Today is the day!

[Silearth 6]

Well, UPS dropped off the lovely boxes today. Monitor, assorted parts and a big, honking case that held the Raidmax Smilodon.

 

It took a few hours to get the thing going and to be honest, I am having a couple of issues:

 

I am using XP home, but I have PAE. For some reason shockwave thinks that I am running a 64bit version of Internet Explorer. Also, I couldn't get my SATA hard drive to work. I'll have to worry about that later.

 

Right now, I am looking for things to throw at this new computer. Just played a quick session of Sacred, but after I download my updates, I'll download the demo for Sacred 2.

[Pyrobelle 0]

do you have a copy of Oblivion. thats always a good thing to throw at your new hardware. lots of eyecandy you can play around with.

 

[Silearth 6]

I could always find a demo for that, I guess. But I think I'm going to have to wait until I get this thing running correctly. Having a couple of issues to iron out.

[Pyrobelle 0]

im not sure there is a demo for Oblivion but if there is go for it !

 

hope you get all your issues sorted so you can start enjoying your new PC.

 

[Silearth 6]

Believe me, I am enjoying it.

 

My major problem is not being able to use my new SATA hard drive. I moved the 102 gig WD from the dead computer--it took quite a jolt; I'm surprised the thing still works. A minor problem is the loss of the front usb ports and iffy support for my USB keyboard. I just looked in the manual and it seems that I missed a jumper for the keyboard....will solve that in the morning.

 

As for the SATA drive, there are a couple of ideas for fixing that. I can just buy a floppy drive, or I can try some involved trick that uses a program to make a SATA driver disk on a CD instead of a floppy.

 

Everything else is fine. The kids went crazy when they came home after school and saw the case fully lit, and the wife is getting a bit jealous as my new box smokes her laptop. She has a 2.4 ghz mobile 64 x2 while I have the 2.6 desktop. She has the integrated 3100 and I have to 3300. But I'm guessing that the kicker is her four gigs of ram are running single channel, while my G-Skill ram is running dual-channel.

 

Next year will bring Vista 64 bit, 4 more gigs of ram and a 4870.

[Zenon 0]

Congrats, Silearth! Eheh, Smilodon, it sounds a lot like a "dinosaurish" name!

 

I am using XP home, but I have PAE. For some reason shockwave thinks that I am running a 64bit version of Internet Explorer. Also, I couldn't get my SATA hard drive to work. I'll have to worry about that later.

 

You may want to momentarily turn off PAE and see what happens. Take a look here. By the way, how much RAM do you have?

For SATA, you should integrate specific SATA drivers for your hd in the XP installation disk. Look here. You may be interested also in reading the rest of the guide, its definitely worth it.

You should also download and install the latest drivers for your CPU and mobo.

 

Oh, and does your mobo support boot from usb? If so you may be interested in using this guides along with the unattended installation one, this way you don't waste a cd, and it's a lot easier to modify/improve whenever you want: here and here.

 

Hope this helps, and have fun with your new monster!

 

EDIT: added tip about booting from usb.

 

Zen

Edited February 11, 2009 by Zenon

[Timotheus 416]

For sata support: look through your BIOS. You can use some kind of UDMA5 mode or whatever it's called, letting Windows think you are using an IDE drive. My motherboard did that automatically, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been able to install my OS.

[plastique_exploda 0]

Sata support for your motherboard should be a simple option in the BIOS

 

is it a dynamic disk or basic disk (check your MMC and use the disk management snap-in)

 

When you import dynamic disks from old machines because the MBR is stored differently on them to a basic disk this issue can occur saying the disc is offline and not accessible if so just right click on it in the console and reactivate disk should fix that for you.

 

Windows has SATA Driver support natively installed it should at least recognise that the drive is plugged in without having to install new drivers (which is an option later if you want the hardware specific ones).

[Zenon 0]

For sata support: look through your BIOS. You can use some kind of UDMA5 mode or whatever it's called, letting Windows think you are using an IDE drive. My motherboard did that automatically, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been able to install my OS.

 

Yes, this could be a temporary measure, but keep in mind that not all motherboards support UDMA, and hard drive performance drops a lot. It may also prevent the correct installation of the SATA drivers. In my humble opinion, and from a few troubled experiences, it is always best to install SATA and the like at the very beginning. Therefore, I keep recommending Sileath to perform a fresh installation with integrated SATA drivers.

 

Zen

[Zenon 0]

is it a dynamic disk or basic disk (check your MMC and use the disk management snap-in)

 

When you import dynamic disks from old machines because the MBR is stored differently on them to a basic disk this issue can occur saying the disc is offline and not accessible if so just right click on it in the console and reactivate disk should fix that for you.

Mmm, didn't think of it. I guess that may actually solve the problem.

 

Windows has SATA Driver support natively installed it should at least recognise that the drive is plugged in without having to install new drivers (which is an option later if you want the hardware specific ones).

True again. But keep in mind that they are just generic drivers, and it's best to use the disk-specific ones, if available.

 

Next year will bring Vista 64 bit, 4 more gigs of ram and a 4870.

No, next year will bring Windows 7!!

 

Zen

[Silearth 6]

The default for SATA drives in my BIOS is native IDE.

 

Right now I have the drive working as D: and I can see what looks to be a complete windows install on it. Right now, the IDE drive is working like a champ. However, as I stated earlier, that drive took a huge jolt and I don't want to risk my files.

 

I'm going to copy all my files over and try a repair install. One problem that I had was that I have an upgrade of windows xp and no longer have a qualifying product. That's why I put the old drive in in the first place.

 

After reading a bunch of posts on SATA, it seems that it's just now worth the trouble to enable it.

 

On another note, I downloaded the Sacred 2 demo last night and it played very nicely. I enabled 2X AA and everything moved smoothly, though I started having zooming issues.

[Yarasa 0]

you could use free software nlite to integrate sata drivers, or even service packs in to your installation disc. Probably if you integrate sp3 in your installation disc it may fix your sata driver issue right away. And nlite will create for you another bootable xp home cd.

 

You will be amazed when you see what this small program can do. Once you integrate everything you want on your installation disc. It saves you big time when you would like to re-install your system.

[gogoblender 3,071]

Silearth, this is great news, wonderful! I know how long you've waited to be able to play. You must have had a smile a mile long on your face when the beauty appeared in the mail. Love getting stuff in the mail...I'll always remember how delighted I was when Dell unloaded the comp a few years ago from UPC that my parents sent me.

 

Looking forward to meeting up my friend, I'll be in Silver Servers tonight, hoping to meet up with some of our members here, and hoping even more to get a few more levels on the TG for Kami level twenty next week.

 

Cheers!

 

gogo

[Silearth 6]

Well, I was home sick yesterday. And no, I wasn't faking.

 

But still, when the boxes arrived I was grinning from ear to ear.....at least until I realized that my tech skills had declined over the years. The wife actually assisted me in the build--she knows nothing, but she did open boxes and tell me when my components were not lining up right. It was a nice family moment.

 

One thing we were all shocked about was the sheer size of the case--it's a giant.

 

Tomorrow my new keyboard should arrive--was using the one from the dell. And the next day, the kid's new computer should arrive. Well, it's not new as I bought a dell certified off-lease box. It's a bit faster than the one it's replacing.

 

But now I've got a real problem that no one can help me with: The wife likes my system more than her laptop.

[Schot 407]

lol @ wife liking the system. Oh boy. Yer in trouble now bub. ^^

 

I'm so glad to read that it's coming together Silearth. Looking forward to catching you in the Kami once again.