MB Combo advise.

[Russ Uno]

While most of them aren't cheap, this thread is full of ideas for small cases.

 

Yes, I have been following that thread.. Too bad there are few small cases to choose from at a reasonable price..

Bigger is not always better..

 

PSU just came in. That was fast, just 2 days.

[Rajahal]

Just one question. I did some googling for the Sempron 140 and it uses a AM3 socket but looks like it is backward compatible to the AM2+ in the 760 board so I assume it is ok. And it looks like I have to go with DDR2 800 ram.

Yes, the Sempron 140 will work, that's the same configuration I'm using.  No special set up is needed, it is all plug-n-play.

 

I have only tried DDR2 800 ram in that board, so I can't really comment there besides to tell you that it will work.  I expect that slower ram (DDR2 667, for example) will work as well, but I can't guarantee it.

 

Anyone here old enough to remember Wang Computers?

Nope, I'm 24, but I'm sure some of the more veteran users are!

[queeg]

Anyone here old enough to remember Wang Computers?

 

I remember removable disk drive platters that you unscrew from the drive.  The platters I remember were like 18in in diameter.  The drives were about 2/3 the size of a washing machine.  And the capacity was like a few MBytes.  The word gigabyte would make people chuckle.  The way backups were done was copy drive to drive and remove the disk pack (platters) from one and put it into storage somewhere.

The platter was exposed to the air when removing them from the drive.  Sometimes they had scratches from handling.  I also remember the 5 platter pack was really heavy!

[queeg]

 

I was planning on buying this 4-in-3 drive cage for my box when I need it.  It will fit I'm pretty sure and there should be about 3 inches between the back of the drives and the psu because the unit will sit flush with the front of the case.  That would give me 8 drives with 2 external 3.5in spaces separating 4 above and 4 below.  And one empty 3.5 slot at the very bottom. 

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817993002

[Joe L.]

I actually made the first printed circuit boards, 1400 holes thru plated, for the first table top computer, but that was the 70's.  Anyone here old enough to remember Wang Computers?

My first personal computer was "analog" ... way before ICs, way before motherboards... It was from a time when most consumer electronics was point-to-point wiring, so way before plated through holes. (pretty sure PC boards existed, but not sure if I remember double sided boards back then) I was in the 6th grade.  My analog computer could add, subtract, multiply, divide, do logs.  I assembled it myself from a kit I convinced my folks to purchase for me. It was in the early 60's.

 

Many years later, when I was in my mid 20's I too laid out, etched and drilled the PC boards to expand my first modern digital computer. (I built a 64K memory board for it, double sided, soldered on both sides where needed as I did not have plating equipment) It was Z80 based CPU.

 

Do you remember when computers had no IC's at all?  I do... No, I don't go back to the tube days of computing, but to the transistor-diode logic days when I repaired them for the Bell System.

 

Joe L.

[queeg]

I actually made the first printed circuit boards, 1400 holes thru plated, for the first table top computer, but that was the 70's.  Anyone here old enough to remember Wang Computers?

My first personal computer was "analog" ... way before ICs, way before motherboards... It was from a time when most consumer electronics was point-to-point wiring, so way before plated through holes. (pretty sure PC boards existed, but not sure if I remember double sided boards back then) I was in the 6th grade.  My analog computer could add, subtract, multiply, divide, do logs.  I assembled it myself from a kit I convinced my folks to purchase for me. It was in the early 60's.

 

Many years later, when I was in my mid 20's I too laid out, etched and drilled the PC boards to expand my first modern digital computer. (I built a 64K memory board for it, double sided, soldered on both sides where needed as I did not have plating equipment) It was Z80 based CPU.

 

Do you remember when computers had no IC's at all?  I do... No, I don't go back to the tube days of computing, but to the transistor-diode logic days when I repaired them for the Bell System.

 

Joe L.

 

You're a god!

[prostuff1]

You're a god!

 

I had a professor in school that sounds a lot like JoeL.  He had probably forgotten more about computers than I can hope to learn!

 

If I could find a women that could spout computer stuff like JoeL I would marry her in a second! 

[Russ Uno]

 

Do you remember when computers had no IC's at all?  I do... No, I don't go back to the tube days of computing, but to the transistor-diode logic days when I repaired them for the Bell System.

 

Joe L.

 

I would build flip flops on post card size plastic with discrete transistors the size of 2N3055's (power transistors) then connect of bunch together to add and subtract.. No IC's back then, I think it was late 50's early 60's.. Too long ago. Glad I'm not the only old guy here.

[Russ Uno]

I added a 120mm in front of the drives and used cardboard and tape to box in the lower section nothing fancy.  Good air flow.

 

Any particular fans? I found these that someone used from a review of the case. They spin a bit slower but I figure it's in addition to the one already in there. Or do you suggest something else that won't sound like a wind tunnel.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103052&Tpk=Coolermaster%20R4-S2S-124K-GP

[queeg]

Well, for sleeve bearings fans they are just ok.  But a 4-pack isn't too bad. 

 

Buying fans is all about how warm will it be where the case will be located.  But likely you could either get by with lower airflow (silent) fans or you could throttle those you found by cutting the voltage with a $2 controller or just use 7 volt power cable. 

Myself, I would pick the dBA I can live with and then pick one with a good SuperFlo (fluid) bearing or even double ball bearing that will last a long time. 

It really doesn't take much to keep unRAID cool if you have the drives sleep when not in use.

[queeg]

Ahh, you are right Rajahal about that case.  I thought it was the same as mine.  It's exactly the same inside and that was what made me think it was the same except for the fan intake.   

 

Here is a link to the one I'm using.  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147112  The 5.25 slots on mine pop right off just like normal, no stealth thing.  And the included rear fan on mine is quiet but I have all my fans on temp control so they are slowed down a bit making them silent.

I think I can get 6 or 7 drives in mine without having to get too cranky putting them in.  And yes, you have to mount the drives internally.  But how hard is that?  Not everyone wants a full size case skulking in the corner of the room.    The drives in mine top out at 31c during a parity check.  Air flow in this case is pretty good.

 

Good temps with most of the fans running at 70%.

[Russ Uno]

Ok! All parts have been ordered.

 

1) Corsair 400 W PSU -$51.99 (free shipping and promo code discount) - received already

2) 2x 2gig Lexar Firefly flash drives (received already) - $22.97 (with shipping)

3) Sempron 140 CPU - $32.99 - On it's way (free shipping)

4) Biostar A760G MB - ordered last night.

5) 2x 1gig Kingston ValueRam DDR2 800 - ordered last night.

6) Rosewill R101-P-BK Case - ordered last night.

7) extra 120mm fan with speed control - (total for items 4, 5, 6 & 7) $159.09 (with shipping) - ordered last night.

(Already have 3 1tb Seagate 7200.12 drives and 2 Seagate 500mb 7200.11 drives) more than I need.

(MB comes with 1 SATA cable and I have at least 2 that came with my Seagates). I only 3 need to start.

 

Grand total $267.04

Not too bad. I could just buy 1 decent FW drive housing for that.

 

Anything Missing?

Queeg do I need dryer vent hose for my case 

[Guest jmdlat]

Nice. I've got basically the same parts coming also. Except for the memory which I haven't ordered and the hard drives.

[Russ Uno]

Nice. I've got basically the same parts coming also. Except for the memory which I haven't ordered and the hard drives.

 

Crucial ram is a bit cheaper, $41 i think, and in a Mac world I wouldn't hesitate to get it (Mac are picky about ram) but I figured I'd got with the ram that is known to working.

[Rajahal]

I would be surprised if your mobo came with only one SATA cable.  Usually they come with enough cables to populate all the ports (6, in this case).  I'm pretty sure my mobo came with 6 as well (and I have the same mobo).

 

That said, it is a gamble if they will be good quality, locking SATA cables or cheapo ones.

[gabbott]

I would be surprised if your mobo came with only one SATA cable.  Usually they come with enough cables to populate all the ports (6, in this case).  I'm pretty sure my mobo came with 6 as well (and I have the same mobo).

 

That said, it is a gamble if they will be good quality, locking SATA cables or cheapo ones.

 

My experience with buying MBs has been they usually come with 1 maybe 2 SATA cables. In fact I just recently bought a similar if not the same biostar board that you have and it only came with 1 and that was the one cable that flaked out a couple days ago in my array and had to be replaced and it was a locking SATA cable. So that could have been a fluke. Anyway, I've always found that MBs don't come with alot of SATA cables so one should look at getting additional.

[Russ Uno]

I would be surprised if your mobo came with only one SATA cable.  Usually they come with enough cables to populate all the ports (6, in this case).  I'm pretty sure my mobo came with 6 as well (and I have the same mobo).

 

On the Newegg site for the MB they only show 1 in little picture and I think they say that as well.. Hey what do you want for $55.

 

Well I have the 2 from the Seagates so we will see.

 

Any recommendations on good quality cables, just in case.

 

Got the Sempron 140 today, I'll probably get the rest Monday and can start putting it together.

 

Anything special in the bios I have to set.. or watch out for?

Bios is all new to me coming from a Mac world.

[gabbott]

I would be surprised if your mobo came with only one SATA cable.  Usually they come with enough cables to populate all the ports (6, in this case).  I'm pretty sure my mobo came with 6 as well (and I have the same mobo).

 

On the Newegg site for the MB they only show 1 in little picture and I think they say that as well.. Hey what do you want for $55.

 

Well I have the 2 from the Seagates so we will see.

 

Any recommendations on good quality cables, just in case.

 

Got the Sempron 140 today, I'll probably get the rest Monday and can start putting it together.

 

Anything special in the bios I have to set.. or watch out for?

Bios is all new to me coming from a Mac world.

 

On that board, in order to get SATA ports 4, 5, and 6 to be recognized as sata and not ide mode, you have to enable AHCI mode for SATA in the BIOS.

[queeg]

On that board, in order to get SATA ports 4, 5, and 6 to be recognized as sata and not ide mode, you have to enable AHCI mode for SATA in the BIOS.

 

My motherboard also defaults to ide mode.  But I don't understand what the ide mode versus AHCI mode is all about.  Could you sum up the advantages/disadvantages please?

[gabbott]

On that board, in order to get SATA ports 4, 5, and 6 to be recognized as sata and not ide mode, you have to enable AHCI mode for SATA in the BIOS.

 

My motherboard also defaults to ide mode.  But I don't understand what the ide mode versus AHCI mode is all about.  Could you sum up the advantages/disadvantages please?

 

My understanding is ide mode emulates an ide connection instead of a native sata connection that could result in lower transfer speeds. That is what I found doing some googling. Setting the sata mode of my boards BIOS to AHCI allowed the drives I plugged into those ports to be recognized as sata connections. With the BIOS default settings, the drives were showing up as ide drives.

[Guest jmdlat]

Since I'm going with an almost identical set up I don't even need to ask questions, Russ Uno is asking them all for me. lol

[Rajahal]

In my experience, Native IDE vs ACHI doesn't make any difference, so I just let the motherboard default to whatever it wants.  On my unRAID server, that means ACHI, whereas on my desktop, that means Native IDE.  I've run my unRAID server as Native IDE as well, and didn't see any changes in transfer speeds or performance.

 

The only important factor is that hot swap only works with ACHI mode.  Since unRAID doesn't support hot swap, this isn't a very important point.  However, if you have a hot swap bay in your desktop computer, you will have to be using ACHI for it to work properly.

[terrastrife]

In my experience, Native IDE vs ACHI doesn't make any difference, so I just let the motherboard default to whatever it wants.  On my unRAID server, that means ACHI, whereas on my desktop, that means Native IDE.  I've run my unRAID server as Native IDE as well, and didn't see any changes in transfer speeds or performance.

 

The only important factor is that hot swap only works with ACHI mode.  Since unRAID doesn't support hot swap, this isn't a very important point.  However, if you have a hot swap bay in your desktop computer, you will have to be using ACHI for it to work properly.

 

if you have wd blacks native ide will be a problem because these drives are capable of transferring faster than 160MB/sec whereas ide mode will limit you to 133 

[queeg]

Does it limit each drive to 133 or all drives combined to 133?

[terrastrife]

it will be the same as having a master/slave paring on an old ribbon cable. ide transfer rates and queueing (one bus, 2 drives) between the drives.