reinvent the wheel ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3

[mikealaska]

up date , coffee break

we have most everything hooked up , the fans are really going to take some thought about air flow but that just makes things more interesting.

we are making a run for a usb mouse , after that we are ready for step #11, oh 10:13 pm ak.time.the Zalman z9 case is easy to work with ,, the XFX PSU has plenty of cables and plug in's .

we have had the video card in and out three times so far , pesky little connections, now that is the last thing we are putting in.

we are working together as a team that is worth all the gold in china.
Daniel's friends are getting up dates as well ,, i think you OverClockers have started something !

 

[Seebs]

up date , coffee break

we have most everything hooked up , the fans are really going to take some thought about air flow but that just makes things more interesting.

we are making a run for a usb mouse , after that we are ready for step #11, oh 10:13 pm ak.time.the Zalman z9 case is easy to work with ,, the XFX PSU has plenty of cables and plug in's .

we have had the video card in and out three times so far , pesky little connections, now that is the last thing we are putting in.

we are working together as a team that is worth all the gold in china.
Daniel's friends are getting up dates as well ,, i think you OverClockers have started something !

LOL...

I'm glad you guys are having fun building your son's computer. It sure will be a heck of a bonding experience.

And "Yes"; we recruit just like other sports... And getting 'em young means more time to mold them and train them. I do feel for you though; I'm sure either of you, or maybe both of you will get sucked into the whole benchmarking thing soon enough and that's when you're really gonna hurt. Wait until the kid says "Dad, I need a SR-2 motherboard, two X5680s and a few GTX590s... I'm gonna go get me some HWBot globals for team OCF"...

 

[trents]

up date , coffee break

we have most everything hooked up , the fans are really going to take some thought about air flow but that just makes things more interesting.

we are making a run for a usb mouse , after that we are ready for step #11, oh 10:13 pm ak.time.the Zalman z9 case is easy to work with ,, the XFX PSU has plenty of cables and plug in's .

we have had the video card in and out three times so far , pesky little connections, now that is the last thing we are putting in.

we are working together as a team that is worth all the gold in china.
Daniel's friends are getting up dates as well ,, i think you OverClockers have started something !

Just signed on to check your progress. 0700 here in Washington state. Sounds like you're having fun. When you get all the hardware in place at some point give some attention to cable management for good air flow: Rearrange, tie things up, tuck them away, etc. Air flow should be moving from front low to rear high in the case.

Concerning the front panel buttons/LEDs when you go to connect them to the motherboard pins, realize that the power button and the reset switch don't require attention to polarity but the Power and Hard disk LEDs do. Try it one way and then the other if they don't light.

 

[mikealaska]

we have a fully running pc, lights, fans, pc case is working very well switches cpu temp , dvd is ok,,, we have somthing on the screen that tells us to push a key for bios , but nothing happens when we push delete f2 f8 it just repeats it self ,, it boots so fast we can not read the instructions ,,
so should i run the asus dvd ? there is two of them ?
we have not installed any softwaare yet , os or video card.

we stopped at 1am ,, we are having a great time Daniel is very proud , i felt good knowing we have a PC from boxes.

And all of your help !

 

[trents]

Asus might use a different key to enter setup/bios than other manufacturers. Most use "Delete". ASRock uses F2. Don't use F8 as that is used to boot up into Windows "Safe Mode" when you suspect bad device drivers. What key does it tell you to press or are you saying you can't read it because it goes by too fast? Are you sure your keyboard is functioning? Maybe that's why "Delete" isn't working. Are you using a USB keyboard or a PS2? If a USB, try a PS2 keyboard as USB keyboard function sometimes requires that ability to be specifically switched on in the bios. Default may be PS2. I would hold off on installing OS until you figure out how to get into bios as USB mouse may not work either and you will need the mouse (edit: and keyboard) when you begin to install the OS.

 

[mikealaska]

Hi Trent

we have ps2 key board ,, i will try to read it shortly , we have been out shooting clay's today , no time to really spend with the pc .
when we get back after 6:30 we will have a go at again, for now we both are very happy with our progress i'm not worried a bit now .
soon i can contact you on our new AsusZ9 .

ENJOY THE SUNSHINE !!

 

[trents]

Hi Trent . . .

ENJOY THE SUNSHINE !!

Actually, the sun did shine some today. A rare event this time of year in western Washington. First grass mowing of the season. Like bailing hay. It was a killer! I'm beat now!

 

[mikealaska]

ok ,, what we did and not do ,,configure your drives , we both searched on every tab and opened every expanded view but could find AHCI MODE.
we did not find the tab for onboard video or disable it.
we did set the DVD to boot first.
we have windows installed , and updated
I'm not to sure about the video card , there is no icon or any thing in downloaded programs , we did get it registered . i would unistall if i could find it or update it ,, it was a pain in the a$$,, .it is 1:30 am , and i'm sending this from pour new Gamimg PC, Daniel got to fly some planes and crash them , but he will get better this one is much faster .
oh by the way, i am in no way complaining ,, the yellow type is nearly impossible to read printed out, maybe purple . pink is cool , "Pink Is My Favorite Crayon" aerosmith. Yea we was trying out the speakers , just seemed normal Tyler would be involved.

oh yea it was really sunny here ,, i took a chance it was for you !

bios information
1703 version
11-16-10 build date
MBECB-0011,, EC bios version

 

[mikealaska]

OK ,, i got the drivers for the vid card and i did have the files ATI , drivers and catalyst.
I'm going back into bios and look for the onboard video, could be there now , asus tried to reconize them off the dvd but i stopped it. ??
this pc is running very smooth at 26c to 24c.
more , on sunday ,,, maybe we can test it ?
what is a good video test ?

michael

 

[mikealaska]

Thanks everyone one of you , this has been a blessing to our home and your all a part of that compassion, and kindness is just a finger tap away ,you have proven that.

Rolling Thunder your trust in trent was inspiring
QuietIce , giving me confidence in my mother board.
Davarei , 24 pin 8 pin you tipped me off first!
Meathead , i'm not feeling so bad now
xXSebaSXx , trying to stay ahead of him is a challenge
Bijiont, only believe half of what we read,
Theocnoob, next time ? i will ask.
trent what can i say , this team rocks!

michael

 

[RollingThunder]

Thanks everyone one of you , this has been a blessing to our home and your all a part of that compassion, and kindness is just a finger tap away ,you have proven that.

Rolling Thunder your trust in trent was inspiring
QuietIce , giving me confidence in my mother board.
Davarei , 24 pin 8 pin you tipped me off first!
Meathead , i'm not feeling so bad now
xXSebaSXx , trying to stay ahead of him is a challenge
Bijiont, only believe half of what we read,
Theocnoob, next time ? i will ask.
trent what can i say , this team rocks!

michael

Mike,

Your first build is always the toughest. Now is the time to try things, familiarize yourself with the BIOS (not too much there!) and drivers, etc., before you really get to using it. You can't really hurt too much. The worst you can do is have to reinstall your operating system and that certainly is a good learning project too.

Everyone one of us can make a good list of things we have screwed up during a build!

 

[trents]

Mike and Daniel, it may not be necessary to disable the onboard video as "usually" it is automatically disabled when you add a video card. I just like to make sure, that's all as even though not the active video system it could be holding back memory from the rest of the system, i.e., what it would have reserved for itself had it been used as the active video system. On-board video steals from system memory as it does not have memory of its own like a discrete video card does.

Concerning the AHCI drive mode, that can be done after Windows is installed. It's a simple edit of the Windows registry. Here's an article of how to do it: http://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7-rc-after-installation/

Of course, you still need to find the line item in bios to switch it on after you edited the Windows registry. I have to get going early this morning because my grandson is involved in a program at church and their service starts early but when I get back I'll plan on downloading the PDF of your motherboard's owner's manual. Maybe I can spot the line items in bios dealing with these things.

The yellow type: It's terrible to see in print but shows up the best of all the colors on the OC Forum pages black backgrond and my old eyes need all the help they can get. If you need to, you can change it before you print by copying and pasting it into a MS Word file and then change the font/color.

By the way, what was it that enabled you to finally get into bios? Did the PS2 advice help?

 

[trents]

A good video test would be one of the 3DMark benchmarks. You can download them off of FutureMark's website.

It would probably be more important, however, at this point to do a stress test of the CPU and the RAM. So, download and istall "Prime95", and "CoreTemp". Open CoreTemp and leave it open while running the Prime95 "blend" test for two hours. If at any time the core temperature exceeds 60 C, stop the test. Let us know what is the maximum temps CoreTemp reports.

 

[trents]

Okay, found those two items in the owner's manual bios setup description. To activate AHCI mode (Main: Storage Configuration) you have two choices. 1) Edit the Windows registry as explained in the link I gave in Post #52 and then go into bios and choose "ACHI" (it must be done in that order or you won't be able to boot into Windows) or 2) Change the setting in bios first and reinstall Windows. Personally, I think choice #1 is the way to go since if you foul up editing the Windows registry the worst thing that could happen is you would need to reinstall Windows. Disabling the on-board graphics is found in Ai Tweaker>Storage Configuration. Here are the pics:

 

[mikealaska]

ok , i got it we are working on getting our programs loaded up , Daniel went flying today, both my girls did . then we went to Fable , got the piano wizard and Yamaha drivers loaded. windows security , realtime, couple others.
the pc is very stable, fast, no shut downs smooth as a clock! plays the games very well no issues, windows 7 is not XP , I have to get used to.
We have not had time to go into bios yet Daniel and I can do that together better to have 4 eyes two brains in there, as soon as we can get the downloads from Prime and
CoreTemp we can get those numbers for you , thats a good way to start understanding OC.
we got our msi 799fx-gd70 board on Sunday , somewhere down the road i can start collecting parts , i like the QuietIce build on this site that looks like a good plan . now i know what where and how to buy parts . newegg kills me on shipping , lots better to use USPS up here.
how did you get started building PC's and overclocking ?
i will try to tap into the local scene up here once we learn the bios , this board has alot on information about adjustments ,now how do we find a game that we need to OC ?
are we trying to raise the speed of play? the htz
Thanks both of you , RollingThunder , and Trent
back soon ,, michael

 

[mikealaska]

getting into bios was simple just hold delete key while the PC boots , it was after i slept on it did i remember that .

now I'm going into disable on board graphics ,, you know we have that book just goes to show ,, men never read the manual or get lost!

 

[mikealaska]

OK found , how too: 3 Step Guide to Overclock Your AMD Phenom

that will get us going , this z9 case has a temp probe and temp reading , we wound the wire around the pipes then tucked the prode end into the base, it seems stable , is there a better way ? we have 4 fans i can add one more to the top over the cooler , i have one fan on top blowing out above the memory.

 

[trents]

What we really need is the "core temp" of the CPU. There is already a temp sensor built into the CPU die for this. There is software that will read that in Windows. That is better than installing an external probe like you're doing. Download a free program called: "CoreTemp". While your're at it, download "Prime95" (a stress tester) and CPU-z (reports about hardware and bios settings).

 

[mikealaska]

OK will do thats what i need to know ,, trying to include as much information about Daniels pc as i think is needed.
We can get started on the downloads today after school , and try to run the tests tonight.
The more i read this site i'm starting to understand, i really would like my son to run all the test and bench mark. 5 am already and no sleep .

 

[mikealaska]

Day three , all is well not even a hiccup , I did a reset in the middle of a search just to see what would happen , shut it self off went to bios to reset and give me a choice go back or reload press enter it came right back up to desk top.

The most scary, dumb a$$ thing, I did building this PC , after learning to plug in the 8 pin so our DOA mobo would kick to life . my son and I after much laughter and smiling we hooked up everything to prepare our dry start out side the case, that begin a chain of events that give me a sick feeling knowing I screwed up, and calming myself to find a solution .
As I said, we installed the CPU and the factory supplied heat sink and fan clamped it down jumped the posts and bingo kicked to life , and stayed steady , jumped it off,, wait a couple minutes,, jumped it on , bingo running smooth.
OK we kicked off, pulled the 8pin 24 pin , and cable.
it was then did I decide to pull the the heat sink , humm stuck so I twist it a little pull a little and out pops the 955be CPU stuck to the heat sink, well I knew that was wrong
(the sick feeling I had), got it off gently laid it on and nope its messed up so I take a closer look and yea some pins are bent on the outside row at the corner near the clamp lever end, using my finger nail I try to straighten them.
By now my son is aware there is a problem his eyes feel like needles watching my every effort to save the build on SATURDAY NIGHT.
I laid the CPU in with a loving prayer, nope won't go , I look at the pins closely, try to adjust them one more time ,, I move the clamp lever back and forth, I lay it down, nope will not drop, I wiggle, con joule and sweet talk, I move the lever some more , finally it drops in.
I camp it down thanked god, the earth, and my son.
DAY THREE HOLDING STEADY , CHILDREN ARE HAPPY !