Upgrading my pc - Where do I start?

spakkker

I would advise to fit the cpu and heat sink before you fit the m/board into the case. The intel push - fit pins are a bit awkward to fit and if you do this outside the case you can press the back of the m/board while you press the pins home.

DazedAndConfuzed

Will do, cheers :beer:

DazedAndConfuzed

turbobob wrote: »

Good luck with it. Let us know how it goes

After 3 frustrating hours it's all pretty much sorted now, just need to reinstall windows.

The jumpers were the worst bit, forgot how fiddly they are! The guide in the manual made it pretty easy, having fat fingers made it hard though! :mad:

Oh, and not remembering how to reconnect the hard drives caused some pain too, but that's just my stupidity!!

Cheers for your help guys :beer:

JasX

DazedAndConfuzed wrote: »

just need to reinstall windows.

don't forget all your H/W drivers too :T

DazedAndConfuzed

I ran the disks that came with the mobo and graphics card, I assume they were all the drivers needed?

JasX

DazedAndConfuzed wrote: »

I ran the disks that came with the mobo and graphics card, I assume they were all the drivers needed?

yup, they're the ones

-now keep them all safe somewhere together if ever you need to reinstall in future :beer:

PS my set of 'useful' (free) stuff I tend add straight to my PC is below, everyone will have their own preferences no doubt:

-Adobe PDF reader, Flash and shockwave players
-Firefox web browser
-Open office
-Antivirus (currently using Avast)
-cute PDF writer (allows printing to a pdf file)
-iTunes with Quicktime
-VLC media player
-....and run windows update

(might find you're still short of something to decode and play DVDs but don;t believe you can get this legally for free)

DazedAndConfuzed

They are kept in a CD wallet that's been filed away in a logical place so if I need them again they are easy to find!

What are your thoughts on additional cooling? The mobo manual mentions over clocking loads which is tempting but another fan would be a good investment if I go down that route?

JasX

DazedAndConfuzed wrote: »

What are your thoughts on additional cooling? The mobo manual mentions over clocking loads which is tempting but another fan would be a good investment if I go down that route?

Personally I've avoided OCing so far -usually have a PC powerful enough to handle anything I can throw at it at stock levels and don't want to risk shortening the life of my high end H/W.

Its quite easy to destroy your H/W if you don;t know what you're doing.

Having said that there are sites on the net specialising in that kind of thing and people on tight budgets seem to claim good results 'pushing' cheaper processors to work faster.

-If you want to go that way I'd start reading a few 'overclocking for beginners' guides and look for writeups of what other people have achieved with the same processor/ RAM/graphics card as you have, paying attention to temperatures they hit, what cooling they had (you'll probably need more than just an extra fan) and stable speeds they achieved. and stay within that envelope initially.

-oh and put some cash aside for replacing burnt out parts/your machine early if it all goes wrong

DazedAndConfuzed

Hmmmmmmmmmmm, let's leave over clocking alone for now then, until I really need to push things in the future anyway. The components I've just got should be more then enough for what I need

Cheers

mufadv

before you go for an update .. please make sure that you go for stuff that you actually need.. or will need eventually in the future.. dont buy stuff you dont need ..
eg.. buy a mobo that supports dual core chips.. coz the old P4 chips arent compatible with the new mobos.. they have a diff pin pattern..
and so on