new system build

[traveler]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

[snip]

the slight negatives of the case are 1)the mothboard tray is not able to hold any expansion slots so it is not a 'true' mobo tray as it slides off from the side of the case instead of from the rear, 2)doesn't come with the blowhole top panel---you have to buy that panel separately, 3)case doesn't come with an external 3.5" drive bay, so I had to purchase a 5.25 to 3.5 adapter to fit my floppy (yes I still use a floppy drive )

[snip]

Yep. I like having a floppy drive too. I bought the 5.25 to 3.5 floppy drive adapter too for my Lian Li 343B case. I'm wondering about the optional Lian Li aluminum floppy drive face plate. Did you get one? Do they work?

There is no motherboard tray on the 343B case. I guess I'll just have to reach in with a screwdriver.

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by traveler

Yep. I like having a floppy drive too. I bought the 5.25 to 3.5 floppy drive adapter too for my Lian Li 343B case. I'm wondering about the optional Lian Li aluminum floppy drive face plate. Did you get one? Do they work?

the case I bought from Performance-PCS came with the floppy adapter plus a floppy drive and faceplate pre-installed...they all work fine and look fine too

[traveler]

You got this guy?





Put into this guy ...





with the floppy drive? Nice. So you no longer see the plastic floppy drive bezel but instead you see the brushed aluminum. Nice.

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by traveler

You got this guy?


Put into this guy ...


with the floppy drive? Nice. So you no longer see the plastic floppy drive bezel but instead you see the brushed aluminum. Nice.

yes that's what I have...and all I see is brushed black aluminum...I never actually took out the adapter or bezel for the floppy since it came pre-installed with the case...all I did was hook up the wires...I should take it out one day to look more carefully

EDIT: Underwater Mike...if you don't want the optional top panel with the 2 blowholes you can have Performance-PCS drill a blowhole fan on the top for you as well

Originally Posted by traveler

There is no motherboard tray on the 343B case. I guess I'll just have to reach in with a screwdriver

even without a motherboard tray the PC-A70 would be fine because there is so much space inside the case itself...more then enough room to reach in and tinker with hardware

[traveler]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

yes that's what I have...and all I see is brushed black aluminum...I never actually took out the adapter or bezel for the floppy since it came pre-installed with the case...all I did was hook up the wires...I should take it out one day to look more carefully

[snip]

Nice!!!!!!! Thanks for the info polonyc2.

Now that I know it works, I'm going to get the brushed aluminum floppy bezel for my build. So Performance-PCS built yours for you? Now where's the fun in that?!? Mine is all in pieces!!!


Here's a better picture.

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by traveler

Now that I know it works, I'm going to get the brushed aluminum floppy bezel for my build. So Performance-PCS built yours for you? Now where's the fun in that?!? Mine is all in pieces!!!

Performance-PCS didn't build my entire system, I did that myself...I just bought the case with the top panel and floppy adapter through them

[Mankal3]

Are you going to do any 'sound proofing' on your case?

[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by Mankal3

Are you going to do any 'sound proofing' on your case?

you mean sound dampening foam?...the case is not loud enough to warrant that...plus the case comes with rubber mounts for the hard drives and other small touches to help reduce noise/vibration

[polonyc2]

built my new system last Thursday and everything is up and running beautifully...I had one major issue while building the rig: the case has a motherboard tray so I built the system first on the outside of the case using the mobo tray, tested it with just the basics---1 stick of memory, CPU, video card etc...everything was running fine...so I put the whole thing inside the case and fired it up---nothing!!...the PSU did not even power up...I took it out of the case again, everything worked fine---but as soon as I put it back in the case- no power

since everything worked fine outside the case I thought something inside the case was shorting out the board/PSU...as soon as I slid the mobo tray back in the case the PSU would stop working

after a few frustrating hours of going back and forth I finally figured out the problem---ASUS put a 'Clear Cmos' switch on the rear panel I/O shield...everytime I slid the tray back in the case the switch would get pressed and held into place thereby making my system not power up...terrible idea by ASUS putting that switch on the I/O shield...it can get pressed or activated way too easily by accident...there is a way of disabling the switch on the I/O panel by switching a jumper on the mobo (which I did to ensure that would never happen again)...after that issue everything has been up and running with no issues at all

[polonyc2]

the parts I picked out are close to perfect:

Corsair HX620: cannot hear it all...almost completely silent unless I press my ear against the case...definitely the best PSU I've ever owned

Maximus Formula: have BIOS 0907 installed and everything is working great at stock settings...one minor issue is that 2 of my Chassis fans are not being read correctly in the BIOS...hopefully a future BIOS release will fix that...the board has a lot of nice touches to it and has some Extreme Overclocking settings in the BIOS

-the board also comes with a free version of 3DMark 06 Advanced (with serial number to activate)...the Advanced version is actually not as great as I thought it was going to be...the few additional tests it runs over the Free/Basic version is not anything special

CPU: runs a bit warm at 38-42 at idle but doesn't go up that much under load (57 max temp while running Prime95)

video card: runs a bit warm at 56 idle using stock cooler...might have to get another aftermarket cooler once I Step Up to the 9800GTX

memory: G.Skill deserves to be right up there with Corsair, OCZ, Crucial etc as one of the top memory manufacturers

Western Digital HD: another virtually silent component

case: PC-A70B is the holy grail of cases

CPU cooler: easy to install...works as good or better then the big giant coolers from Thermalright or Tuniq...also runs pretty quiet as well

Nero 7 Essentials came bundled with my DVD-RW drive which was nice as I was planning on buying Nero 8 but now I don't need to (the 'Essentials' version has everything I need)

[fvbounty]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

built my new system last Thursday and everything is up and running beautifully...I had one major issue while building the rig: the case has a motherboard tray so I built the system first on the outside of the case using the mobo tray, tested it with just the basics---1 stick of memory, CPU, video card etc...everything was running fine...so I put the whole thing inside the case and fired it up---nothing!!...the PSU did not even power up...I took it out of the case again, everything worked fine---but as soon as I put it back in the case- no power

since everything worked fine outside the case I thought something inside the case was shorting out the board/PSU...as soon as I slid the mobo tray back in the case the PSU would stop working

after a few frustrating hours of going back and forth I finally figured out the problem---ASUS put a 'Clear Cmos' switch on the rear panel I/O shield...everytime I slid the tray back in the case the switch would get pressed and held into place thereby making my system not power up...terrible idea by ASUS putting that switch on the I/O shield...it can get pressed or activated way too easily by accident...there is a way of disabling the switch on the I/O panel by switching a jumper on the mobo (which I did to ensure that would never happen again)...after that issue everything has been up and running with no issues at all

There should be a jumper on the MB to disable that switch, I know there's one on the striker mb and you have to change the jumber to make the cmos switch able to work....you might check your manual, I bet there is a jumper!!!!

[traveler]

Congrats polonyc2 !!!!!!!!!!!



Great to hear the Asus Maximus is doing great!!!

If the Asus Rampage Extreme doesn't live up to my expectations in a few weeks from now, I'll be going Maximus too with the Maximus Extreme.

[NBK]

Hi polonyc2,

Glad to see you up and running!!!

NBK

[sammy2066]

Originally Posted by NBK

Hi polonyc2,

Glad to see you up and running!!!

NBK

Wow, his signature is bigger than the post!

[polonyc2]

spent the past few days benchmarking my new rig...I ran each benchmark for a minimum of 2 hours as a basic stability test with more in depth testing (8-12 hours) coming when I have the extra time

Prime95 version 25.6 is native dual core compatible...small FFT stresses the CPU...large FFT stresses the RAM...Blend tests both CPU/RAM

Orthos is the same as Prime95 except with a different interface

OCCT is for testing RAM and the Northbridge

if you can pass all those tests with no errors for at least 6-12 hours then you're pretty much 100% stable...make sure to use a temp monitoring software to monitor your temps while running the tests...also use a Priority setting of 9 or 10 on all tests

Prime95 (version 25.6)-- small FFT's torture test---> passed with no errors

Prime95-- Blend torture test---> passed with no errors

Orthos-- small FFT's---> passed wih no errors

Orthos-- Blend---> passed with no errors

OCCT-- RAM test---> passed with no errors

Memtest86 and Memtest86+---> passed with no errors

Western Digital hard drive diagnostic-- Advenced Tests---> passed with no errors