Am I wasting my time? SL7E3+P4P800SE

[Chaiyz]

Greetings and salutations. This is my first post and I hope I'm not wasting anyone's time here but I need some advice.

I'm using a walmart bought compaq sempron 3000+ that I've had for the past 2 years. It's fine for surfing and some of the other things I've been doing lately but I'm realizing that I need a new computer and I'm poor so I wanted to just upgrade the MB and processor and here's what happened so far.

I found a new Asus P4P800SE for $25 on the local craigslist. I also picked up a P4 2.8 prescott processor at the local computer resellers for $20.
I also have a spare DVD burner and an extra pair of kingston DDR 3200 512mb's.

I need a fan and heat sink, and I also need a case and I'm stumped as to what to buy. Reason being I'm starting to enjoy modding and don't want to throw a bunch of money on an older setup unless I can use the parts later to upgrade to a better MB/processor combination.

I've seen a bunch of fancy heatsinks for the 478 but I want one that I can take with me when I make the jump to 775 or what comes after that.

Currently I just want a faster computer, my tired sempron still works fine but I'm hoping that I will notice a much snappier system when I get the prescott/p4p800 running.

I'm also wondering if I'm ****ing up a rope and just throwning good money after bad and if I should be buying a new 775 MB and a dual processor?

I have a toshiba laptop that has dual 1.4's and it's running vista on 2gigs of ram and it's slower than my 2 year old sempron 3000+.

Anyway, I know this is somewhat vague but I'm looking for a mentor of sorts that can point me in the right direction and give me some guidance when needed.




Here's what I have so far. Need a PSU & case and a Heatsink & fan. I do want an LCD front panel as well.

Any help is much appreciated!

Thanks,

Chaiyz

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

For $45 total, I think you got a good deal. That CPU should do 3.5-3.8ghz, it will all depend on your temps and your power supply. At stock speeds it won't be much of an upgrade.

You could do a lot worse than the Corsair 450vx for a powersupply (not that you'd want to): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139003

Case is pretty much up to you. I haven't bought a new case in years, it's kind of a personal thing IMO.

For a cooler this is about the cheapest I would go: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185114&Tpk=arctic+478
You can spend more, but for a 478 rig I'd keep it on the cheap.

Let us know if you have any more questions, and WELCOME to the forums.

 

[orion456]

I'd go with the xp-90. It works on the 478 and using the $5 adapter it can be converted to the 775 boards.

The xp-90 is still a great performer and I am using it on a q6600 quad right now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=xp-90

You will need a Panaflo fan as well:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835705011

But rereading what you have, I doubt a p4 2.8 is going to be a lot faster than your sempron is now. I think its time to bite the bullet and save for a new 775 unit. The heat sink and fan still applies anyway, but you will be a lot happier with a Gigabyte DS3L mobo and a newer cpu; most likely 3-5x faster than the sempron.

 

[Chaiyz]

Update!!!

Hello there, Well I found a Lian-Li aluminum case locally last week and also picked up a Thermaltake spark 7+ heatsink/fan combo at the same place, I am not very impressed with the look of the case but the ease of disassembly was what sold me on it, the MB tray slides on rollers and it's very easy to get in and out of. Also added an old ATI 9200 that I had laying around.

Since this is my first selfbuilt PC, I wasn't sure what to do after I had it all put together. I still don't have a 3.5floppy drive so I decieded that I'd go ahead and try to fire it up and see what happens.

Well, upon pressing the power button, both HD and powerleds light up and stay on, I don't have an IDE HD on the main ide channel (see pix), I've got a single WD SATA drive on the 1st SATA channel and a CD burner and a DVD burner on the secondary IDE channel.

So, I powered it up and it didn't wake up my monitor. I put a utility boot CD in the CDR hoping the burner would recognize it, nope, the light turned amber within about 5 seconds.

The green LED is supposed to give post codes right? I need help troubleshooting if anyone with one of these p4p800's has any advice. Here's the pics of the case and my configuration, showing some of the jumpers. If I need to take more or better pictures, let me know and I will. Just want to get this thing up and running and start enjoying it.





Thanks in advance,

Chaiyz

 

[Chaiyz]

Here are some more pic's of the Lian-Li case.



Chaiyz

 

[Chaiyz]

anybody? Does anyone have a link to a good troubleshooting site? I need a little help.

Thanks,

Chaiyz

 

[JLK03F150]

Are you able to enter BIOS? If so, switch the boot priority from fdd>hdd>cdrom to cdrom>fdd>hdd. Then put your Windows disk in the optical drive and boot from CD. Are you wanting to use a Windows install on the WD sata drive, or planning a format & fresh install?

Edit: Oops, helps to completely read your post before responding. doh. Try clearing the CMOS. Power off & unplug. Move the jumper to the Clear position for a few minutes, switch jumper back to the Normal position, plug in and try to power up again. Did you carefully check for the correct number & placement of motherboard stand-offs on the tray? An extra one can ground the board & cause a boot failure. Is the floppy drive connected? Make sure the cable isn't flipped - pin 1 to pin 1.

On a side note, taking the fan guard off the Spark7+ will make the fan a little less noisy.

Welcome to OCForums.

 

[cabose1227]

I like the way that case looks, whats the model number?

 

[Chaiyz]

Well, I got home today, switched the jumpers around to clear the CMOS, verified that the SATA HD as well as the CD's are correctly connected. Fired it up and nothing, no beep, doesn't wake up a monitor. The CD rom reads from green to amber within 5 seconds of inserting a CD. Not sure where to go from here. I'm wondering if this MB is bad?? The seller claimed it as new but I did see some dust on the socket 478 bracket from use. I'm lacking some troubleshooting information. If I can't get this combo to work, I may just buy a new MB and processor, but which one? I want speed, usability as well as tweakability and I'm new to this. Need I say more?

Chaiyz

 

[dop3y]

I am no genius but i was lookin at your pics and was wondering what slots you have your memory in? I had that same issue except it was on a newer set up and the board actually wasnt able to boot cause of the fsb on the board wasnt compatible with the fsb of the CPU. I doubt thats the reason. Just was wondering what slots you had your memory in.

 

[JLK03F150]

You're right dop3y, looks like there's ram in slots 1 & 2. It should be in 1 & 3 (blue) or 2 & 4 (black) for dual channel to work properly. That probably not the reason he's getting a no POST, but if he gets the board up he'll want dual channel.

Chaiyz, how long did you go for BIOS reset? It can take hours before a reset takes effect.

Your goal now is to wake up the video & get to BIOS. Can you confirm that the video works in another PC first? Also do a bench test. Pull the mobo & put it on a nonconductive surface. CPU, heatsink/fan, 1 stick of ram, and video (confirmed working & all aux power connected) connected to PSU with a case speaker to hear BIOS beeps. All ide, sata & floppy devices should be disconnected.

Good luck man, hope you get it back up.

 

[Chaiyz]

Hey there. I forgot to mention that I realized that I had memory in the wrong slots and simplified the setup to verify that the MB posts.

My last test configuration is as follows

1 stick of memory in the first slot
IDE on secondary channel connected to one CDburner set to CS.
1 9200 ATI card

With the system stripped down it still wouldn't even post. I'm stumped. I don't know if it's the MB or the processor.

Since I bought the MB from craigslist and the package was opened and there was dust on the fan retainer bracket, I'm starting to believe that this mb was a pull and was bad. The guy I bought it from said it belonged to his Ex wife, an IT person and she had left it in his garage but he swore that she only kept good parts and that if it was bad, she would have thrown it out. Anyway, I've only got $25 in it anyway so I'm just thinking I might want to find a nother MB.

My setup is extremely frugal, I actually spent more money on the monitor than anything else.

P4P800SE $25
P4 SL7E3 $20
Lian-Li case $50


The rest of the parts I already had or traded for. My PS is also a question mark. It's a Lite-on and it's only rated for 300Watts.

I'm not sure but maybe my PS is the issue?

Anyway, if it turns out that I can't get this to post, I'm going to need a new MB and I need suggestions.

If you had a 2.8 prescott HT, what MB would you buy???? I am open to all suggestions, PCIE, SATA etc.

Thanks,

Chaiyz

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

are you positive you have everything hooked up on the mobo properly? I am referring mostly to the case speaker/power/reset switch.

 

[PirateXP]

Also I think that mobo uses the Asus speech POST reporter. So if you can hook up speakers to it, it might tell you what's wrong.

 

[Chaiyz]

nope, nada. I've got my speaker hooked up correctly and it doesn't make a peep.

Anyone else know if this board has the speech reporter? Also should I be trying to find another p4p800se if this one is bad or should I be looking for a P4C800 ?

I'm sure someone knows which board would be the best for my setup, I just need to know which one so I can start looking for it.

Thanks,

Chaiyz

 

[JLK03F150]

The P4C800 or Abit IC7-G Max II are a better match for overclocking the Prescott, but the P4P800 and some other 865PE chipsets do fairly well too. I ran my 3.4E on my Abit AI7 for a while (reached 3.9ghz stable on air), before I moved it to the IC7-G (4.1ghz on H2O). You just need a really good power supply, really good HSF and extra cooling on the mosfets.

 

[Chaiyz]

Hello there. Since I've not been able to get the P$P800SE to post, I started looking online for a used P4C800E board(that is the correct model number for the deluxe right?)
and found this Alienware tower for a song. It's got the P4PE motherboard which I don't know anything about. The specs are 2.4Northwood, P4PE, 512MB corsair EPS pc2700,80G Barricuda 7200/udma100, SATA onboard (raid support??) Nvidia 6200 not sure of the exact version though, soundblaster 7.1, firewire CDburner,DVDrom,floppy. XP Professional with the COA in perfect condition.

I've not really played around with it much but I was hoping that the p4pe was able to handle the prescott. I have no model number to go by and I can only find specs on the MB but they say that only the 2 Willemet/northwood cores are the only ones supported, then I saw that the FSB is 533,400. I'm not sure of the bios version but it itsn't locked and it is an award phoenix bios, will post the exact one tomarrow. I didn't see any asus extras in the bios but I was only in there very briefly so I probably need to look again.

So, can I update the bios so I may get this thing to run my SL7E3? I also read it only supports 4x agp and was wondering if that was also something that was controled by the bios, not sure if they changed plugs between 4x and 8x.

I almost feel like I'm going backwards though, I started with a sempron 3000+, then bought a 2.8 prescott and MB and all the extras only to find that the MB was bad and wind up settling on a 2.4 alienware?????

I would have probably done better to have just bought the Q6600 barebones tigerdirect had not long ago.
I'm trying to relearn though and I'd rather start with where I left off with the macs, also, I won't be quite so scared overclocking and trying h2o on one of the latter 2 systems.

Also, on the COA it says on top 1 or 2 CPU, what does that mean?





If anyone wants me to post pics of the interior, I may open it up tomarrow to clean it with some compressed air and to add ram.

Thanks for looking and I am still in need of a P4C800E if you have one and can part with it PM me.

Chaiyz

 

[Chaiyz]

bump