Subject: Aaahhh.. Back with a new computer! (geek alert) Author: mick : member since January, 2006 : 425 posts Posted on: 2007-01-26 10:03:10

My thrusty old Abit NF7-S motherboard died a couple of weeks ago. The Northbridge-fan wasnt spinning at all, barely could make it spin with my fingers. Underneath it i found a core that has been very hot, a wee bit too hot by the looks of it..
So, after countless hours of researching and an extermely limited budget i bought a new mobo, cpu and gfx-card.
Ive always liked and used AMD cpus so i continued with an Athlon x2 4200+ Dual Core. My choice of mobos fell on a Asus A8N SLI Deluxe and the gfx-card is a Gainward 7600gt BLISS (just one for now). Due to my economy i still use my old crappy 1gig valueram and 120gig IDE hard drive..

Ive never ever had such problems with the assembly as with this one. For starters, the main power socket to the mobo, my old Antec psu had a 20 pin socket whilst the Asus has a 24 pin. I was told that many mobos with the 24pin work with the 20pin aswell, but no. Not this one.. And nowhere in town could i find an adapter and i didnt want to wait a couple of days for any of the computershops to order one. Bought a new psu, Antec smartpower something, too small for SLI but it works for now.
When i got power to the mobo things started to look good again, except that the screen was black. Nothing at all. First thought was that i have got a bad gfx-card so i take it out again and study it, no cracks or anything else shows, back in with it. After tugging in cables and checking the screen itself i was almost ready to cry, almost..
Then i saw it. The clips that hold the ram in place was open (empty slot) and was preventing the card to fully seat in its socket. Just pop out the card again, close the clip, pop it back in and voila!

But it seemed to be impossible to get any sound. In my frantic cable tugging earlier i accidentally removed the cable that goes from the mobo to the headphone socket i use as line out to my stereo.. Duh..


Spent the next.. many.. hours installing drivers and software. This was AFTER i got the internet to work. This mobo has a built in firewall and before i got it set up it thought that its best not to let me on the net at all.

Right now the only thing bugging me is the HUGE noise the cpu heatsink/fan makes. Maybe i should watercool it..? And i definately need better ram, this valuecrap is NOT up to date with the rest of it. Neither is the hard drive..

Well, everything works now and MAN does this thing go compared to my old XP-M 2500+ @ 2500mhz..

Just felt like writing off some steam after a long night of computerhorror followed by a long day at work.

11/1991 750i grafitsilber metallic, shadowline DC08038
4/1987 316 alpineweiss with brown spots.. 9836015

• Aaahhh.. Back with a new computer! (geek alert) - mick 2007-01-26 10:03:10 (208 views)
  • Re: Aaahhh.. Back with a new computer! (geek alert) - shadetree/pete 2007-01-28 12:55:03 (196 views)
    • watch the Corsiar Value RAM, it is total SHIT. - plbowler 2007-01-28 13:03:01 (219 views)
      • Re: watch the Corsiar Value RAM, it is total SHIT. - shadetree/pete 2007-02-10 21:03:04 (195 views)
      • Normal Corsair is good stuff though (nt) - plbowler 2007-01-28 20:40:23 (187 views)
        • check ur email (nt) - shadetree/pete 2007-02-12 20:56:22 (187 views)
        • Thanks for the heads up - mick 2007-01-29 09:14:23 (196 views)