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My Buddy need help
theyalllie
Member Posts: 229
in Hardware
Got him on vent he's doing his first build. Got an Asus p67 board. Ive never used a board with sata6gb, so I wanna double check my thinking here.
His HD is 64mb cache so he wants to hook that to the sata6 slot 1. And then his dvd drive would then go to the sata 3 slot 2, or slot 1 or ,does it matter ?
Oh and 1 more thing Ive always installed the OS first and then ran the bios disc, that sound right? Well I go into bios before installing the OS to see that the mouse and keyboard usb are selected and the boot priority is right.
Comments
Neither a hard drive nor a DVD drive can use enough bandwidth for the difference between SATA 2 and SATA 3 to matter. If the hard drive officially supports SATA 3, then you might want to hook it up to a SATA 3 port, just in case there could be some corner cases where the extra bandwidth of SATA 3 helps a bit when pulling something out of cache. But cases where it makes a difference are sufficiently rare that even synthetic benchmarks can't find them. That can easily be outweighed by considerations like "it's more convenient for me to plug it into this port than to twist my hand to get at that one" or "the cord would block airflow less if it's in this port than in that one".
One thing that I will say is that if it's got an extra SATA 3 chip on it from a third party vendor, in addition to the Intel chipset ones, you want to use one of the Intel ports that goes directly to the chipset. This won't make much of a difference, but not having to pass a signal through as many chips means it gets there a hair faster, and it's also fewer things that can go wrong. In some motherboards, it may free up PCI Express lanes for use by expansion slots, though this shouldn't interfere with the x16 slot for the video card.
yeah looking at the diagram the sata 6 is run through a marvel controller, are we talking about the same thing? Im screwed up its sata 3 Im getting this usb 6 and sata 3 confused here.
The bottom sata's are all sata 3 there isnt a sata 2 so Im worried about nothing, There are some that say sata 6 that run through a marvel controller, I asume thats the USB 6 stuff, which I know nothing about.
If it's a P67 chipset, then there might be two SATA 3 ports run through an Intel controller, and two others run through a Marvell controller, in addition to four SATA 2 ports run through the Intel controller. You don't want to use the Marvell ports unless you run out of Intel ports, which would be unusual.
The Marvell SATA controller can't talk to the processor directly. It uses PCI Express lanes to communicate with the southbridge, and then that forwards the information on to the processor. If you use the Intel SATA ports, that goes directly to the southbridge (which is where the Intel SATA controller is), without having to go through an extra chip or change the signaling from SATA to PCI Express before it ends up being convereted to DMI or QPI or some such.
If you say, but the PCI Express slots are on the other side of the motherboard, then that's not the point. The way the motherboard is wired is that extra chips like that have to use something to communicate with the southbridge, and a spare PCI Express lane (or possibly four of them grouped together) is the most convenient thing to grab.
yeah the sata 3's all go through the intel it's this board
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131706 man Im having a bad day cant get the link to work
ASUS P8P67 LE (rev 3)
The dark blue SATA port is the Marvell SATA 3 port, and I'm not sure why they even put that on there. The two white SATA ports are the Intel SATA 3 ports. The four light blue ports are the Intel SATA 2 ports. This would be so much simpler if Intel would have just gone all SATA 3 in Cougar Point, like AMD has done with everything they've launched this year and last.
OK I'll tell him, I havent seen the board so dont know what colors are which, just got the specs and saw only 6 gbs and 3 gbs listed.
He cant get the monitor to stay on, it detects digital input device, then goes to power saver.
Had him pull the ram and try each stick in the first slot. one by one disconnect power from each device, except the main board power the cpu power and the card. rebooting at each step. he says cpu fan spins, gpu fans spins, mobo power lite is on, dvd tray opens , HD makes sounds of running.
Mobo is sans onboard video, he has no other gpu to test with.
Only two of the four case fans he has connected works, all fed from the power supply.
He re-checked all the connections.
He got one single beep when he first started the machine, and said his manual said one beep is an all good tone.
His monitor works fine on his other machine, and was re connected to this new one many times as he tested different things.
RAM is a G Skill 2x4 Ripjaw kit, it's not on the boards ram list however, tho it is sandy bridge compatible, or he says it is packaged as such where he ordered it. DDR 3 1600 mhz last five model numbers 8GBXM the rest are same as most of the ones I saw on the list, or at least the 8bg kits
Just trying to help him out
Hiis PSU is a Coolermaster GX RS750 single rail 80 plus bronze, so while over powered probably is ok, if it works.
He got a XFX black edition 6870 GPU
2500k cpu
the ASUS P8P67 LE (rev 3) afore mentoned
The Western Digital Black HD
And a sony dvd drive
Anyway any ideas are appreciated, I should hear from him sometime tomarrrow.
I've seen this happen before. One beep is good.
Make sure all the power cables are installed correctly. Odds are there is a missing cable, either the auxillary power to the motherboard, or one of the power cables to the video card. I recommend actually unplugging and re-plugging them all in, not just "checking" them, sometimes they seem seated, but they aren't quite there. Same for the case fans: odds are they just aren't plugged in - they usually need to be plugged into motherboard fan headers, or straight off of power supply cables, and many times case fans won't actually be plugged into anything (most gamer/enthusiast cases don't ship with power supplies to have them plugged in to)
Make sure the video card is seated well, and actually screwed into the chassis. Again, actually pull the card, re-seat it, and then screw it down to the case.
Try using the other DVI port on the video card (I think most 6870's have two DVI), and if possible try using a different DVI cable (even if you've tested this one to be good). If at all possible try testing with another monitor too: an HDMI cable hooked up to the TV, something.
I've also seen monitors not auto-select the correct input. If the monitor has multiple inputs (analog, DVI, HDMI, component, whatever) - make sure it's set to the right input. The auto-select feature doesn't always work, or can time out before the video card in the computer actually gets up and going or whatever. I know on an older Samsung monitor, I have to manually set the input every time I switch it around to a new computer, the auto-select on it doesn't work at all for some reason, and it looks very similar to what you are describing.
As far as SATA ports:
It helps if you stay on either one controller or the other (either Marvell or Intel) just so that you don't have to actually load drivers for all of them, but really, it doesn't matter what goes where. You don't have to match port numbers or anything else, SATA and Windows don't care what goes where. That said, it wouldn't hurt to make sure your hard drive is on a SATA3 (6.0) port, but it's a WD platter drive, so that really doesn't even matter either.
Once you have that done and the computer actually posts and you can see it:
All you need to do is slip in your WIndows install DVD, and that should be about it. The DVD-ROM should be on the boot device list already, and with only two devices on SATA, it should be a really straightforward and easy install - you probably won't even need to do anything to the default BIOS settings (but you won't hurt anything going in and peeking at them either - worse comes to worse you can always reset the BIOS).
Yeah his case actually has five fans, they are all molex and he has no adapters to go from molex to three pin female fan connectors. He ordered some adapters but the are all molex to male three pins. When I looked on newegg today I could not find molex to female. His board has two chassis fan headers, but he cant use them atm, so he has three molex and one fan female from the PSU, which he is using for four of the fans.
His two four pin power connectors are plugged in to 8 pin power header for the CPU, cant see it on the diagram, its to the left of the CPU a little and above, and his main 20 + 4 is plugged in, and I made sure he plugged the 4 pin in first, and then the 20 pin.
I didnt ask if he screwed the GPU down yet, he was pretty tired and went to bed, but I plan on having him pull the GPU anyway when he gets back on later, and will get him to screw it down, when he re-installs.
About the monitor, what should it be set to? He did say he has a CRT monitor but acted kinda scared to even hook it up, dunno why.
Ive never had any problem except a bogus used hard drive, as it turned out, on a build, so he is encountering problems I have yet to have, on a platform Ive never even seen, much less worked on.
Anyway thanks for the info, we'll se what happens after a while. Wish I could just drive over and actually see this stuff, but its 120 miles from here and I have no wheels, so... fun fun fun
Oh and I also had him pull the battery and reinstall as well. Here is a full picture of what I have on the mobo
this might sound silly, but what kind of computer case does he have? i've worked on computers where the poor quality case would actually prevent a proper seating of the video card. the motherboard pan would actually flex when you insert the video card and cause the video card to be "half seated"
anyway something to consider when troubleshooting this problem
I've had a monitor look like it was going into power saving mode when the video card was coming loose in its slot. The video card felt like it was firmly in its slot when I pushed down on it. Pulling the card out entirely and then putting it back in fixed it.
"Hiis PSU is a Coolermaster GX RS750 single rail 80 plus bronze"
That's not good. He probably paid enough to get a good power supply, too. Some power supply vendors have figured out that some customers know that you should get a good power supply, and use price tag as a proxy for quality. So they'll take a cheap junk power supply and charge a lot for it. That's the basic principle behind Cooler Master's GX series. Thermaltake does the same with their TR2 series. Some disreputable retailers will take a $40 power supply at random and put a $100 price tag on it to try to trick their customers the same way.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/11/22/cooler_master_gx_650w_power_supply_review/1
"The Cooler Master GX 650W is a mediocre power supply for couple of years ago, and an outright failure today. The Build Quality of the unit is nothing to write home about (unless it is a warning), the topology is old and outdated, and the exterior is flash over substance. Coupled with this we have mediocre voltage, poor by today's standards efficiency, and out of specification DC Output Quality. One upping this poor showing is that fact that the unit was completely unable to complete our load tests at 100v AC input. That makes the GX 650W not just a failure by our standards, but rather a double failure and an ugly one at that. Making matters worse is the fact that this unit is priced at up to $100 in retail and $70 online. (Users can pick up the much better Seasonic M12II-620Bronze from Amazon with Free Prime Shipping for $98.29). As it stands, there really is not anyone that this unit would be a good fit for that we can think of, and certainly not for its intended crowd of "gamers." Cooler Master should be ashamed and owes all gamers and hardware enthusiasts an apology."
Okay, so Hard OCP can be kind of harsh at times in their power supply reviews. So let's get a second opinion, shall we?
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=188
"the Coolermaster GX-750 underwhelmed in just about every way possible. Regulation was only so-so, efficiency was remarkably lower than the 80 Plus test report would have us believe, and the 3.3V rail had more ripple than the last time I did a cannonball into a pool when I was still a three hundred plus pounder. To boot, the unit wouldn't even come close to full power at forty degrees before the overtemp protection came in and shut down the party. I dearly hope that Coolermaster's shipping retail units are better performing than my sample was, but since I couldn't get my hands on one of them I'll have to score this one as I see it. I have to do a 6 here I think."
Still no good? How about Hardware Secrets, which can be gentle, and sometimes unduly so?
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Cooler-Master-GX-750-W-Power-Supply-Review/917/1
"Cooler Master GX 750 W looks like a good option for users looking for a mainstream 750 W power supply, however it has a major flaw that prevents us from recommending it: noise level at +3.3 V and +5VSB outputs were above the maximum allowed when we pulled 600 W and above from this unit. High noise levels overload and can even damage components on your computer."
That's a trifecta of failure for that power supply. It's not a completely awful, unsafe at any wattage, unit. But it's not what you want to power a gaming system. If he just got it, he might want to see if he can still return it. Even if there's a 15% restocking fee or some such, he'd likely be able to take what's left of the money, get a better power supply, and still have money left over. See, for example, either of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371047
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207013
Still, the power supply shouldn't prevent the computer from even booting.
For my Samsung (it is an older model), you can select between Analog or Digital, and forces the monitor to switch between the older VGA input and the newer DVI input, rather than just auto-selecting (which this monitor does a horrible job of, but I forgive it).
My somewhat newer Dell also has an input selection, you can cycle between DVI1, DVI2, Analog VGA, Component, S-Video, and RCA. Again, forcing the monitor to switch to the input rather than just relying on it to auto-select (which is usually does a decent job of).
Just make sure the input is actually on whatever he has the cable hooked up to. Newer monitors typically have DVI, VGA, maybe HDMI, and rarely Component, S-Video, RCA, or DisplayPort.
Side note, I've also had computers have boot-up issues because of stray stuff in the case. Once I had a screw fall under the motherboard, it shorted out some stuff to the case, and caused all kinds of random oddness. I didn't find it until I had totally disasembled the computer. Fortunately, it didn't cause any permanent damage. But it can sometimes be silly things like this (a stray screw in the wrong spot, a wire grounded to the case, a fan that is shorted out, etc) that is causing the problem and they can be hard to find. Just gotta go though step by step until you have eliminated as many of the possible variables as you can.
I've seen similar issues in low quality cases as well: usually can't get the cards screwed into the chassis right, or all the screws don't line up with the tray on the motherboard or some nonsense. I've also seen problems where the video card not being screwed down to the chassis causes problems (loose in the PCI slot so not all the pins can make good connections), and in low quality cases those holes don't always match up well to screw them in.
Well now he is getting tones that indicate a bad video card. Said he hadn't hooked the speaker up before, which makes me wonder how he got a sindle beep the first time he turned the machine on?
But a Bad card would explain some, still wonder about his case fans, tho instead of hooking each to a seperate plug he has now told me he doubled up the two that didnt work through the same adapter, and that he plugged that into a molex from the PSU, which was probably giving each too little to spin.
Anyway Im out of the loop on it now, thanks for your help every one.
Just an update. So many times we get a problem, post, fix the problem, or help someone else, and never here what the outcome was.
Apperantely, my buddy, had used one of the molex to fan adapters which had additional molex pass through, and hooked two fans to that single adapter, then pluged that into a single molex from the PSU. When he later undid that and hooked each fan to a seperate molex, on the PSU line, he then got all four fans up. I assume molex's on the PSU line where all in parallel as opposed to series, and he simply was trying to draw too much.
As for the other problem, turns out it was a bad PCI x 16 slot. When he moved the card to the x 4 slot everything worked. He then did use a lesser card to test this, and the results where identical.
So he RMA'd the board and now enjoys a nice machine.
Thanks and good day all.
Nice, good troubleshooting. And thanks a lot for the update!