I already have one of the case opened up. VERY impressed with it, all of the accessories was a nice touch.

I have a quick question about the LAN drivers. There are FOUR listed for the ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe/Gen3. Do I download and install ALL of them, or do I pick just one? This is the only driver question I have. All of the others were pretty straight forward. The USB driver section had 2 choices however the file size for them was exactly the same so I picked the later dated one. PLEASE let me know what you think about the LAN drivers.

Thanks again,
Mark

You might want the latest for the LAN drivers as well... no sense in installing 4.

Jeez, thanks for the quick reply!!! So basically they all do the same thing, just different ways of getting there? I'll take the latest then.

Almost finished with the build....haven't flipped the red switch yet. I only have two questions so far.

1) What to do with the red front SATA cable coming from my case. CoolerMaster Haf 932 ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe/Gen 3

2) On my Western Digital hard drive, there is an extra connection on the back an 8 pin male. Not sure what connector fits over that, if any.

1) it's for the eSATA port on the front of your case. Look in the manual, for the SATA connector on your motherboard that can be changed in the BIOS to eSATA.

Also, set your BIOS to AHCI as it is the newer more advanced SATA standard.

2) Disregard that connector. Not used by 'us'.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1400/c/185/p/227,295/search/1

JAMF, not sure how to change the BIOS to AHCI right now. I just plugged the cord into one of the ports with the rest of the SATA connections.

HOWEVER....I'm happy to report that SHE'S BREATHING!!!!!!! All of the plugs are in, got the POST boot, all fans are running, LEDS are lit, beeped at me and everything! I can't tell you how relieved and happy I am. There's a palpable sense of my being proud of myself. I couldn't have done it without Paul's vids from Newegg but I still did it, with some help from you guys. I'm sure I'll have some more questions a about drivers and such, but it's done. I've got a spare parts box now not to mention a destroyed kitchen! haha I took a bunch of pics along the way so I'll get them up when I can (do you have to host pics?).

Thanks again guys...I'm going to sit down for a minute and catch my breath.

Well apparently the BIOS on that motherboard defaults the SATA mode to AHCI, from what I've read on the XBit labs review, so you're fine on that point.

Congrats on enjoying your Frankenstein moment: "It's alive... ALIVE!"

yes my brother in law just got a new pc the otherday for his business and it was default on AHCI, I also did NOt need to AHCI drivers pre win install..

I know on my current board I need to install the AHCI Driver prior to installing windows. I wonder what was changed to make it work without installing drivers??

Also you should now stress test the PC you just built to make sure it is stable.. Even if you do NOT OC your PC it is good to do a stress test to check stability of the PC. Best to find out know vs deep in a mission or something and Blaam BSOD!!

It is relatively simple you can run LynX (Stress Tester) and Real Temp to monitor your temps to make sure the CPU stays within its Operating specs..

Just run Lynx for about 10 minutes while monitoring your CPU Temps.. You can also do the same for your Video card get FurMark it has a good burn in test to stress the video card..also make sure you get a tool like MSI Afterburner to monitor those temps of the Vid card..

wear a static bracelet, i dont care what anyone else says, not wearing one is asking for trouble.

1. Should just plug into one of the last SATA Ports and the board, dont remember if my case had the power separate or not, i think it did.
as long as BIOS as eSATA/AHCI enabled you can plug n play eSATA Drives.

2. the 8 pin male array is used for debug and backward compatibility (limiting SATA mode, limiting Size, etc etc)

SATA Controller Chip, some controllers were out prior to win7, so the drivers are included in the installer .cabs

Congratulations TGFan! You should feel an accomplishment!

In addition to the good suggestions to run a stress test, run the machine day-and-night for 3-4 days, checking the heat and visually checking the fans are spinning.


SimHQ hosts pictures for registered members. Click on this icon and just follow the instructions. JPG and PNG supported. 950 pixels wide is the maximum width. You can add larger but the board will reduce it to 950. You'll get better quality by using 950 width from the start. Looking forward to seeing them!

Been using my iPad to browse. Surely that's what's giving me probs.

I've been playing FSX on my 1080p TV via HDMI and so far I'm not very impressed. I have a monitor ordered and hopefully I'll see a difference. Also, I've got the game maxed out and I'm not seeing the butter FPS that I was expecting. I hope this build wasn't a bad idea. I guess I'll find out in a couple days.


The pre-build, I was SOOO happy when I got the POST boot. It's got a V-8 baby!!!


The back of the beast, prior to putting the back panel on. VERY tight so I had to lay the cables almost completely flat.


Inside of the completed product. VERY happy with the build and extremely proud of myself.

What are your specs? I searched this thread but couldn't find where you listed them

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3544825/Time_For_A_New_Rig.html#Post3544825

Sorry about that, specs in sig block now. Not sure why frame rates aren't off the charts. I haven't done any sort of tweaking yet, however that still doesn't extinguish my concern

Immature drivers.

Hopefully you're referring to the system drivers?

Video and chipset drivers.


TGFan,
I got a new GTX 580 video card in March and was not happy with the frame rates in DCS A-10C. But over the past couple of days I got into some serious testing with all of the graphics options available. To keep track of my progress I am keeping the details in Excel and will share that in a day or two. I got to a point last night where the cockpit jaggies are gone while the frame rate stays smooth at 30 (it's capped at 29 in the sim - my 30" monitor is running 1920x1200, 16:10 ratio, at 59 Hz).

May have to do the same tests again, as EVGA offers an upgrade within 90 days and I've signed up for a GTX 680 that should be available soon.


WC

Wrecking Crew - I'll be interested to know how the continued testing ends up. After I finished the build, the drivers where the first thin that I updated. I didn't reset the computer after I updated the chipset drivers (which I did first) before the rest of them, but hopefully that doesn't make that much of a difference. Once I get set up, and have my monitor in front of me (hopefully tomorrow), I'll also get into tweaking mode.

I hope to be sharing some sweet screenshots by this time next week.

TGFan,
Check out page 28 on this thread - the spreadsheet I'm using to figure out my best graphic settings is there. Gives you an idea of what I'm going through...

A-10C Graphics On A GTX 580

WC

Thanks Crew. I'll check it out after I get home.

I'm happy to report with a little finagling, I was able to get FSX playing well. The real treat was seeing DCS A-10 running SILKY smooth with ALL sliders to the right. I couldn't be happier. The build was def worth it. I had fun, learned (am still) a ton, and saved some money.

Thanks again to all that helped.

Hey mate congrats on your build!! Looks like you ve created a beast !! Don't get discouraged if you can't get FSX running well, it's got nothing to do with your build. I initially thought I d done something wrong when I fired up FSX and it ran like crap, but in reality it's got nothing to do with your machine, the coding or whatever in that game is #%&*$# and it doesn't take advantage of today's gfx card power. I think Lockheed is developing a new FSX called prepar3d? And have some of the ex FSX crew on board to fix the code and start taking advantage of today s tech. Enjoy your new rig!!!

Cheers

How much was the total cost on your build?

I'm not 100% sure of the exact amount, but I want to say it was in the $1800 range.