[How to] Hardware advice Guide for PC builders

[vincent]

I'm posting this to serve as a guide for all the PC builders here on Neowin.

Lately there has been a lot of Power Supply issues and HDD problems that members here have been experiencing. So this (hopefully) will serve as a guide for Some of the Novice PC builders we have here. Of course they can always post

for some help.

Hard Disk Drives- handling, installing advice

The HDD is the only mechanical (besides the optical drive) in your system that is gonna be containing your system's data. So be careful when transporting, installing, and even sometimes holding your HDD.

- From the time your at the store make sure you absolutely are sure what type of drive your gonna want/need before you take it off the shelf. Always place it in your cart carefully. Make sure it's not gonna suffer any unwanted vibrations from the time its placed in your cart. to the time it is installed in your rig ( i recommend using thumb screws when installing the drive in the 3.5in bay. there easy to use and provide a firm grip on the component. Remeber these platters in the HDD itself spin at a high rate (5400rpm - 10,000 rpm) so securing them properly in your case is VERY VERY important. you dont want the component to die early.

- Purchasing the right drive.

Todays applications need decent performance from a HDD, since this is the device that will be loading the application into your system memory to be processed by your CPU. Noone likes a sluggish HDD. You wanna pick out a disc that displaysan RPM speed of at least 7200(this is the mainstream standard for most drives)

and an 8MB cache (Hard drives have a cache built in to hold data that is being written to or read from the hard disk. The purpose of doing so tries to reduce the number of occasions in which data has to be physically written and read from the hard disk platter. By retaining recent data within the cache performance is increased as this memory is much faster and saves time on repeat recalls)

so 8mb is a decent amount for any mid to high end performance machine that is being built.

- Make sure that when installing your HDD ( whether it is gonna be an upgrade or a new one) Map out how your cable placement is gonna go. you wanna provide some cooling for the drive itself so you wanna place your cables to allow decent airflow. Because, although they don't generate as much heat as the CPU,Video card, or the northbridge chip on the chipset. The platters can and will warp, causing a head to crash and destroy the platter(s) themselves. If not properly cooled. I always recommend a case that can enable you to install 2 case fans on the front for some decent intake (a good PSU is recommended )

side intake fans also helps in this.

- If your gonna want more than a single HDD in your system make sure there one bay space apart from eachother in the case. Doing so will allow airlflow between them, rendering them to run at a cooler temperature. Never ever place them right on top of eachother doing so will reduce the life of your drives over a period of time. You may not experience in the short run but if you access both drives alot (especially if there in a RAID config) then they are gonna go out faster.

- Multiple HDD's.

When installing more than one HDD it is important to setup the master/slave configurations. you "Windows" drive should be set as "Master" second drive should set as slave. With this information you need to refer to the "jumper" settings(a diagram on this is printed on the drive itself)

IDE Hard drives- Windows drive is gonna be setup as Master on the Primary IDE channel this channel is indicated on the board itself, usually blue or green in color.

The IDE cable is gonna be used in a specific, recommended manner. The colored end of the cable Should go into the matching Channel(primary ;) ) The windows drive is gonna be placed above the secondary drive(storage drive) in the case.

Storage drive needs to be setup as "Slave" and placed below the primary drive in the case (remember ONE bay space apart) this is will be installed in the middle part of the cable. ( refer to the image)

SATA HDD's- the next generation

- SATA is the next setep in the evolution of Pc HDD interfaces. these differ in IDE drives in the fact that: They cannot be chained on a single cable. One to a cable. And that they have a "Transfer rate" of 150mb/s

(Sustained vs. Burst Transfer Rates)

(Sustained transfers refer to a continued transfer that does not occur from the drive cache. Burst rates refer to data transferred directly to/from the high speed cache. A true indicator of performance is sustained rate; however, most drives are advertised with their faster burst rate.

A typical ATA/100(IDE) hard drive bursts at about 100MB/sec from the cache, but has a sustained rate of about 26-42MB/sec, depending on the drive. If you consider a best-case scenario with the 2MB cache full of data, 100MB/sec will quickly deplete the cache and commence transferring at the lower sustained rate.

ATA/66 hard drives are typically less expensive and do not saturate the 66MB/sec bandwidth available. In fact, a hard drive with a sustained transfer rate of 26MB/sec will not even saturate available ATA/33 bandwidth.

In summary, sustained transfer rates should be considered over burst transfer rates for maximum hard drive performance.)

- Transporting your case to LAN parties.

Always take the uppermost precautions when transporting your unit to a get together, make sure your system is placed in a asfe location in your vehicle that will not be exposed to any bump(s) that you may come across on the road. (Check for pot holes ;) )

Power Supply Units(a.k.a the PSU)- finding the Right wattage for your needs.

- When building your system You wanna kinda map out your plans. And figure out how many components are gonna be in your system. AND if your gonna be adding/ upgrading(more power hungry device(s) ).

- Bundled PSU's are 8/10, a cheapo. There OK if you're gonna be building a basic,budget word processing system for you Aunt Martha. But for any Hardcore or any gaming rig ( who wants to run the latest game engines) A seperate PSU should be purchased(provided that you love the particular case and can't get it without the PSU). Purchase a PSU manufactured from a reputable company, Antec, Enermax, PC power & cooling. Are some great companies and make really dependable units.

- When installing your PSU always make sure not to half ass the job and place the unit in it's proper place using ALL the screws it needs. DONT be in a hurry to build your rig.

- Always purchase a unit that contains DUAL fans this helps in the removal of hot, out going air from your case. Especially after the CPU heatsink and fan removes the heat from your Intel or AMD processor. It has to go somewhere it cannot remain in your case.

- Cable management is also very important for a PSU as well. The less air flow restriction the cooler your components are gonna be.

Thank you for your time on reading this advise :)

Edited March 8, 2005 by ripgut

[stncttr908 Veteran]

A mod needs to work some sticky magic on this one. I get tired of sifting through HDD/PSU threads too. :D

[enigma-penguin Veteran]

Nice start Ripgut, (Y) definately, but theres probably a few more things I guess you could add.. I cant think of them atm..(its 6:21 am and I havent slept yet) but Im sure people will think of them and you can simply get them added on to the end :D

Edit: I thought of one..stances taken by amd and intel at present (sockets, atx,btx.. ddr and then ddr2).. stuff like that (definatly will be common questions)

How many times do we see things like this? and with btx comming, its gonna happen, you can tell. the market is confusing for alot of people atm.

[vincent]

Post em and i'll add them i just pm'd a mod to ask if this can be stickied. Thanks Penguin and Stncttr908 :D

[dreamz Veteran]

some other things to add (i'm at work, so i can't be more elaborate. someone fill out my suggestions):

hdd

-talk about jumper settings. that's very important when installing drives.

-talk about the configuration, which one you want as primary ide or second, etc.

-maybe talk about formatting, erasing drives, emergency repairs (e.g. freezer)

-purchasing tips? what to look for (e.g. cache size, seek times, etc.)

-difference between sata and pata

-explanation of udma

-talk about esd, magnetism and handling of hard drives. also talk about using grommets to reduce vibrations.

psu

-talk about the importance of stable rails. a good story would be how to monitor voltages.

-talk about amp ratings

-explain what the p4 atx12v connector is for and why it's good to connect it, even on amd systems. you can also talk about other connectors.

-explain that the side with the fan faces down to suck the air through the psu

[manroweb]

This should be moved to "essential guides"

[vincent]

updated :)

[Hypoxiaicon]

Awesome Rip (Y)

[Mx]

Great guide ripgut!

[MrStoo]

i'm writing one for college and for home, thanks for the information :happy:

[blik]

Great guide, only gripe is

Always purchase a unit that contains DUAL fans this helps in the removal of hot...

A good quality PSU with a single 120mm fan can be as efficient and quieter :)

[M/\TT]

Nice guide man! (Y)

[gwai lo]

looks pretty good, don't see anything blatanly wrong... (Y)

now to fix the grammar and typos ;)

[vincent]

looks pretty good, don't see anything blatanly wrong... (Y)

now to fix the grammar and typos ;)

585588225[/snapback]

Don't blame me . Blame my athristis. :rolleyes:

[.weir]

we should put together a bunch of these guides, and make like a mini 'essential guides' sub-forum in hardware, strictly directed toward hardware purchases etc. I mean stuff like cpu's and video cards could be an entire guide on their own, and there are a lot of questions that get answered repeatedly around here

[IK47]

thanks man.

helped a bunch.

[ROM3000]

Thanks for the great guide, ripgut.

[Nelsinho]

good job (Y)

[Alex Shenoy]

Also I didn't see anything about motherboards, processors, and ram. So I think I will add it.

Motherboards

The motherboard is the most important piece of hardware. It determines what kind of processor, ram, and add-on cards you will be using. With that in mind, you should try to look at a board that will fit your needs. If you think you will be upgrading in the future,get a FULL ATX form factor. This will give you enough slots for things like sound and video cards. Plus make sure that if you will be using old components, that the board supports the features you will be using. For example, if you have Serial ATA hard drives, make sure the board has SATA onboard. Otherwise, the addon card will slow down the speed of the device.

Things to look for in a chipset, include what kind of devices are including. If you will be doing alot of gaming, make sure you have a good gaming chipset. If you are planning to overclock, make sure the board supports this.

CPU

Today, two CPU companies dominate the market. Intel and AMD. They are both good for what they accomplish. Benchmarks place the AMD Athlon 64 line above the Intel Pentium 4. But others go the other way. The best thing to do is understand what each company is trying to provide. Pentium 4s have Hyperthreading, which allows two thread to be processed at the same time. This is good, but it also slows some programs down. Another thing to keep in mind, is Hyperthreading is good because of Intel's extremely long pipeline.

AMDs use HyperTransport which is actually a clever name to try and compete with HyperThreading. HyperTransport is nothing more than a really short fast pipeline. Both accomplish the same thing. Speed. The problem is that no two benchmarks show the same results. And usually the results aren't too far apart. So the best bet is to find other people that use the computer for the things you will and see what they say.

Soon, Dual Core processors will be out, and these will have two processing cores on one chip. It will be like having two processors in one. Both AMD and Intel are planning Dual Core chips due to launch this fall. But I would expect those to be pricey.

Just remember, the CPU is also important. A good Motherboard/CPU combination can save you upgrades for a year or so. (Not that you wouldn't upgrade, just that you could live without it.)

Memory(RAM)

Random Access Memory is another important factor in building a computer. The trend for average computers right now is to have a min. of 512MB of DDR Memory. I would recommend 1 GIG or 1024MB of DDR Memory. You can start out with 512, but I would add the additional 512 shortly after building the computer. The added performance helps with games and things. It also allows you to due more with your computer and increases speed.

Another new technology is DDR2. This is a supposedly faster type of memory. Right now, however, it isn't implemented enough to be cost effective.

Closure

There are also other things to look at, such as Video and Sound Cards. And Cases and Monitors. But I am getting tired and need to write some papers. So, I leave those up to other people.

--Alex

[Phil Mossop]

Great pieces! I think I will move my second HDD so there is a drive bay between the two, after reading this guide. I just whacked it in the HDD bay! :D

[Toastyone]

very nice Ripgut and open_coder....for the power supply stuff maybe you should stick these links in they tell how much wattage you need for your computer... Also maybe say something about it being a good idea to always get at least 50watts more than you need...

http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

http://extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp

[Chad]

As a guide, this should naturally be in the Guides forum

moved

[johngalt]

Nice guide.

[Jimbob7]

The HDD is the only mechanical (besides the optical drive) in your system that is gonna be containing your system's data. So be careful when transporting, installing, and even sometimes holding your HDD.

- From the time your at the store make sure you absolutely are sure what type of drive your gonna want/need before you take it off the shelf. Always place it in your cart carefully. Make sure it's not gonna suffer any unwanted vibrations from the time its placed in your cart. to the time it is installed in your rig ( i recommend using thumb screws when installing the drive in the 3.5in bay. there easy to use and provide a firm grip on the component. Remeber these platters in the HDD itself spin at a high rate (5400rpm - 10,000 rpm) so securing them properly in your case is VERY VERY important. you dont want the component to die early.

HDD's can take being dropped, depending on how much pressure it is under when it hits the floor, you are way over the top here. you said its important you secure them properly... not really, infact if you screw a hdd in on both sides of the bay to tight you can pull the hdds insides apart slightly ending up being a hude keyring. I really do hope you don't treat your hdd's like this, its a waste of alot time and effort haha. :whistle:

Guide was good otherwise, me and a few others just found that part about the hdds rather amusing :laugh: .

[vincent]

The HDD is the only mechanical (besides the optical drive) in your system that is gonna be containing your system's data. So be careful when transporting, installing, and even sometimes holding your HDD.

- From the time your at the store make sure you absolutely are sure what type of drive your gonna want/need before you take it off the shelf. Always place it in your cart carefully. Make sure it's not gonna suffer any unwanted vibrations from the time its placed in your cart. to the time it is installed in your rig ( i recommend using thumb screws when installing the drive in the 3.5in bay. there easy to use and provide a firm grip on the component. Remeber these platters in the HDD itself spin at a high rate (5400rpm - 10,000 rpm) so securing them properly in your case is VERY VERY important. you dont want the component to die early.

HDD's can take being dropped, depending on how much pressure it is under when it hits the floor, you are way over the top here. you said its important you secure them properly... not really, infact if you screw a hdd in on both sides of the bay to tight you can pull the hdds insides apart slightly ending up being a hude keyring. I really do hope you don't treat your hdd's like this, its a waste of alot time and effort haha. :whistle:

Guide was good otherwise, me and a few others just found that part about the hdds rather amusing :laugh: .

585969087[/snapback]

Thumb screws and one bay space apart..... they do generate heat and more more folks are investing in Raptors, think about it ;)