Carskick's Build

[Carskick]

Well, it built. My first build ever is up and running very nicely. Everything went smoothly except for heatsink installation and the LED and switch setup, as the manual was somewhat unspecific. But now it is running, very cooly I might add. At least the CPU. The gfx card is upper 50s, but thats to be expected for the 6600GT. Haven't done much with it yet, but there is something that it is doing that upsets me. After the BIOS rundown, it goes to a blank screen with no blinking cursor for about 25-30sec before continuing on to windows. Any ideas?  I will poast more info and pictures as time goes on, but setup takes time. Thanks for all the help!

[Carskick]

Dang I love this computer! The processor does not go over 40C in my room, which is about 78F. Even while running futuremark2003. Just for fun, I went into the BIOS after many burn in hours to do a very slight overclock just to see what it'd do. I chose a CPU Overclock, and made it 201 instead of 200. When I got to windows, I used CPUZ to discover it overclocked the memory to 202Mhz, and the total CPU speed was 1820Mhz. My first successfull CPU overclock. For now, I will put it back on stock speeds and mess around with this later, as I want to burn it in some more. Also, with my overclock, idle remains about 35C for the CPU and 34C ambiant. The only downside is that it is louder than my old HP. Also, that delay in boot up is annoying.

[pat]

Congratulations and happy computing.

The long boot may be caused by BIOS looking for devices that are not there, if you are only using IDE drives, try disabling the SATA channels in BIOS setup.

[Bill]

Good luck, Cars.  Looking forward to seeing the pictures.

Bill

[Carskick]

Thanks all! I disabled SATA in the BIOS, which was actually under IDE configuration for some reason, and it took about 5 seconds off the blank screen thing, but it is still there for 20-25seconds. Once we get past that with no CDs in the drive, Windows is up in another 10-15seconds. If I can get rid of the blank screen, maybe my computer will boot in a total of 30 seconds! Any more ideas?

[Chandler]

Have you turned off RAID?
Is Hard Drive set as 1st boot device?

[Carskick]

I'll take a look at that Chandler.

Also, it is doing something even worse. Sometimes, it doesn't turn on. I have to turn of the power strip and let it sit for a minute or two before it will turn back on after a successful shutdown. I don't like that at all, and it doesn't make any sense. Now, I have a revision E processor, and according to Epox's website, the BIOS version I have doesn't officially support it, which I believe could be causing issues. As of now, I have no floppy drive, so I can't do a BIOS update just yet, but I can easily get one.

Edit: Chandler, made the changes, but same blank screen.


Edit2: Regarding the inability to power up, it does it if I try to power up after a shutdown, and the HDD LED flickers, but the computer does nothing, even if I cilick on again. I have to wait a minute or two before it will boot again. Weird.

[Carskick]

Okay, I have some more information that may shed light on the problem. After I shut down and try to start, the HDD LED light flickers, and the speakers make a noise, then it goes dead, right? Well, I cannot get it back on until I turn of the power strip (remove) power for a little while. Well, I noticed after I remove power, it will make a little "Seeoot" sound about 30 seconds later. After that, I can return power, and the system boots. How is this related, and can it be fixed? Is it a bad setting, defective part, or what? At least I feel like I know what the situation is, but this is something I'd really like corrected if at all possible. Any input would be appreciated. As a reward, once the problem is fixed, I will poast pictures and detailed specs!  ;)

[Chandler]

Are you using a KVM switch for keyboard/mouse?

[Carskick]

No, they are directly hooked up via PS/2.

[Chandler]

Do you have the PVR150 installed?

[Carskick]

No. That is staying in my HP. I actally don't have any PCI cards installed. I went in and tried flipping the POWER_SW and RESET_SW on the mobo, but it had no effects.

When I press power, and the HDD light flickers, the rear fan  starts to spin, then stops receiving power immediately. From looking at the setup, I cannot see anything wrong. I'm also going to try and call Antec and or Epox today to see if they have any ideas.

[pat]

Have you tried watching the LED on the motherboard to see where it stops the boot?

[Carskick]

The numerical LED on the motherboard only flickers, as does the HDD LED on the outside. The computer is only "on" for about a tenth of a second when it turns back off. When it has a successful boot, the LED on the mobo reports no errors at all.

[Chandler]

It sounds like something is bad, either the PSU or the motherboard.  Do you have another PSU you can try?

[pat]

You may also want to double-check all connections.
Try booting with just video and hard drive, if you?re using two sticks of memory, just try with one.

[Carskick]

No I don't have another PSU to try. The only other ones in the house are HPs.  :P

I will try what Chandler reccomended, but that is only removing optical drives and a stick of memory. I wonder if that will help?

It is still hard for me to believe that if either the mobo or PSU is defective, that it only sometimes has the problem.

[Carskick]

I tried Chandler's reccommendation, and no cigar. Check this thread out, though.

http://www.aoaforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31119

Very similar to my issue, and similar hardware.

Antec also called me back, and the rep said he had never encountered the problem and reccomended a BIOS update, and RMA the PSU if that didn't work. Sheesh. Why do I always get stuck with the sometimes issues?

[Whizbang]

Reset CMOS and see if that fixes first.  Mobos have a bad habit of having near-dead CMOS batteries put in them.  You might need to replace the battery.

I have had a problem with my Soyo kicking back on after power down if I bump the mouse.  The system is susceptible to this for up to 30 mimnutes.  I am guessing bad grounding of capacitor somewhere.  You might connect a wire to a metal screw on the computer case and then connect the wire to a true ground wire somewhere just as a test.  If you have metal plumbing, you could attach to that.  I would stay away from using any electrical grounding wires.  Improper grounding there could create a whole new can of worms.

The PS could very well be the problem because it does contain capacitors which would require time to drain even when adequately grounded and might prevent proper booting if PS is under-powered.  

[Carskick]

Well, tried reseting CMOS, and no cigar. Also, flashing this thing is very poorly described in the manual, so I'll hold off on that. I'm to the point where I'm willing to deal with the apperantly common defect.

Anyways, lets get to the fun part!!!










There is the system, now for the specs:

-Antec SLK1650B case with 350watt Smart Power supply
-AMD Athlon64 Venice edition 3000+, which I am running at 1854mhz
-Epox 9NDA3J Nforce3 Ultra AGP motherboard
-OCZ 2x512MB VX PC3200 RAM, which I am running at 2.5-3-3-6 & 206Mhz
-Gigabyte 6600GT video card, which I am running at 550/1100Mhz
-Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM 8MB cache HDD
-NEC 3540 DVD+-RW
-Mitsumi 48++ CD-ROM

I have been having a blast tuning it. The RAM is actually VX high performance RAM rebranded as ValueRAM. It's stock settings are 2.5-4-4-8@ 200Mhz, and without touching the voltage, I have got it perfectly stable at 2.5-3-3-6@206Mhz. The CPU never excedes 40C, even under load, so it's happy. Now the video card. I installed coolbits, and told it to detect optimal settings. It went from 500/1000 to 576/1148!!! I said okay..., then ran futuremark 3DMark03 at those settings, and it worked, with only one tiny artifact the whole time, which may have been in my mind. My score went from 7930 stock to 9030! Although I didn't leave it there, as I don't like to leave stuff heavily overclocked,  so it is sitting at a nice 550/1100, and temps hover around 60C under load, very good for 6600GTs. The reviews were right about the Gigabyte card, it's awesome for overclocking. So it's running great dispite the boot issue, and I'm happy for now. Hopefully a solution will present itself, but if not, I can deal with it.

[Bill]

Nice job, Cars.

[Whizbang]

It definitely needs some cat hair just to make it official.   ;D

[Carskick]

Heh. Actually, my old computer had surprizingly little dust and cat hair in it. Well, the HP had no air flow, so I'm not suprized.  ::)

Anyways, The IDE cables ended up short, but stuffable behind the 3.5" cage, out of the way of airflow. So there is very little obstruction, and temps are perfect, so no problem at all there. Hopefully the system will be updatable to dual or quad core when I'm ready in the next 2-4 years without a new mobo needing purchase. I'll just have to figure out how to flash the BIOS by then.

[slaxorz]

Since its a socket 939 it will atleast run a dual core processor for the future, might require a bios update but thats not a problem.

[Hoot]

Nice looking box Carsick  :). I like you're system.

[Carskick]

Thanks. Everything still running fine!

BTW, just as an update, with my graphics card turned down to the 550/1100 overclock, my 3DMark03 score was about 8600, so I probably leave it here. I am not near the limit of my card, so it should be fine long term. Temps for it are the same, overclocked 550/1100, or stock 500/1000. I highly reccomend the Gigabyte 6600GT for it's coolness and stability. Anand was able to get this card most highly overclocked out of all the ones he tested, and it was a great price, so I said, hey why not? Gigabyte will definitely be a company I deal with in the future.  ;)

[Hoot]

Glad you are enjoying the build  :).  Gigabyte is fine usually, only thing is that excellence varies to a great degree depeding on the model with Giga mainboards, and i know it's that way with all companies to a degree but with Giga it's more pronounced. That said, you bought one of the 3 great 6600GT's. MSI, BFG, Giga make the best IMO with eVGA and Leadtek getting honorable mentions. I like the simplicity of your build - yet cost effective and highly upgradable, and it's looks really jazzed in that case. I bet you will have fun gaming with the unit too. Oh, and yes i realize now that it's "Carskick" and not "Carsick". LOL my bad.

[Carskick]

Yeah, economics and future upgradability were my emphasis with this build. In 2 years, I should easily be able to put 2 more 512MB sticks  or 2 1GB sticks and get 2-3GB of RAM total if needed, or upgrade the CPU to a modern 939 of the time, or add more hard drives, etc. The system uses so little power, the 350watt Antec will definitely be more than enough, at least until I upgrade the CPU. With the extremely low CPU temps I get, there is no way the CPU is taking a large wattage.

Also, it's funny you should mention eVGA and Leadtek as honorable mentions, as they were serious considerations. I really liked the Leadtek's heatsink design, but benchamrks showed it lagging behind the other 6600GTs a little it. I didn't like the eVGA heatsink design at all, but they were a good deal at one time, and I trust them more than Rosewill and the like.

It has been great for gaming thus far, and heh, ya finally noticed the second k!  ;)

Cheers

[scuzzy]

Hey Cars,

Your system looks great. You just have to deal with the cable mess once you get that problem resolved. I don't have a solution, but here's some troubleshooting tips for you:

The next time you shut down the system, give this a try:

1. Immediately after the system shuts down, unplug the power from the wall outlet. See what kind of effect this has.

2. If #1 has no effect: Immediately after the system shuts down, disconnect the power supply from the motherboard.

Although this won't resolve the problem, it might help determine if the problem is the motherboard or the power supply.

On a side note, I've had a lot of problems with my upgrade. I won't poast the details in this thread, but ultimately I had to RMA a deffective ASUS A8V Deluxe motherboard. After *lots* of more issues, I finally have my system back up and running.

[Carskick]

Although they apper pretty messy in the pics, the wires are actually pretty clean. The IDE1 cable is just barely long enough to reach the top optical drive, so that's why it looks stressed, but both IDE cables are flatened on the right side of the case, and out of the way of airflow except to the RAM. The power cables are somewhat covering the CPU fan, but that is pretty much unavoidable, as the 20 and 4 pin hook ups are between the CPU and the rear case fan. I am not yet sure if I can get this cleaned up or not, but the temps are so low, I am not too worried about them.

As far as your tips, what will I be looking for when I try those troubleshooting ideas? I know when I turn it off, and immediate unplug the PSU, it sits for a few seconds before making a "Cheo" electrical sound. About three seconds after that, I can reattatch, and the computer boots fine. I have gotten it down so pat, that I barely find the occassional non startup an inconvinience. If there are no other problems, which none have turn up yet, then I am perfectly happy with it. Thanks for the tips though.