First build help

[redfish]

thank you very much for the help, Trotter. With that out of the way, I had one other problem, the RAM, which I just took care of- there was a sale on this OCZ Gold ddr3 1333 4gb kit and I jumped on it. It had mediocre reviews, it seemed like half of the people got great sticks and the other half got unlucky, but I'm suspicious that the "unlucky" half didn't check their QVL's. Although, they did run MemCheck and found bad results... While this specific model kit isn't on my QVL, a kit with the same sticks but came with three of them was... I assume they are OK. I expect them to come in the mail tomorrow. I am anxious to check that all my components are working fine, but I don't have my HDD or ODD yet. If I turn on the computer without a hard drive, will it boot? Can I set up bios without a hard drive? And what if it doesn't boot? Is there a list of checks I can go through to pinpoint the problem? I'm very nervous about the first boot. Oh, and one last question- I forgot to ask this before. If I plug in and turn on the PSU, will the fans spin or does it have to receive a power-on command from the mobo? I meant to ask this when I first got the case+PSU, because I wanted to make certain that it wasn't DOA.

 

[patonb]

Without a hd it will boot, but not go past the bios obviously.. You can boot a ubuntu cd and run it like that though to double check everything if you get/borrow a dvd drive.

If it doesn't boot, it'll depend if you get beep errors, but basically you drop down to bare equipment, cpu/1 ram/gpu and try, then if no go, remove from case and try.

No a psu needs a load,m which you can trick by grounding out certain pins, but a bad psu will usually turn on, just not power right.

 

[redfish]

thanks. What do you mean when you say i won't be able to go past bios? do you mean that I can get to bios or not, because I wanted to set the settings in BIOS.

 

[patonb]

Yha, you'll get to the bios and all, just not past there.

 

[redfish]

Awesome. Thanks.

 

[redfish]

YES! RAM came intact, computer booted up for the first time! The bios setup was confusing at first... it took my machine all of five seconds to POST, and I had no time to react. Okay. So my question is, can I monitor CPU temps via BIOS setup screen? My friend built an i7 machine, and just booting up with the stock cooler gave him 80 celcius temps.

 

[patonb]

Yes you can, they'll be idle temps, so if theyre high now, the'll be even worse later.

One question.. How did you apply the thermal paste/pad on the cpu cooler? Was it pre-applied?

 

[redfish]

I'm using stock cooler at the moment, so it came pre-applied. How do I find the temps, though? And when I set, say, the RAM timings (Gonna run MemCheck when I get ODD and try to mess with timings if they're bad), do I just highlight the option and enter the number? Or do I enter the difference I want to make to the existing number?

 

[redfish]

Nevermind about the CPU temp- i just found it. Ick- 39 degrees celcius at idle. I'll get a better cooler when I have the money.

 

[patonb]

Actually 39C is not bad at all.