Building New Rig - Opinions Appreciated

[Cyrius7]

I am building a WinXP Pro system then shipping it to a friend. The
priorities are price, stability, expandability and decent gaming
performance. For stability reasons I'm shying away from the latest
motherboard chipsets and have decided on an Intel 865PERL motherboard. These
are the details, along with an explanation. Suggestions are appreciated,
none of this is set in stone.

Intel 865PERLL mobo - reliable with all the features required.

P4 2.4 GHz (Northwood core) - supposedly runs cool for a P4 but still has
good performance with its effective 800MHz FSB

1GB (2x512) Kingston Value Ram (PC3200) - good value since premium RAM is
not required (the mobo isn't overclockable anyway). It's also approved by
Intel, the mobo manufacturer.

NEC ND-3520A DVD-+- RW - supposedly a reliable, high performance burner.

2 Seagate 120 GB IDE HDs (8mb cache)

2 Vantec "EZ Swap" removable IDE HD racks

Leadtek GeForce 6600GT AGP graphics card - good gaming performance, good
value.

Samsung FDD - reliable floppy drive

Enlight 7250 case w 350 watt P/S
(http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=11-116-172&depa=0)

The amp ratings for this P/S seem decent enough. (+5v@30A / +3.3v@28A /
+12v@18A / -5v@:0.8A / -3.3v@:0.3A /
-5VSB2A ). Would I need something better for this rig?

Thanks!

 

[Dave C.]

I am building a WinXP Pro system then shipping it to a friend. The
priorities are price, stability, expandability and decent gaming
performance. For stability reasons I'm shying away from the latest
motherboard chipsets and have decided on an Intel 865PERL motherboard. These
are the details, along with an explanation. Suggestions are appreciated,
none of this is set in stone.

Intel 865PERLL mobo - reliable with all the features required.

P4 2.4 GHz (Northwood core) - supposedly runs cool for a P4 but still has
good performance with its effective 800MHz FSB

1GB (2x512) Kingston Value Ram (PC3200) - good value since premium RAM is
not required (the mobo isn't overclockable anyway). It's also approved by
Intel, the mobo manufacturer.

NEC ND-3520A DVD-+- RW - supposedly a reliable, high performance burner.

2 Seagate 120 GB IDE HDs (8mb cache)

2 Vantec "EZ Swap" removable IDE HD racks

Leadtek GeForce 6600GT AGP graphics card - good gaming performance, good
value.

Samsung FDD - reliable floppy drive

Enlight 7250 case w 350 watt P/S
(http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=11-116-172&depa=0
)

The amp ratings for this P/S seem decent enough. (+5v@30A / +3.3v@28A /
+12v@18A / -5v@:0.8A / -3.3v@:0.3A /
-5VSB2A ). Would I need something better for this rig?

Thanks!

Looks good. I'd delete the floppy myself. (when was the last time you
actually used one?). Also, your power supply should be adequate for the
hardware you chose. HOWEVER, there is no extra power for future upgrades.
That is, 350W will handle what you chose NOW just fine. -Dave

 

[Art]

Looks good. I'd delete the floppy myself. (when was the last time you
actually used one?). Also, your power supply should be adequate for the
hardware you chose. HOWEVER, there is no extra power for future upgrades.
That is, 350W will handle what you chose NOW just fine. -Dave

Cyrius7:
I won't comment on your other proposed components, but let me comment on
Dave C.'s suggestion to eliminate the floppy drive. By all means, include
it. The expense is trifling - probably no more than $10 or $15. And you can
bet that there will be occasions where your friend will want to prepare a
floppy disk. For one thing, I note you're including two removable HD racks
(an excellent choice!) so it's highly probable your friend will use that
configuration to clone his HDs using a Ghost bootable floppy disk for
example. And then there will be times that for one reason or another he
wants to copy a file or two onto a floppy disk.
Art

 

[Matt]

Cyrius7:
I won't comment on your other proposed components, but let me comment on
Dave C.'s suggestion to eliminate the floppy drive. By all means, include
it. The expense is trifling - probably no more than $10 or $15.

Yes, but you forgot the cost in snob appeal. If the OP puts in a
floppy, he will lose the ability to toss around the claim that anybody
who's with it never uses floppies.

 

[Cyrius7]

I note you're including two removable HD racks (an excellent choice!) so
it's highly probable your friend will use that configuration to clone his
HDs using a Ghost bootable floppy disk for example.

That's exactly right. Both drives will be set for "cable-select", with the
slave drive remaining disconnected via the rack's power key. The only time
it will be connected will be for making disk images or restoring disk images
(only using Acronis TrueImage instead of Norton Ghost)

And then there will be times that for one reason or another he wants to
copy a file or two onto a floppy disk.

I find it handy if just for BIOS updates (never did trust Windows BIOS
utilities). And as you say, they're very inexpensive.

 

[Art]

slave drive remaining disconnected via the rack's power key. The only
time it will be connected will be for making disk images or restoring
disk images (only using Acronis TrueImage instead of Norton Ghost)

Hi again:
I know we're getting slightly off the track from your original posting where
you wanted comments on your proposed system, but allow me to respond to your
latest comment re configuring your removable racks...

Consider connecting both of them as Masters. The advantage to this
configuration is that it allows you to boot to either HD without the bother
of physically removing and reinserting the tray (caddy). So a simple turn
of your Primary Master's rack keylock to the OFF position and then turning
on your Secondary Master's keylock will allow a boot to that Secondary
Master while both drives remain in their permanent position. And based on
speed tests we have made with the other IDE devices, e.g., CD/DVD-ROMs,
CD/DVD recorders, we have found no negative impact on their performance
while connected as Slaves on different IDE channels.

As to your disk imaging program, I think you've made a wise choice with the
Acronis True Image program. I'm a long-time user of Symantec's Norton Ghost
program and by-and-large I've been quite pleased with its performance as a
cloning tool over the years. One of the real advantages of the Ghost
program, insofar as I'm concerned, is using a Ghost bootable floppy disk to
perform the cloning operation. However, based upon the favorable reviews
I've come across re the Acronis program, I've been using that program for
about the last two months. It seems to be as effective as the Ghost program
and has the added advantage of being much faster in terms of data transfer
speed, at least in my experience. Unfortunately it can't be used for cloning
purposes using a single floppy disk, but works fine with a bootable CD.
Art

 

[ropeyarn]

Looks good. I'd delete the floppy myself. (when was the last time you
actually used one?). Also, your power supply should be adequate for the
hardware you chose. HOWEVER, there is no extra power for future upgrades.
That is, 350W will handle what you chose NOW just fine. -Dave

I too would keep the floppy. I don't use it often, but OEM versions are
$10 or less. Some SATA firmware needs floppy, and I did have to make
actual XP recovery disks after a disaster. What possible harm can it do
to include it???

 

[Cyrius7]

Consider connecting both of them as Masters. The advantage to this
configuration is that it allows you to boot to either HD without the
bother of physically removing and reinserting the tray (caddy). So a
simple turn of your Primary Master's rack keylock to the OFF position and
then turning on your Secondary Master's keylock will allow a boot to that
Secondary Master while both drives remain in their permanent position. And
based on speed tests we have made with the other IDE devices, e.g.,
CD/DVD-ROMs, CD/DVD recorders, we have found no negative impact on their
performance while connected as Slaves on different IDE channels.

Intriguing idea but I intend to make periodic backups of the system
partition to the slave drive. These are image files though, I'm not cloning
the drive. So I couldn't use the second drive as a master even if I wanted
to. I plan to use a TrueImage rescue CD to restore a saved image, I won't
have to swap drive positions anyway.

 

[Nigel7]

Consider connecting both of them as Masters ...

But what would happen if both drives were accidentally powered on at boot
time?