Total cost was $428
Again.... 4 gig ram.... E7500.... no hard drives
When doing assembly, don't forget antistatic precautions. For
example, a wrist strap to the chassis is handy. Also, remove
all power before changing any hardware. Since the motherboard
seems to be an Asus, the green LED on the motherboard should
warn you that power is present, and changing hardware is unsafe.
The green LED on an Asus motherboard is connected to +5VSB, and
tells you whether the standby voltage is present. You want
all voltages off, when changing RAM or PCI Express cards etc.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2479151
The wrist strap has a weak electrical connection on purpose. It
has a high resistance value resistor in series with the strap,
and that is to help drain static charge slowly. Static discharges
do more damage, if there is no electrical resistance to limit
peak current flow.
When installing a processor, watch this movie first. It'll
demonstrate a few tricks with the push-pins.
(Intel LGA775 movie)
http://cache-www.intel.com/cd/00/00/24/12/241209_241209.wmv
*******
You have a plan to move the hardware out the case. I wouldn't
do that, until you've tested the hardware and it proves out
as working.
1) Memtest86+ from memtest.org . Do two full passes.
If there are errors reported, test the sticks one at
a time, to find the offender. No errors are acceptable.
If there is only one error in a long period of testing,
adjusting Vdimm one notch upwards may help. Read the ratings on
the DIMM packaging, to see if the memory has any special
requirements in terms of settings. DDR runs 2.5V, DDR2 is 1.8V,
DDR3 is 1.5V nominal.
Memtest should be completed before you install an OS, or
before booting an OS for the first time. Memory errors
can cause things like the Windows registry to be corrupted.
Memory errors can also cause the Windows installer to fail.
2) Prime95 from mersenne.org/freesoft . This is a stress tester.
It tests both the memory and the processor. You need an OS
installed for this program to work. Prime95 can be run from
a Linux LiveCD booted system, if you want to avoid running
Windows while doing the test. I use Ubuntu and Knoppix
Linux LiveCDs here, for that kind of testing. A LiveCD
doesn't require software installation, and the CD cannot
be corrupted by bad memory, processor etc.
3) To complete your testing, try a simple benchmark program.
I like 3DMark2001SE, because it is a relatively small
download, and the benchmark results make your video card
look like a hero.
http://majorgeeks.com/download99.html
On my previous video card, the nature scene runs at 100 FPS.
It runs at about twice that speed, on my latest $65 video card.
The first time you run that, you're looking for graphics corruptions.
Some Nvidia chipset GPUs don't seem to receive very good
testing, and there have been some bad 6100/6150s for example.
So the first time, the important factors are whether the
benchmark runs at all, or whether there is graphics
corruption.
I've tried to find a *simple* way to do a stressful Linux
graphics test, but so far, have no easy answer for that.
The 3DMark test is only for Windows.
When you install Windows, you'll need to install the graphics
driver after the basic Windows install is complete. The CD
that comes with your new barebones CD purchase, should have
the chipset and graphics drivers on it. The graphics driver
may even attempt to install DirectX for you. My Windows SP3
installer CD, already has DirectX 9c embedded in it, so
for newly purchased goods, you might already be covered for that.
The graphics driver package may attempt to install its own
version of DirectX, and that should not hurt anything.
Once the graphics driver, chipset drivers, some DirectX
are installed, you should be able to run the computer
monitor at native resolution, and be able to run 3DMark2001SE.
HTH,
Paul
(I bought it, as I could get a Win2K driver