reading specs for Asus P5LD2 motherboard?

[John Smith]

I'm a baby at home building pcs. I've never done one but I'm getting
the itch. As a start I cobbled one together in the ComputerDirect
Configurator. I used the Asus P5LD2 motherboard. I realize the new mbs
use mostly SATA drives, but I want to use some of my collection of
PATA drives from my old pc. In particular I want the OPTION of
slapping a cloned c: drive in from my old XP system and booting from
it, rather than installing XP from scratch.
Asus specs:
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=185&l4=0&model=515&modelmenu=2

Storage/RAID
Intel ICH7R Southbridge:
- 1 x UltraDMA 100/66/33
- 4 x Serial ATA (3Gb/s)
- RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10 and Intel Matrix Storage technology.
ITE 8211F controller:
- 2 x UltraDMA 133 support four hard drives

The way I interpret the above is that I have 1 PATA connector on the
board which I must connect my CD and my CD R/W to. Unless I cable my
cloned drive in place of one CD drive, OR stick the cloned PATA drive
on a RAID connnector and try to boot from that, that's the only choice
I have for hooking up my PATA drive to boot from.

First, is it true that I need to hook CD and CD R/W drives to my one
PATA connector? Does that '1 x UltraDMA' mean I get an IDE cable
capable of driving two IDE devices, master and slave?

Can someone make this a little clearer for me?
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[Dave]

I'm a baby at home building pcs. I've never done one but I'm getting
the itch. As a start I cobbled one together in the ComputerDirect
Configurator. I used the Asus P5LD2 motherboard. I realize the new mbs
use mostly SATA drives, but I want to use some of my collection of
PATA drives from my old pc. In particular I want the OPTION of
slapping a cloned c: drive in from my old XP system and booting from
it, rather than installing XP from scratch.
Asus specs:
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=185&l4=0&model=515&modelmenu=2

Storage/RAID
Intel ICH7R Southbridge:
- 1 x UltraDMA 100/66/33
- 4 x Serial ATA (3Gb/s)
- RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10 and Intel Matrix Storage technology.
ITE 8211F controller:
- 2 x UltraDMA 133 support four hard drives

The way I interpret the above is that I have 1 PATA connector on the
board which I must connect my CD and my CD R/W to. Unless I cable my
cloned drive in place of one CD drive, OR stick the cloned PATA drive
on a RAID connnector and try to boot from that, that's the only choice
I have for hooking up my PATA drive to boot from.

First, is it true that I need to hook CD and CD R/W drives to my one
PATA connector? Does that '1 x UltraDMA' mean I get an IDE cable
capable of driving two IDE devices, master and slave?

Can someone make this a little clearer for me?
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Yes, that board has three IDE connectors and 4 SATA connectors. It will
support up to ten drives, six of them can be IDE format. You've got 1 (2
IDE) plus 4 (SATA) plus 2(4 IDE) listed later. And the picture of the board
shows three (3) IDE connectors, each of which can support two IDE
rives. -Dave

 

[John Smith]

Wrong. WHENEVER you change the motherboard that is used with a particular
harddrive containing Windows, then you MUST reformat the harddrive and do a
fresh install of the OS. Otherwise you can look forward to ongoing data
corruption, Registry errors and BSOD's. The change in motherboard chipsets
causes this.

That's the first time I've heard that. I've never done a clone to a
hard drive operated by a new motherboard. If true, it's the last thing
I would have suspected for a culprit when troubleshooting any
resulting problems. I'd like to get more opinions on this. Can you
refer me to any documentation on this subject, DaveW? I REALLY hate
reinstalling all my software, have to find it, find the license
numbers, find my notes on what went on the first time I installed it
etc. Getting hardware to play nice with XP usuallly isn't all that
bad, but I'd still rather not.
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[Flasherly]

I'm a baby at home building pcs. I've never done one but I'm getting
the itch. As a start I cobbled one together in the ComputerDirect
Configurator. I used the Asus P5LD2 motherboard. I realize the new mbs
use mostly SATA drives, but I want to use some of my collection of
PATA drives from my old pc. In particular I want the OPTION of
slapping a cloned c: drive in from my old XP system and booting from
it, rather than installing XP from scratch.
Asus specs:http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=185&l4=0&model=515&mo...

Storage/RAID
Intel ICH7R Southbridge:
- 1 x UltraDMA 100/66/33
- 4 x Serial ATA (3Gb/s)
- RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10 and Intel Matrix Storage technology.
ITE 8211F controller:
- 2 x UltraDMA 133 support four hard drives

The way I interpret the above is that I have 1 PATA connector on the
board which I must connect my CD and my CD R/W to. Unless I cable my
cloned drive in place of one CD drive, OR stick the cloned PATA drive
on a RAID connnector and try to boot from that, that's the only choice
I have for hooking up my PATA drive to boot from.

First, is it true that I need to hook CD and CD R/W drives to my one
PATA connector? Does that '1 x UltraDMA' mean I get an IDE cable
capable of driving two IDE devices, master and slave?

Can someone make this a little clearer for me?
Remove no_spam to reply email

Besides you, there are others who apparently could stand having a
clearer conception of IDE assignments.

I've a similar board - an ASUS for an A64, though - that has three IDE
connectors: two normal, one is 2-drive RAID. Not being a big fan of
RAID of any type, the 3rd wouldn't pick up optical devices, anyway.

Newegg isn't carrying the MB. If IDE manageability is a necessity -
another way of going after it is through a PCI add on controller, such
as SYBA.

Also, another thing that stands out is that with this the type of
board - it's something where you *do* want REV 2.

Have a look (a quick over gives me the feeling not to rule out the
possibility that a better board is to be had in this instance)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ng=-1&PurchaseMark=&VideoOnlyMark=False&Page=

 

[John Smith]

Besides you, there are others who apparently could stand having a
clearer conception of IDE assignments.

I've a similar board - an ASUS for an A64, though - that has three IDE
connectors: two normal, one is 2-drive RAID. Not being a big fan of
RAID of any type, the 3rd wouldn't pick up optical devices, anyway.

Newegg isn't carrying the MB. If IDE manageability is a necessity -
another way of going after it is through a PCI add on controller, such
as SYBA.

Also, another thing that stands out is that with this the type of
board - it's something where you *do* want REV 2.

Have a look (a quick over gives me the feeling not to rule out the
possibility that a better board is to be had in this instance)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ng=-1&PurchaseMark=&VideoOnlyMark=False&Page=

Good grief, those reviews are all over the place! Actually, I have no
idea what I am doing, I just picked a motherboard that would take a
fast Intel CPU and had RAID on it. I'm really glad I started hanging
out here. Right now I'm ambivalent about getting into the home-build
arena at all at this point. My 6 year old MSI6398 mini-tower is
running XPpro just fine right now. I THINK most of my nagging
insecurity was remedied by a new power supply. But the recent struggle
has got me interested in, at least, finding out how to put together a
cuttingedge machine. WHEN to make the jump is the question right now.

Another question from a beginner: how much good will a Dual Core CPU
do me running XP with almost all my software apps about 5 years old?
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[Paul]

Another question from a beginner: how much good will a Dual Core CPU
do me running XP with almost all my software apps about 5 years old?
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It will still do some good. All those background processes can run on
one core, while your aging programs run on the second core (that is,
figuratively speaking). A dual should give you a smoother desktop
experience (fewer hesitations) than a single core would. At least,
I find that when comparing my AthlonXP 3200+ single core, to my
P4 3.1GHz which has Hyperthreading (two virtual cores).

Paul

 

[Flasherly]

Good grief, those reviews are all over the place! Actually, I have no
idea what I am doing, I just picked a motherboard that would take a
fast Intel CPU and had RAID on it. I'm really glad I started hanging
out here. Right now I'm ambivalent about getting into the home-build
arena at all at this point. My 6 year old MSI6398 mini-tower is
running XPpro just fine right now. I THINK most of my nagging
insecurity was remedied by a new power supply. But the recent struggle
has got me interested in, at least, finding out how to put together a
cuttingedge machine. WHEN to make the jump is the question right now.

Another question from a beginner: how much good will a Dual Core CPU
do me running XP with almost all my software apps about 5 years old?
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I do that also, periodically rebuild myself a "hypothetical" system -
in fact, from the reviews at newegg. Jump in on a popular MB for user
reviews and take it from there - can end up at totally different ends
(figuratively speaking) based on this or that suggestion, how
"discerning" it appears, and where one's expectations lead to. Last
time, mine was a budget or averaged "bang for the buck" bias on an
Intel dualcore, an E-series it seems, possibly E2250 (Conroe?) with a
Gigabyte motherboard (which would be a "hypothetical" first - I've
been stuck up till now buying ABIT, ASUS, or MSI). Both drew a high
quantity of reviews - a lot of people buying them means more likely
proven true, with the Intel well regarded for an easy overclocker.
I've DDR, so DDR2 was also found reasonably priced, and I don't want
more than a value PCI-express videocard (under $50). ATI and NVidia
were both considerations, although I've mostly been buying ATI the
past few years. Anyway, all together, it came in at under $250. With
a little comparative shopping - Intel dual cores look to me well
positioned for performance value on the dollar.

(fwiw - my last was a near as to a micro I could build for the
cheapest possible - Celeron D, DDR, AGP, ASUS MB. All under $200,
including case, and at it for a blown PS replacement - a $30 SPARKLE/
FORTRON. Basically it serves a large flatpanel for videos and music.
Massive HDs or an extra nice soundboard, of course, is more -) )