krimson_king

well i got my case in yesterday, and put some stuff in today. it came with brass standoffs (??) and i got worried for a second because i was pretty sure there was supposed to be some kind of rubber or plastic material between the case and mobo, but i guess not. anyway, i got the mobo in, put in the cpu, put on the hs (which came with thermal paste on it, which equals a wasted 11 dollars on an arctic silver 5 tube), connected lots of stuff, and jacked a dvd rom from some old computer in my house. it was connected to the sound card on the computer, and i was wondering...i dont need a sound card to hear anything, right?

moving on, all i really need at this point is a sata hdd (which is on its way), and some RAM (gonna get a single gig). now, i have a video card, and im sure its not great...but i dont know what it is. is there any way (with just having the video card) that i can get the drivers for it and everything? or should i just buy a video card? also, the hdd i bought is only coming as the hdd...i have a SATA cable, and the cable from the psu...is there anything else i need? and do hdds require any software? its a seagate barracuda, 7200 rpm, 8mb (160gb). thanks for your time.

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diduknowthat

You have to put the brass standoff's beneath the motherboard and screw your screws into that.

if your motherboard have onboard sound, then no, you can connect your speakers directly into that.

Use arctive silver 5 instead of the crap that came w/ the cpu, arctive silver is alot better.

You'll have to know what video card it is before getting drivers. And you'll have to use another computer and download the drivers onto a CD first. (or you'll have to wait till you get the computer operational. The vid card should work without the drivers but you'll see very poor performance. And your vid card should have came w/ a drivers disc.)

YOu need the screws to mount the harddrive.

what psu do you have?

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Dngrsone

^-- everything he said. You will need drivers for the SATA drive, they should come on a disk. If you are installing Win XP, then you will have to hit F6 and insert the driver disk when prompted.

Standoffs is a complex issue... most motherboards actually have ground pads where the screws are supposed to go, thus screwing into the brass standoffs is not an issue. Sometimes, however, there are holes in the board that are used to secure the board to the case which aren't intended for screws and grounding, which is why there are the paper washers. Care must be taken to ensure the board is not being grounded to the case anywhere that isn't intended.

krimson_king

i think on the board itself, there is something built in around the screw holes that sort of acts as a barrier. and yea, i know that windows xp will automatically configure the video card, i just wanted to know how bad it would suck. ok, well, its probably crappy enough that sometime in the near future ill just buy a new one. and yes, it has onboard audio...but thats ok. you DO need drivers for a hdd? damnit...i got the hdd unit ONLY on ebay for pretty cheap. i thought it was only something you had to do in bios, format then partition, and it was ok. it shouldnt be too hard to find the drivers right?

oh, and also...the psu is the one that came with the computer. it has a maximum of 425 watts. that might also get upgraded sometime soon, because i dont know that its all that stable.

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Dngrsone

Just read the manual for minmum current requirements on your rails for the motherboard... I recommend at least 16a on the 12v rails, 18 is better.

It's just SATA that XP has issues with, youo should be able to find the drivers at the manufacturer's site.

krimson_king

yea...i mean, the hdd is relatively common, so if thats the case im sure ill find it pretty quick.

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krimson_king

yea, ok. i visited the seagate website, and they have ISOs available. i can just make a bootable cd and be all set. ...phew. damn ebay auctions. i should really pay attention more...

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krimson_king

ok, now im thoroughly confused. what i have in the case now is the mobo, cpu with the hs and fan, some video card, a dvd rom...OK, well. first off, the things i have connected are the front two usb ports, all the leds for the front of the case, power button, etc., the fan, and the power. its a 20 pin configuration, and the 4 pin 12 volt thing is plugged in. now, i dont have a hdd in, and the video card i have in there has two notches in it, but the pci slot only has one (kind of like sd ram vs. ddr). when i push the power button on, (and i know this is very vague) it just starts beeping, like for one-second intervals. i dont know what it is, all i want to do at this point is to be able to get to the bios. i was pretty sure all you needed for that was the mobo and cpu. no ram, no hdd, etc. anybody? i can answer just about any question you have, because i put it all together myself, and i know what everything is (except for the anonymous video card).

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Dngrsone

That motherboard has an 8x AGP slot for video card. What kind of video card are you using?

The manual (appendix A) says that a single long beep indicates a memory problem. Ensure your memory stick(s) are inserted correctly in the correct slots/combinations.

krimson_king

ok yea...i dont have any ram in it yet. and its the wrong video card, i dont know why i even bothered.

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