New computer time

[Star Worms]

My old PC is getting quite past it and I need a new one.

I'm considering building one myself but while I have some idea about what's good in terms of hard drive, graphics card etc., I have no clue about the motherboard. I already have a power supply and graphics card that I want to keep.

So a few questions:
What do I need to look for in a motherboard? I know it determines the processor and RAM you can have, but is there anything else?
Are all motherboards the same size/how will I know if the motherboard will fit the case I buy?
Is there an easier way to transfer files, from my old hard drive to my new one, than using a memory stick?
How would I go about installing Vista/Windows 7 on the new PC?
Would it be more sensible to buy a PC now and get the upgrade/build it after Windows 7 comes out than building it when I would only be able to buy Vista?

[FutureWorm]

Are all motherboards the same size/how will I know if the motherboard will fit the case I buy?
there are two main form factors: atx and microatx. atx is a full-size case spec, while microatx is for (guess) smaller cases. you can put a microatx board in an atx case, but not vice-versa.
Is there an easier way to transfer files, from my old hard drive to my new one, than using a memory stick?
well yeah, just install that hard drive as a secondary disk on your new pc
How would I go about installing Vista/Windows 7 on the new PC?
umm, pop in the cd and push next a couple times?
Would it be more sensible to buy a PC now and get the upgrade/build it after Windows 7 comes out than building it when I would only be able to buy Vista?
you could just sign up for the windows 7 beta right now and pre-order the final version for like $20 so you get it when it ships

[SargeMcCluck]

I already have a power supply and graphics card that I want to keep.

Make sure it's a good power supply. Skimping on a PSU can cause serious issues (I've had computers randomly shut off due to a poor power supply, graphics card start causing corruption due to a poor power supply, in a really old computer the power supply dongle connecting to the motherboard actually burnt and melt one day, etc. - Make sure it not only has enough rating, but that it's not a terrible no-name brand, as a no-name 700W is still awful).

What do I need to look for in a motherboard? I know it determines the processor and RAM you can have, but is there anything else?

Any onboard features you want (PCI-E, onboard network card, onboard sound card, etc.)

Are all motherboards the same size/how will I know if the motherboard will fit the case I buy?

As FutureWorm said, if you get an ATX case, you can have an ATX or MicroATX motherboard. Get a MicroATX case and you're stuck with a MicroATX motherboard.

Is there an easier way to transfer files, from my old hard drive to my new one, than using a memory stick?

If you just want to transfer files, then you can put the hard drive into your new PC, or connect both computers via network cable. If you want to transfer Windows settings (e.g. registry entries), then Windows has a transfer data and settings feature, which I think can use CD/DVD-R(W) as well.

How would I go about installing Vista/Windows 7 on the new PC?

If you put the Windows DVD into a drive and boot the computer, it will just boot from the CD/DVD (in 99% of cases - otherwise you'll just have to go into the BIOS and tell it to boot from the CD/DVD drive). Then you're in the setup, which is terribly easy. NOTE: Don't have your hard drive with data on in your PC when you install Vista, just to be safe. Put it in once the OS is installed.

Would it be more sensible to buy a PC now and get the upgrade/build it after Windows 7 comes out than building it when I would only be able to buy Vista?

Quote of Microsoft.co.uk: "Similarly, in some markets, retail packaged Windows Vista software products (sold separately from PCs) may also qualify for a copy of the equivalent Windows 7 product. The Windows 7 products will be provided to qualifying customers after Windows 7 becomes available on October 22, 2009."

You should check microsoft.co.uk and the store you're going to buy from in detail, but I'd assume you can upgrade your Windows Vista to 7 if you buy it now in the UK.



Oh, and FutureWorm: Windows 7 Home Edition is £50 ($82 US) to pre-order in the UK.

[thomasp]

I've got a "nice little runner" I could sell to you for £100 :p

[Akuryou13]

I want to stress that you make sure EVERY part is compatible.

video cards these days are all PCI-E 2, RAM is all DDR2 or 3, and the motherboards are reflecting this. you'll also want to keep an eye out on your hard drive since most these days are SATA and if your current one is IDE it'll be tougher to transfer files over if the mobo doesn't support the old format.

be sure to look for all the 2s and 3s on the compatibility section of the box or the website or whatever and ensure that your parts fit. me, my cousin and a friend have all recently done upgrades and had trouble finding things that were compatible due to this. I found it impossible to find anything but a PCI-E 2.0 video card, for instance, and you might have a similar problem looking for a mobo with PCI-E 1.0 compatibility.

[FutureWorm]

Make sure it's a good power supply. Skimping on a PSU can cause serious issues (I've had computers randomly shut off due to a poor power supply, graphics card start causing corruption due to a poor power supply, in a really old computer the power supply dongle connecting to the motherboard actually burnt and melt one day, etc. - Make sure it not only has enough rating, but that it's not a terrible no-name brand, as a no-name 700W is still awful).
yes, this. corsair is what the cool kids are using these days
Any onboard features you want (PCI-E, onboard network card, onboard sound card, etc.)
also you need to determine whether you want an AMD or Intel-based solution. the processors use completely different chipsets and sockets, so you can't just switch between one or the other.

a bit about AMD
right now, AMD is in a transition period between their old socket type (AM2+) and their new (AM3). at this point in the transition you absolutely should not buy an AM2+ only board, because that socket will be deprecated within a year. the big difference here is that only am3 motherboards support ddr3. in terms of processors, the current range of amd phenoms overclock like a mother****er. what's more, amd even has a special version of the phenom, called the black edition, specifically designed for overclocking. and the price is certainly right

a bit about Intel
intel core 2 processors are a bit faster than amd these days; the high-end dual and quad core intels generally beat out the high-end phenoms in synthetic and real-world benchmarks, though they are also a bit more expensive. intel, like AMD, is currently in a transition process; they are moving from the LGA 775 socket to the i7 socket. right now, i don't think the cost of i7 processors and motherboards justify the bump in speed over LGA 775-based stuff, but that's your call.

another thing you'll need to check is what kind of ram your motherboard supports. all the cool kids are using ddr3 these days, but ddr2 is still a widely available option.

Oh, and FutureWorm: Windows 7 Home Edition is £50 ($82 US) to pre-order in the UK.
huh, i could swear i saw a $20 upgrade path for current users of the windows 7 beta. maybe i'm crazy
you'll also want to keep an eye out on your hard drive since most these days are SATA and if your current one is IDE it'll be tougher to transfer files over if the mobo doesn't support the old format.
most every motherboard that i have seen includes both sata and ide headers. i don't know if you can use these simultaneously, though

[SargeMcCluck]

huh, i could swear i saw a $20 upgrade path for current users of the windows 7 beta. maybe i'm crazy

Any nice/good value offer the US gets .. the rest of the world doesn't. :<

most every motherboard that i have seen includes both sata and ide headers. i don't know if you can use these simultaneously, though

Yeah, every motherboard I've seen includes both. They can both be used simultaneously (optical drives are a great example!)

[FutureWorm]

Any nice/good value offer the US gets .. the rest of the world doesn't. :<

yes but you get 100mbit internet so

[Star Worms]

I already have a Corsair PSU *smug face* http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004

I think my current graphics card is just PCI-E (not PCI-E2). Would a PCI-E graphics card be compatible with PCI-E2 slots?

I've got a "nice little runner" I could sell to you for £100 :pNo thanks. I've heard stories about that one :p

[Alien King]

Make sure it's a good power supply. Skimping on a PSU can cause serious issues (I've had computers randomly shut off due to a poor power supply, graphics card start causing corruption due to a poor power supply, in a really old computer the power supply dongle connecting to the motherboard actually burnt and melt one day, etc. - Make sure it not only has enough rating, but that it's not a terrible no-name brand, as a no-name 700W is still awful).

I've never understood this. So long as the voltage doesn't fluctuate too much, the actual power rating shouldn't really be too much of an issue. I destroyed the ****ty 450W PSU my PC Case came with when I was building it, so I replaced it with a 350W one I found in a box somewhere in our house.
The only difference I noticed between the two, was that the 350W one was significantly heavier.

It's been running fine for over 18 months now.

[SupSuper]

Corsair crew reporting in. :cool:

I've never understood this. So long as the voltage doesn't fluctuate too much, the actual power rating shouldn't really be too much of an issue. I destroyed the ****ty 450W PSU my PC Case came with when I was building it, so I replaced it with a 350W one I found in a box somewhere in our house.
The only difference I noticed between the two, was that the 350W one was significantly heavier.

It's been running fine for over 18 months now.Well the more components your computer has (and the more high-end they are), the more Watts you'll need, and new components like graphics card will usually mention the minimum required. There's various "power supply calculator" (google it) online for you to figure out how much your computer needs.

If your computer far exceeds the power supply you risk breaking it or damaging other components. With only 350W, I hope your computer is very light.

[SargeMcCluck]

I've never understood this. So long as the voltage doesn't fluctuate too much, the actual power rating shouldn't really be too much of an issue. I destroyed the ****ty 450W PSU my PC Case came with when I was building it, so I replaced it with a 350W one I found in a box somewhere in our house.
The only difference I noticed between the two, was that the 350W one was significantly heavier.

It's been running fine for over 18 months now.

The more components you have (and the type of components - Two PCI-E graphics cards that require external power sources are a huge drain), the higher wattage you need. You can use a PSU that has low wattage, but it will do one or more of the following:

Randomly shut off when power drain gets too high,
Overheat the PSU itself, reducing the life of the PSU,
Overheat the dongles, damaging the connectors to your items, potentionally ruining them,
Something else which is passing my mind just now.

I've run a computer that needed 450+W with a 300W PSU. That's the one that had a blown, melted power connector in the motherboard, and when I removed the dongle it was impossible to connect another ever again, the motherboard was ruined. Be careful.

(As for why no-name brands are awful, many of them have the displayed wattage be the _maximum_ wattage, while most good quality brands tell you the _average_ (iirc), so a 550W Corsair is higher watt than a 550W no-name. There's also the issue of stability, build quality, and then getting into the business of rails).

I think my current graphics card is just PCI-E (not PCI-E2). Would a PCI-E graphics card be compatible with PCI-E2 slots?

♦PCIe 2.0 motherboard slots are backward compatible with PCIe v1.x. PCIe 2.0 cards have good backward compatibility, new PCIe 2.0 graphics cards are compatible with PCIe 1.1 motherboards, meaning that they will run on them using the available bandwidth of PCI Express 1.1. Overall, graphic cards or motherboards designed for v 2.0 will be able to work with the other being v 1.1 or v 1.0.



Oh, and old-school Antec crew reporting in.

[MrBunsy]

Something else which is passing my mind just now.

I once managed to set fire to a PSU by overloading it :p

[Xinos]

I once managed to set fire to a PSU by overloading it :p

My old toaster had a faulty timer and once it sat fire to my toast. Very scary.
I thought something exploded outside my window, but it was only half a meter of flames from the toaster on the windowsill. No blt's for me :(

[SargeMcCluck]

I once managed to set fire to a PSU by overloading it :p

Right, that was the one. I've had that happen too. It was that event that made me swear to never use a no-name PSU again.

[bonz]

Buy quality brand RAM only!
Companies like Corsair or Kingston are good because they have lifetime warranty.

Make sure that your RAM, CPU and mainboard all support the same FSB clock!
BIOS will always use the lowest common clock, so you create a bottleneck if one component is slower.

BTW, there is also the BTX format for cases, which isn't popular and widely available though.

Another tip:
Buy from a small local computer shop where you talk to the owner.
They mostly are quite accommodating in terms of warranty, replacement and bargaining.
In bigger stores and chains you only talk to some low level clerk who has no say.

[Alien King]

If your computer far exceeds the power supply you risk breaking it or damaging other components. With only 350W, I hope your computer is very light.

The thing is, the components need very little power.
Found something from google that claimed to calculate my required power supply and it came to 168 Watts (it's probably a bit more than that - I ignored the small fan in the side of my case and I've no idea what the USB devices draw).

Unless I rig up a second video card, another HDD and a second DVD drive (incidently, it was plugging in the extra DVD drive that blew up the previous 450W PSU), I can't see my actual power requirements even approaching 350W.

[SargeMcCluck]

The thing is, the components need very little power.
Found something from google that claimed to calculate my required power supply and it came to 168 Watts

Then you have a low power use computer - either you have specialist low-power-use components, or you don't have a high-end computer for the appropriate generation of hardware.

[Alien King]

Then you have a low power use computer - either you have specialist low-power-use components, or you don't have a high-end computer for the appropriate generation of hardware.

Well it's not the former. The latter I'll agree with.
There's quite a lot of specifics (HDD model etc) that I cannot remember so I just went with the generic options on the calculator thing.

[Akuryou13]

Yeah, every motherboard I've seen includes both. They can both be used simultaneously (optical drives are a great example!)most of the ones I looked at had IDE power slots and IDE CD drive slots but no IDE HDD slots. are you certain it's HD slots you're seeing?

I think my current graphics card is just PCI-E (not PCI-E2). Would a PCI-E graphics card be compatible with PCI-E2 slots?not sure. my problem required that I replace the video card primarily but I only found later that I needed the new mobo. it'd definitely be something you'll want to look in on though.

[SupSuper]

I think my current graphics card is just PCI-E (not PCI-E2). Would a PCI-E graphics card be compatible with PCI-E2 slots?Yup.

And PCI-E2 cards should still be backwards compatible with PCI-E, although at possibly lower performance.

most of the ones I looked at had IDE power slots and IDE CD drive slots but no IDE HDD slots. are you certain it's HD slots you're seeing?Erm, I'm fairly sure IDE slots are exactly the same for both CD drives and HDDs. And Sarge is right, all the modern mobos still include one or two IDEs for optical drives / old HDDs.
I'm not even sure what you mean by "IDE power slots" since power connectors are mostly universal and have nothing to do with IDE.

[SargeMcCluck]

most of the ones I looked at had IDE power slots and IDE CD drive slots but no IDE HDD slots. are you certain it's HD slots you're seeing?

"IDE power slots"? You connect an IDE cable between the motherboard and the IDE component, and a standard molex dongle into the component..

As for HDD slots, IDE=IDE=IDE. That's why you can connect a HDD and CD-drive on the same cable as master/slave if you wish.

[Akuryou13]

by power slot I was referring to the cable running from the power supply to the motherboard that looks effectively the same as an IDE cable. I know little in terms of technical jargon so excuse my use of idiot terms :p

as for the IDE = IDE = IDE, I wasn't aware of this. I'll be punching the guy who taught me how to put computers together :p

[SargeMcCluck]

by power slot I was referring to the cable running from the power supply to the motherboard that looks effectively the same as an IDE cable

That'd be an ATX/ATX2 power cable!

[MrBunsy]

as for the IDE = IDE = IDE, I wasn't aware of this. I'll be punching the guy who taught me how to put computers together :p

You do want to keep hard discs and CD drives on separate IDE cables though, if I remember rightly an optical drive on the same cable as a hard disc will slow it down. Less of a problem these days when most hard discs are SATA.

[Muzer]

Bunsy is correct. The BIOS uses the lowest common denominator for the drives on one cable.


One annoying thing about new computers - they only support 1 FDD. What if I want to dump some Amiga floppies? What then, eh? Never thought of that, did you, Phoenix BIOS!

[Akuryou13]

That'd be an ATX/ATX2 power cable!thanks for the name though I doubt I'll ever remember it :p

One annoying thing about new computers - they only support 1 FDD. What if I want to dump some Amiga floppies? What then, eh? Never thought of that, did you, Phoenix BIOS! well then you would go out and buy a drive made for that purpose. if you can hook up a 8-track player into a computer I'm sure you can find a floppy drive that'll run on USB.

[AndrewTaylor]

You can. I've seen them. Bloody pointless things they are too, considering you can get a £16 USB memory stick that's smaller and holds 10,000 times as much data as even the most densely formatted floppy ever.

[bonz]

You can. I've seen them. Bloody pointless things they are too, considering you can get a £16 USB memory stick that's smaller and holds 10,000 times as much data as even the most densely formatted floppy ever.
But are there USB to floppy adapters for Amigas?

Edit:
OFFS, there really are (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000488VL/ref=asc_df_B0000488VL848949?smid=A3T7DP7IJ54S2Q&tag=nextag-ce-tier4-delta-20&linkCode=asn)! (At least something equivalent.)

[AndrewTaylor]

That's beautiful.

[Muzer]

The program works with two floppy drives connected to the floppy port on the PC. This is a hardware hack due to limitations in the controller. A USB floppy drive just doesn't cut the mustard.

[Star Worms]

Make sure that your RAM, CPU and mainboard all support the same FSB clock!
BIOS will always use the lowest common clock, so you create a bottleneck if one component is slower.What's the FSB clock when it's at home?

[Muzer]

That's the speed of the devices. You'll probably find it somewhere in the spec list (measured in MHz usually). The CPU's speed is usually a certain multiple of the FSB clock: often they'll only tell you the number the FSB clock is multiplied by, so you'll have to divide the real speed by that to get the FSB clock speed.

[bonz]

What's the FSB clock when it's at home?
Normally, only the RAM modules really limit you in FSB speed, as faster RAM is also more expensive.
Mostly, motherboards of a certain era support almost all FSB speeds, as do the respective CPUs to fit in them.

So, at first check what FSB speeds your desired motherboard supports, then see how much money you have left in your pocket to spend on the fastest RAM possible in the size you want.

You should get a 2x 2GB DDR2 non-ECC kit with 1066MHz FSB of a good brand (Corsair, Kingston,...) for about 50-60€ nowadays.
DDR3 RAM of the same configuration as before costs about 80-90€.

1066MHz is actually the lowest available FSB speed, going up to something above 2000MHz, while I've seen DDR2 goes up to 1600MHz.

Also, ECC RAM (error correction) is more expensive and you're limited to the lower FSB speeds, so I suggest to stick with non-ECC RAM.
Quality brand companies give you life-time warranty anyway and also most good computer shops exchange them for free on goodwill too.