Topic: New computer assembly with old hard drives

[SL-Punisher]

Yea most CDROMS are still UDMA 33...definatly slower than almost any harddrive thats a couple years old to present.

[Sten]

Something else to consider how much performance do you want to get from this computer?

Assuming all you have is 2 EIDE controillers. No SCSI, or extra controller cards installed.

Assume the CDROM  moves data at 300 KBs to 1.3 MBs more or less.

Check out the speed of your hardrives.

You may find you have UDMA-33 drives or 66 or possibly higher.

So why is this important if you set a Hardrive on the same controller port as the CDROM then the hardrive will transfer information at the same rate as the CDROM.

The golden rule whatever is the slowest device determines the bandwidth of data being moved.

So if your CDROM is moving data at 300-1300 KBs and your old UDMA-33 is moving at 33 MBs your old hardrive is going to pay and you are going to notice a major performance hit.

Likewise putting two hardrives on the same EIDE controller nothing says you can't mix and match them just remember the slower of the two drives is going to determine the overall bandwidth transfer rate of your HDDs.

[E_Look]

Yes, but it seems to me that many people just wire up the CDROM drives as slaves to their HDs.  Then again, for many systems, how many IDE ports do you have on the motherboard?  This is why, when I added an extra CDROM drive, another HD, I had to set up the two CDROMs as slaves to the primary and secondary HDs.

Are you saying maybe I should have set one HD as primary master, other as primary slave, and the CDROMs on the secondary line?  Would this improve data throughput rates?

[Sten]

Quote:
Yes, but it seems to me that many people just wire up the CDROM drives as slaves to their HDs.  Then again, for many systems, how many IDE ports do you have on the motherboard?  This is why, when I added an extra CDROM drive, another HD, I had to set up the two CDROMs as slaves to the primary and secondary HDs.

Are you saying maybe I should have set one HD as primary master, other as primary slave, and the CDROMs on the secondary line?  Would this improve data throughput rates?  

YES

If the Hardrives have the same through put then one should be the Master the other the Slave.

Then do the same with your CDROM and burner or whatever else. Just make sure you change the jumpers to reflect properly.

[Capt. Mike]

What I've done is put the DVD and DVD burner on the secondary IDE, the 80G and 40G on the primary, and installed a controller card for the 20 and two 10's (I can't get rid of anything)..of course I put in a 550 W pwr supply and some extra fans, but everything has been working well.  I seem to recall a while back that it was not good to mix and match HD with CD/DVD drives..so I've kept that strategy.

Mike
 

[E_Look]

550 W!!  (And all that extra hardware!)   Wow, Capt. Mike, did you put in some extra case fans or something?

[Capt. Mike]

Of course I did...read everything... have 2 extra fans and it's in the coolest room of the house  

Mike
 

[SL-Punisher]

You also should consider purchasing a addin PCI ATA-100/133 board if you have a hard drive that supports it and the IDE controllers on your motherboard are a bit old (ATA 33/66)

Here check this out:

http://www.pcclub.com/product_list.cfm?cat=Controller%20Cards&subcat1=Ultra%20ATA&subcat2=ATA%20133

[E_Look]

Well, I began the assembly of the computer tonight, and it's "half" done: all I've gotten to so far is to install the CPU, its heatsink, the RAM, the video card, and power supply.  Respectively, they are:

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton (and the retail package heatsink it came with)
2 sticks of Kingston DDR-2700 RAM (CL = 2.5)
Connect3D Radeon 9500 (alas, not the one with the "L" shaped chip pattern, i.e., the one that can be flashed up to a 9700) and
Thermaltake 420 W PSU (as far as I can see, not SATA ready, but I don't care, as I"m reusing old HDs), all hooked up to a
DFI NFII Ultra-AL (nForce 2 400 chipset) board  (yeah, yeah, I know, my RAM is not dual channel, but I think this is a small matter)

Everything is wrapped up in a lime green (hey, it's for a kid!) Raidmax steel case with one of those kid-approved see-thru side panels... oh yeah, I will also stick in a third case fan that has green glowy LEDs, which is why  kids approve of having a plastic case side in the first place.

I just hope I didn't screw up the little square of thermal contact goop on the underside of the heat sink; the heatsink of the northbridge chip, which is very close to the CPU socket, was kind of huge and impeded my installation of the CPU heatsink.  (But I think I did it right, though.)  You have to get the three plastic lugs on the side of the socket base closest to that northbridge chip close to the three openings in the plain side of the heatsink clip (as it won't go in by themselves) and then use your finger to push the metal clip at each cutout/lug point to get the lugs through, and then swivel down the heatsink as far as possible without forcing, then with gentle but firm pressure press the green tab on the remaining clip so that the three cutouts on that side secure themselves on the lugs of the other side of the socket base.  This is the part of PC assembly I heat (fear) the most.  It was easier with my Socket 754 MSI board and its Athlon 64; that went in fairly easily.

Now how am I going to stea... uh, remove the HDs and CDROM and zip drives out of his current system without him noticing??  Still, I think this beats spending another $100-200 for another HD, CDROM, and zip.

I hope I haven't bored all of you.  Thanks for all your input!  I will do as you all suggest, transferring the data to one of those drives, "zeroing" out that first one, and then installing XP fresh on a cleaned drive... and will do my best to keep the HDs and other drives on separate lines.

But I think I recall I used to have a problem with hooking up a zip drive either as master OR slave with a CDROM drive.  I think I HAD to make it slave to a HD.  And, bummer... this mobo only comes with  ONLY ONE    IDE ribbon cable (not even round, at that!).  Ah, well, I think I can reuse the old IDE cables, too!  

[Capt. Mike]

To remove his hardware w/out him knowing it...take hime to the woods with a burlap bag and a bat, tell him to go out  calling "here snipe, here snipe"  and while he's occupied...go home and grab it  


     

Mike  

[Sirgod]

Quote:
To remove his hardware w/out him knowing it...take hime to the woods with a burlap bag and a bat, tell him to go out  calling "here snipe, here snipe"  and while he's occupied...go home and grab it  


     

Mike  

 

the good old Snipe hunt. takes a few of those Snipes to fill the Belly.

Stephen

[E_Look]

Or easier, I could get him over to a friend's house, where there is X-Box or GameCube or some other such puerile systems.   He will then forget about his PC.   (I tried ST:Shattered Universe at my bro-in-law's- it is as some said, a fighter game... somewhat reminiscent of a Wing Commander fighter going after some Kilrathi capital ship... give my any of the SFCs and a compatible PC any day!)

Of course, I could do as you suggested, except maybe tell him to bag a Wampus who will give you his $$$ to release him so he can come back to buy a plot with crystite, hopefully to out earn the mechtrons or whatever they were called.

[Capt. Mike]

My Atari 800 still runs w/it's happy drive...when the kids come over we still play a game or two of M.U.L.E.  And I still abuse Alternate Reality, the city and the dungeon.  That is a great RPG.  It's just too bad it got lost in the shuffle.

Hope everything works out..

MIke
 

[E_Look]

"My Atari 800 still runs... "

I'm jealous.

[SL-Punisher]

I hear they're steam powered

[Capt. Mike]

No, but you have to keep the hamster on his wheel @ 3600 RPM so you don't lose your game  

Mike
 

[E_Look]

Seriously, I wish they'd release a Windows version of Star Raiders.

My favorite part was docking with and backing away from the starbase.  In those days, that was a visual treat!

[Capt. Mike]

I do remember that game.  It is amazing what some programmers could do with only 64K of memory available.  Nowadays, you need 512M just to get things to operate in a timely manner.

Mike
 

[Capt. Mike]

So how has the snipe hunt worked out??  

Did your son get any?  

Mike
 

[E_Look]

 

Nah, I think in a day or two, when he's konked from "too much schoolwork" (yeah, right... why in my day, we had to... ), I'll download the zeroing out software from the sites Javora posted and sneak into his comp, load the stuff, and wipe the 40 Mb drive clean.  Then, I'll disconnect it along with the CDROM and install them in the new system.   This ought to last him the next ten birthdays, at which time he ought to go build his own rig... if he saves his pennies.

You know, I don't think my kids would even know what an Atari 800(0?) is.  I'll bet they'd jeer at the graphics, and let that color their view of the gameplay.  Some games today, whatever format they be in, are mainly graphics... all flash and candy, while the gameplay is a bit thin.