Woohoo! Got my PC assembled, fired it up, have a question...

[King$nake]

Ill post pics later, but this was my first PC, and I think I have everything connected properly (except the Mic/Headphone) BTW, where are those plugs at on a P5B Deluxe Mobo?

Anyways, have a question. Fired her up for the first time, all the fans worked, etc, so were all good. Than it automatically brought up a screen asking what my main boot was, and I picked the Sony Drive (first good thing, it recognized the DVD drive, so atleast I did not mess that up). I put in the XP CD, and now it is "formatting" the drive, but its taking forever! Its a 320 GB HD, and after 20 minutes, its only at 4%! Is this suppose to take a long time? Also, was I suppose to go to BIOS on startup? lol

thanks
Joe

PS, this thing is quiet as ****!

Here are my specs:

Case:
ENERMAX ECA3092 Black SECC & Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Motherboard:
ASUS P5B Deluxe LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz LGA 775 Processor

Power Supply:
ENERMAX ATX 550W Power Supply

Graphics Card:
eVGA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card

Memory:
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory 2GBHZ

Speakers:
Logitech THX Z-5300e 280 Watts RMS 5.1 Speakers

Monitor: (22" Widescreen HDMI)
SCEPTRE x22wg-Gamer Black 22" 5ms DVI Widescreen HDMI LCD Monitor

Sound Card:
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card

Hard Drive:
SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

 

[turtile]

It should take about an hour for the entire disk. I would say that 4% after 20 minutes is much slower than it should be.

 

[darkop16]

It took myn a while to complete and im running raid 0 . As long as its still progressing....your fine.

 

[Phrantic]

If you chose the fast NTFS format then it will go pretty quick but the normal procedure should take an hour or two, depending on how big your harddrive is.

The audio headers should be in the bottom left corner of your motherboard. Check the manual for the exact location.

 

[King$nake]

Ok, on the Asus Mobo I got, it came with an optional cooler fan. The only cooling I have is a fan on the case, and the heatsink fan for the chip. The optional fan says it is only to be used with a Water cooler or a Passive Cooler only........what is a passive Cooler, can I use this fan on my mobo?

 

[talldude123]

Post pictures.

 

[King$nake]

Im having so much fun with this thing. Installing Flight Simulator X right now....on my old comp I wouldn't be able to multi-task like this. I have a lot of pictures, will post them tomorrow.

Couple things, Ive got XP installed obviously, and I have all the drivers installed, got my 5.1 Surround Sound installed, what would you guys recommend I do next? I got the XP SP2 installed also.

Is there anything I should do to optimize my PC? Is everything running the way it should right now, is there further steps I should take to make sure my PC is running as fast as it can with the hardware it has (without OCing, which will come after the novelty of the "new PC" feel wears off). Im used to my old slow *** 7 year old Dell, so this seems fast as ****, but is there anything else I should do to get it going faster that I have not done yet?

Also, this PC is on a wireless network. How can I set it up to transfer files from a different PC on the same network?

thanks alot guys, and I will post pics miniana

-Joe

 

[jonny_uk]

If your running win xp then theres one or two things you need/should disable for maximum performance in windows.

Have a look at this http://www.tweakxp.com/performance_tweaks.aspx

Im not saying you have to do all of that, but most of the important things like turning off "Error reporting" and little things that are not desirable etc

Edit some of these are good to disable and increase response in windows http://www.tweakxp.com/article36975.aspx
Agian im not saying disable everything, just disable what suits you

 

[turtile]

If you're using a HS/Fan combo for your CPU, the optional chipset fan is not needed.

 

[Phrantic]

Install chipset drivers.
Check your pc temperatures with Speedfan, gfx temp with Nvidia Control Panel. If one of your temperatures is high, try optimizing the airflow in your case by cleaning up and tucking away a few cables.
See what fan speed(s) are most desirable for your needs (if applicable).
Install some better, less-demanding programs to use like Winamp instead of Windows Media Player and Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.

If you're on a wireless network, and you want to make a home network, you should follow the configure network wizard, it should be somewhere at Start > Programs > Accessories > Communication (I don't know exactly, I'm on a Dutch XP). Make sure that you go to your network connections first though, right click on your current connection and click properties, and enable file and printer sharing for Microsoft networks.