Help Soon, or I go balistic. What Board do I buy??

[Michael_Myers]

Answer these questions and I will be happy. Do a list with YES or NO in reference to the questions. That's all I ask.
Keep reminding yourself of this as you answer the questions: I AM NOT AN OVERCLOCKER. I just want to upgrade my PC FIRST, CHEAPLY, and do it correctly. THEN, I can worry about "if" I want to overclock, AND IF I DO, it will be VERY LITTLE.
Overclocking is not my thing. If I want a faster chip, I'll buy one.

Plans: Buy a new Power supply (300watt)

1) Is any old 300 watt power supply good?
2) I am going to with the Abit KT7A Board.
The guy at the store told me that if I got the RAID board my REGULAR "old" IDE hard drives would NOT be stable. He said only the Newer ATA/100 drives were stable on the RAID board. True or false?
(I want to upgrade later to the ata/100 but right now $ is tight. A few parts at a time for me is all I can do)

3) Why can't I use both types of drives? I have a 13 gig drive and a 5 gig drive. Both Regular "generic" IDE drives. (3 years old nothing fancy)

I would MAYBE purchase ata/100 rated drive and use it for the OS, and other stuff, but I WOULD WANT to use the other two "older" drives for storage.
(all that porn has to go somewhere ya know)

SO, A delema. If what that guy says is true, I must choose between one or the other. If I DO NOT get Raid, My older HD's work fine, but will be slow. If I DO get the Raid board, and ONE ATA/100 Drive, my other two drives Become useless. (IE non-stable)

4) Is there a way around this problem, or is it complete BS, just another salesman trying to get me to upgrade for no good reason?

The best world I can think of is this:
Upgrade to the RAID board now, Put in the 750Tbird chip, NOT OVERCLOCKED, and just plug all my other stuff into the new board. IE vid card, sound card, And Both IDE HD's. Then around Christmas time, get a new ATA/100 drive, and put my OS on it, and play games Off that drive, and use the two older drives simply for storage. But I am worried about the stability issue. If what that guy says is true, then my world just shattered.

What to do???? Heeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllppppppppp me!

 

[Hoot]

jack (May 18, 2001 02:55 p.m.):
Answer these questions and I will be happy. Do a list with YES or NO in reference to the questions. That's all I ask.
Keep reminding yourself of this as you answer the questions: I AM NOT AN OVERCLOCKER. I just want to upgrade my PC FIRST, CHEAPLY, and do it correctly. THEN, I can worry about "if" I want to overclock, AND IF I DO, it will be VERY LITTLE.
Overclocking is not my thing. If I want a faster chip, I'll buy one.

Plans: Buy a new Power supply (300watt)

1) Is any old 300 watt power supply good?

No, not all 300W power supplies are the same. Some may boast 300W, but they can be very wimpy where it counts. Namely the maximum combined power for the +5V & +3.3V outputs. Read the fine print. If they don't publish the specs, don't buy it.

2) I am going to with the Abit KT7A Board.
The guy at the store told me that if I got the RAID board my REGULAR "old" IDE hard drives would NOT be stable. He said only the Newer ATA/100 drives were stable on the RAID board. True or false?
(I want to upgrade later to the ata/100 but right now $ is tight. A few parts at a time for me is all I can do)

Do you need to run a RAID setup for your use? The KT7A non-Raid supports ATA100 on its regular IDE port. Any ATA-100 controller is backwards compatible with lesser drives, at no penalty in performance of the older drive. What a line of crap!

3) Why can't I use both types of drives? I have a 13 gig drive and a 5 gig drive. Both Regular "generic" IDE drives. (3 years old nothing fancy)

You Can !

4) Is there a way around this problem, or is it complete BS, just another salesman trying to get me to upgrade for no good reason?

The latter

What to do???? Heeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllppppppppp me!

Buy the KT7A (non-RAID)

Hoot

 

[Rottys-R-Us]

Get the Abit KT7E Mobo less $$ and just as good as the "A"

Seeing your not going to be O/Cing it anyway.

But it does O/C great

Good Hunting.

 

[Michael_Myers]

Thank you very much, BOTH of you.

Just one more question there (well two)

Can you tell me a "quality" (not fancy) 300watt power supply? Brand or specific?

Also, how many IDE drives can that KTA/E non raid handle?

Thanks.

 

[Rottys-R-Us]

On the power supply I just use the one that came with my mid tower.

It depends on how much $$$$ you want to spend.

Check this on the Mobo.

It will answer alot of questions. It's what led me to get mine.

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I have 2 H/D's on mine now & the CD player.