I used to build systems quite frequently, but that was in '00-03, and in the 7-8 years since then I've kind of lost touch with the hardware side of things. But when my stepdad called last year and asked for my help, I didn't want to let him down and I didn't want him spending unnecessary money on a pre-built box (for what he wanted/needed, there was no economical option).
Much had changed over 7-8 years, and I didn't get much of a chance to research and catch-up, so I closed my eyes, hoped for the best, and this is what I came up with:
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler
(2x - 12GB total) G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory
EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support
(2x) SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP Black Steel + Plastic and Mesh Bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible
It was a real beaut... a real beast, too, weighing in at 37lbs!
The bummer is, though, that he didn't get to use it. A year has passed now (built 7/2/10) and he dropped all this cash (I refused to take anything for doing it, but still feel bad) but it has gone to waste up to now.
When I put it together, everything was great. I had everything set up and loaded and copied his files over from his old PC (which had actually crashed, so I had to extract the data from a sketchy HDD). It was running so well, in fact, that a performance test ranked him in the top 3% of the world (all those components were practically just off the trucks at that time). I got it to him and he let it sit around for a couple months for some reason or another (he was in the middle of some projects (a self-employed architect) and didn't want to stop to transfer everything to the new PC), then when he got around to setting it up he got a boot-up error, where it was hanging at 'Verifying DMI pool data'.
So it sat around a few more months before he got it back to me to look at, and I ended up letting it sit in the corner of a room for a couple months myself, forgetting about it, until my mom asked about it this weekend. Now I need to knock it out and get it right and back to him, because his current PC is on it's last legs and he's talking about buying another one, and I'm gonna feel rotten if he does after spending money on this one (he's an architect, but in a blue collar-farming community of 10k people on the OH/WV border where there's no work for him... so he doesn't have the money to spend). I want to do him right and get this fixed, stat!
So I'm trying to troubleshoot it and when it hangs at 'Verifying DMI Pool Data....", it returns the error "Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter". When I press Enter, it does nothing.
I went into BIOS to check the boot order and it was showing both HDDs, but for some reason the CD drive was listed 2nd, between them, so I moved it up to the primary spot (and set 3rd boot device to USB HD), thinking I could boot to the Windows 7 disc. When I restarted it wouldn't boot to disc, and still came up with the same error. I rebooted again and went back to BIOS, but now neither of the drives are showing up.
And the BIOS is so much different than what I remembered, I'm a little overwhelmed. There are so many options and settings that I don't know where to start.
If anyone is familiar with this hardware and this error, I would most certainly appreciate some assistance in walking through the steps I should take to rectify this problem. I didn't mean to ramble on, I was just trying to paint an accurate picture of the situation. If there are pertinent details that I omitted, please feel free to request them from me.
Thank you, kindly
Much had changed over 7-8 years, and I didn't get much of a chance to research and catch-up, so I closed my eyes, hoped for the best, and this is what I came up with:
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler
(2x - 12GB total) G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory
EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support
(2x) SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP Black Steel + Plastic and Mesh Bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible
It was a real beaut... a real beast, too, weighing in at 37lbs!
The bummer is, though, that he didn't get to use it. A year has passed now (built 7/2/10) and he dropped all this cash (I refused to take anything for doing it, but still feel bad) but it has gone to waste up to now.
When I put it together, everything was great. I had everything set up and loaded and copied his files over from his old PC (which had actually crashed, so I had to extract the data from a sketchy HDD). It was running so well, in fact, that a performance test ranked him in the top 3% of the world (all those components were practically just off the trucks at that time). I got it to him and he let it sit around for a couple months for some reason or another (he was in the middle of some projects (a self-employed architect) and didn't want to stop to transfer everything to the new PC), then when he got around to setting it up he got a boot-up error, where it was hanging at 'Verifying DMI pool data'.
So it sat around a few more months before he got it back to me to look at, and I ended up letting it sit in the corner of a room for a couple months myself, forgetting about it, until my mom asked about it this weekend. Now I need to knock it out and get it right and back to him, because his current PC is on it's last legs and he's talking about buying another one, and I'm gonna feel rotten if he does after spending money on this one (he's an architect, but in a blue collar-farming community of 10k people on the OH/WV border where there's no work for him... so he doesn't have the money to spend). I want to do him right and get this fixed, stat!
So I'm trying to troubleshoot it and when it hangs at 'Verifying DMI Pool Data....", it returns the error "Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter". When I press Enter, it does nothing.
I went into BIOS to check the boot order and it was showing both HDDs, but for some reason the CD drive was listed 2nd, between them, so I moved it up to the primary spot (and set 3rd boot device to USB HD), thinking I could boot to the Windows 7 disc. When I restarted it wouldn't boot to disc, and still came up with the same error. I rebooted again and went back to BIOS, but now neither of the drives are showing up.
And the BIOS is so much different than what I remembered, I'm a little overwhelmed. There are so many options and settings that I don't know where to start.
If anyone is familiar with this hardware and this error, I would most certainly appreciate some assistance in walking through the steps I should take to rectify this problem. I didn't mean to ramble on, I was just trying to paint an accurate picture of the situation. If there are pertinent details that I omitted, please feel free to request them from me.
Thank you, kindly