Building a new P4 System - any advice?

[unixadm]

Hey guys,

I've been building systems for many years. I upgrade my systems a couple of times a year or so. Right now I just ordered these parts:

Antec Performance Plus 1080B Case w/ 430watt Antec Power Supply
Gigabyte 8IRXP Socket-478 Motherboard
Pentium IV 1.8A Retail
Thermaltake Volcano 7+ Heatsink
2 x 256 PC-2700 Kingmax DDR Ram

In addition to that I'll be using my current:

Hercules Game Theater XP
Logitech Z560 4.1 Speakers
Gainward Geforce3 Ti200 (230/540)
Western Digital 100gb 7200rpm HD
Toshiba 16x DVD-Rom (Black)
24x10x40 Liteon CD-RW
22" Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 200 Monitor

I'm replacing my aging Abit KG7-RAID, Athlon MP 1.2 (@ 1.47ghz) system. Is there anything I should be aware of other than the reboot issue with this board? I will be running the latest F6 bios. I'll also be running WinXP Pro. Of course I plan on overclocking and I'm hoping for 2.4-2.6Ghz. Any tips or tricks would be appreciated. I'm not a newbie to this.. but I figured it never hurts to seek a little advice from the pro's. I get all my stuff tomorrow (darn UPS wouldn't leave it today), so I'm getting a little excited.

 

[CyberFed]

the only thing that i see is the volcano 7+ has gotten mixed reviews many people are unhappy with its results, however I have not tested one i use a swifty, let me know how the temps work im curious to see if the hype of the 7+ is true. you'll hit 2.4GHz easy

 

[unixadm]

Yeah I saw that as well. Most liked the cooling performance, but the mounting on the P4 sometimes didn't work out quite right. I already noted the forum posts of the little plastic heatsink bracket holddowns on some motherboards. I'm not sure if the 8IRXP has them or not, but if so I'll grind them down or something. I'm pretty mechanically inclined so I should be able to work out any kinks in the mounting. I also picked up some AS3 for the install. I will definately post my results. I'm eager to see how it does overclocking wise. Thanks for the info.

 

[CyberFed]

anytime
but dont call us experts were all in the same boat just some of us know more than others thats all

 

[unixadm]

Well I got the system built tonight partially. I just tossed in an old IBM 7200rpm hard drive and an old DVD-rom to get WinXP installed so I could test the system. Updated bios to F6, installed WinXP at 1.8ghz. Got all the drivers installed and went right to 133x18. No problem. Then I went to 140x18, for 2520 @ 1.65 and that's where I'm going to do a prime95 test tonight. So far prime95 has been running for a few hours with no errors. The 1.8A is a Maylay Chip.

As for the Volcano 7+ mounting, it was a piece of cake. It fit on my board with no problems, but it was VERY close to hitting those plastic holddowns in the HSF bracket assembly. Just a little AS3 and on she went. 33C at idle, 42C under full load. This is with the fan in the medium setting where it's not very loud. On the high setting I'm sure it would drop it to 40C under load. I also have not installed the front fans and the side fan on the 1080B is not powered on!

Am I happy so far with what I bought. In a few words.. HELL YES. The 8IRXP board is AWESOME and the settings it has for all the dividers is very cool.

 

[Hookem]

I would really like to get some info on your Antec case...The pics over at Antec show it to be wider at the bottom than the top...over at newegg the pics show them to be straight up and down...which one is it ??? The new Plus power supplies are supposed to control the PSU fan speed and also the cooling fans in the case...How does it work and how quiet is it ??? Thanks !!!

 

[unixadm]

Ya know I didn't read the manual for the power supply, so I was wondering what those blue fan control wires were for. Now that explains it, but I have not tried that feature yet.

The case looks very similar to the old SX1030 series case. The difference is that this one has USB/Firewire on the front panel and it also has an additional 2-3 LED's on the front panel. Other than that, it just includes the new power supply and the side mounted 80mm fan. What you see is what you get at newegg. I got mine through mwave though.

 

[Hookem]

Yeah there are supposed to be "FAN ONLY" connectors on the power supply that you can connect up to three fans on each one (I think there are two)...By using the "FAN ONLY" connectors the speed of the fans is contolled by the power supply...Sounds like a good idea if it works...Well keep me posted if you do not mind...Thanks !!!