Finally got round to ordering my pc upgrade ...

[bigmouk]

1 x Intel Pentium D (Dual -Core) 945 Socket 775, PreslerCore, 2x3.4 GHz, 2MB x 2 Cache, OEM

1 x LN11451 Akasa AK-955 P4 Prescott/Conroe, S775 up to 3.6GHz/Extreme, 38.5 dB(A) Max Copper Core 3400rpm

1 x Arctic AC-MX-1 THERMAL PASTE

2 x LN9871 512Mb DDR2 PC2-4200 533MHz non-ECC 240 DIMM unbuffered CL4 Retail

1 x LN14777 Asus P5VD2-MX, VIA P4M890, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 400/533, SATA II, SATA/IDE RAID, ATX

1 x LN12698 200 Gb Maxtor 6V200E0 DiamondMax 10, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, NCQ, 9.0 ms

1 x SC 6057L Black Midi case 400w + 2 Fans

-----------
£266 all in !

BTW - Not used for games.

Have i missed anything ?

 

[Adam K]

a graphics card?

 

[Griff]

Mobo has it onboard and as he's not using it for games I'm guessing he's making do with that.

 

[bigmouk]

Ive got a cheap Geforce 4 128mb one from my old machine, prob + DVD Writer + Monitor etc.. etc..

 

[bigmouk]

Ive heard them dual cores can get seriously hot. Is that only when they are being pushed with games and intensive programs ?

Will i be ok with what i have there for cooling ?

 

[Munson]

I have not checked but surely your old card is agp? You wont find an AGP bus on a Conroe board?

 

[Darren S]

Sounds fine if you're not intending to play games. The P5VD2-MX mobo does use an onboard graphics setup, that uses 64MB of shared memory. Thus, it will be taken immediately from the 512MB you start off with - assuming you tell BIOS to use the full 64MB.

As Roy pointed out, there's no AGP slot on there, so your old Geforce card won't fit. There's a PCI-E x16 slot in there though, so you can always add a card in the near future. Something cheap (like below) would free-up the memory that the onboard GFX is using.

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=7649&GroupID=1273

D.

 

[bigmouk]

Cheers Darren. I have 1gb of ram on order so will try the onboard VGA and see how it goes. Crazy what you can get for the money now!

 

[bigmouk]

Is that thermal paste easy to apply ? Anything i should be careful about ?

 

[Munson]

Is that thermal paste easy to apply ? Anything i should be careful about ?

Dont put too much on. It's only purpose is to fill in the microscopic inperfections in the contact surface between the CPU heat spreader, and the sink. Think of it like filing in the tiny pits that your eye cannot see. It's not glue, put it that way

 

[Darren S]

The thermal paste question is one that few people will agree on! These days, the full retail products from AMD are fine to just fit together and they work. With Intel's like you've picked, I not sure myself.


Underneath the heatsink itself, you should see a square blob of what looks like rolled-out Blu-Tack. This is the thermal paste itself that comes as standard and usually does the job alright with the heatsink is pushed down onto the CPU. Most people however (myself included) tend to apply a small amount of paste on top of the CPU when its in situ. Try to spread it evenly with a none metallic/non conducting item (I've used a pen top before now!) just so the CPU itself has a very thin layer of paste covering it. When that lines up with the paste on the underneath of the heatsink, it should be fine.


I've only ever had one instance of not enough paste being applied, so I don't think you need to worry!

D.

 

[Mark5290]

Will i be ok with what i have there for cooling ?

I never use the standard HSF that comes with a CPU cus they are sh*te, i have found all copper heat pipe towers with 80 - 90mm fan/s to be quite good.

I am running one of these - http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Cooler/Retail/cl-p0025/cl-p0025.asp

My brother was having heat problems with the standard cooler on his P4 even worse in the heat wave in July, he put one of these - http://www.thermaltake.com/product/cooler/combo/cl-p0024/cl-p0024.asp on with 1 90mm fan, problem sorted.

 

[bigmouk]

Just thrown this together. Didnt bother with the thermal paste as the heatsink seemed to have a thin layer on.

At idle the CPU is around the 22 C mark and the mobo 37 C. Not tested it under load yet. Does that sound about right ?

 

[David]

that sounds good actually. mine idles at 35 on a good day and thats with aftermarket paste and heatsink

 

[Tiger]

hmmmm, just reading thru this and decided to check the pc i just built (my 1st build)

im running a P4 3.0 HT with a coolermaster aero 7 fan/heatsink with gold thermal paste.

in idle according to the bios the cpu temp is 65 degrees and the mobo is 39, with the fan at its lowest 1770 rpm

with the fan up full pelt at 3600 it goes down to about 58 degrees

does this seem right?


ps. whats a good program to monitor all this kinda stuff rather than go to the bios all the time

thanks

Tony

 

[bigmouk]

I used Sandra Lite last night to load test the system ...
http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/sandradl_e.html

On idle my CPU is around 20-22 C and mobo 37 C.

On full load (both cores 100%) the CPU maxed at 39 C and mobo 39 C.

Fan speed never really changes much, stays at between 2600rpm and 2900rpm throughout.