NSK2400 build notes

[Will Rickards]

So here is where I want to record my recent computer build notes.
I used the Antec NSK2400 and a Q6600 and XP x64.
I'm typing this from it all installed. I started about 9pm last night. It is now 4:30 am.

Anyway some photos of the horrors I have now:
http://willrickards.net/images/

You'll see in that photo that some part of a PCI card's pins is cut/broken off. Yes I had to use scissors and pliers. The freakin' scsi card was too long and hit the heatsink for the northbridge or something. Those pins were unused (there were extra after the pci slot ones). But that isn't all. I tried to hook the scsi cable to the card and the port is at the top of the card. Guess what is too high. The scsi cable plugged in to the internal port of the card. Can't close the case. F***. So I routed the cable to the external scsi port and back into the case. It works.

I ended up using a different PSU than comes with the NSK2400. I used an antec ?triopower? 430. I sent my psu from my old computer in for RMA and that is what they sent as replacement. Since I was using the 380W psu that came with the nsk2400 in my old computer while waiting for the rma, I just left it in there. But now I'm sort of concerned because the 380W antec had a fan in the back and this 430w one has a fan on top. I think it kind of screws up the airflow for the chamber with the cd drive and backup hard drive. We'll see if that hard drive is significantly hotter than the others. I have speedfan monitoring them all.

I used nlite to slipstream my drives onto the cd. Worked great. Except the CD I had supposedly had SP2 already on it. But the CD nlite made identified as SP1. So I don't know what happened there.

I decided not to pull over my ATI X300 card and just use the onboard video. No DVI for right now. But I don't think I notice.
The motherboard in case I didn't say in this post is a gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R. Stock intel cooler. 4GB 667 RAM (4 sticks). 1 Fujitsu 15K scsi drive, 1 250GB seagate sata drive, 1 optiarc cd drive, another 250GB seagate sata drive in a sata hotswap bay thing.

I also bought a new scanner, epson V200 for the 64 bit support.
okidata said my old B4200 printer will work emulating a HP laserjet 6. I wonder if that will work via USB or I still have to use the parallel port.

Well with all this work, hopefully my random computer lockups will be gone. Too soon to tell though. But everything is freshly installed. Almost got all the software on it already.

And I bought an i-rocks usb hub with that corsair 8GB flash voyager GT drive. It is usb 2.0 and accepts my SD cards. Can I just say I had no idea how much faster usb 2.0 really was but now I do. Downloading photos of the build (loving the macro mode on the D40 btw) was like 2 seconds rather than 2 minutes.

Well all the parts are cleared out so I can go to sleep now assured that my little kiddies won't be mucking with the internals of my new/old computer.

All for now, zzzzzzzzzzz

 

[Mercutio]

I'm actually kind of surprised that you're bothering with the SCSI drive, given the cabling gymnastics you had to deal with.

 

[Will Rickards]

It was sort of luck that I used the antec trio 430W they sent me as a replacement. Yesterday I spent a couple hours in the morning trying to swap the power supplies (antec trio 430w for the antec 380w that came with the case). But it turns out that the 380w didn't have enough sata power cables. I needed two and it only had one. I needed one for the main hard drive compartment and one for the sata cd drive. So trying to swap them was a waste of time .... except for

I had hooked up the fans in the case to the fans only connector. Thinking hey that is what they're for right? Turns out the 430W does it's own regulation of the fan power. Combine that with the fans speed selector switches themselves and at the lowest setting the fans didn't turn on. So I read the manuals and it says something like that. But who reads the manuals. Anyway now they are connected to regular power connectors and set to the highest setting on the switch. The fans are too loud on this setting for normal use. Maybe I'll change to the medium setting. But at high the temps are great. CPU under 32C, HDD under 37C.

Regarding the scsi drive. I hear you. I _really_ do. I mean I started at 9pm and didn't finish till 4:30am. But when you spent like $400 on it just not using it seems crazy. Besides I really like the boot drive data drive separation. Now I'm considering what to replace the scsi card with.

Oh and the okidata B4200 printer works through the usb port if I set it up as an hp laserjet 6P. Sweet.

What else.... it won't hibernate. I don't even seem to have the option. I couldn't find where to enable it in control panel.

 

[Will Rickards]

I'll take my own thread a bit off topic... yesterday I setup my mom's new computer - a dell deal with an X2 3800 and 2GB of ram etc for like $400. Her old hard drive was 8GB with only like 5.7GB used. I could have transferred the data all on my little corsair 8GB flash drive, but I forgot it. I used the usb hard drive. Geez that took forever. Like an hour just to transfer that much data. Did I mention windows 98. So the new computer is flying. But then I try to get on the internet. I had to through an old modem I had in there since she is still on dial-up. It wouldn't connect. Long story short I had to add pauses in the dialing number for it to work. Never seen that before. But I had forgot how painful dial-up is... it made the dual core feel like the old computer or slower. So I'm convincing her to get dsl.

But I'm concerned over the phone line quality. I might just have to run another line for the dsl and drill some holes to get it into the computer room.

 

[ddrueding]

But I'm concerned over the phone line quality. I might just have to run another line for the dsl and drill some holes to get it into the computer room.

I did that for an old place I used to live. Cut out all the wiring of the house, and routed a single line to the attic. There I installed the modem directly to a single splitter that went to the fax and cordless phone. This did help speeds and minor outages significantly. Of course, the house was built in 1922 and the phones were really, really bad.

 

[Will Rickards]

So in this thread I determined the NSK2400 only support coolers shorter than 12cm. The came out with an ultima 90 cooler but that is still 139mm. Still too tall. But the intel stock cooling seems not to be that great. It is very variable depending on ambient temps. And it doesn't keep it under 40C when under load and the ambient temp is like 75F. As I plan to run it full bore all the time (F@H) is there another cooler that will keep it at or near 40C?

 

[Mercutio]

I've used these on C2D builds a couple times. I've been shipped defective fans four times out of the maybe 150 C2D systems I've put together.
It doesn't have a temp sensor so it runs full blast all the time, but I don't recall the noise level as terribly objectionable. It's not silent like some setups, but it's a low enough frequency noise that it isn't bothersome at all.

 

[Will Rickards]

It looks like scythe has come up with a cooler, the Ninja Mini, specifically for the NSK2400. The silentpcreview review is here.
I'm thinking of ordering this, only $30 at newegg.
What do you think?

 

[ddrueding]

I think it looks awesome. I've been thinking of putting them in my modded Antec Aria SFF boxes.

 

[Will Rickards]

I succumbed to desire. I ordered one with this fan.
My goal for the weekend is to find the right place to put the computer. I'm heading to ikea to see if I can find a nice thing I can put in this corner that will work better than this desk. I'm thinking a custom desk would be best but I have no wood skills or really tools.

 

[ddrueding]

If I were putting one of these in a case, I wouldn't put a fan on it at all. I really doubt it will be necessary for anything under 100W.

 

[Will Rickards]

Remember this is a folding PC with a Q6600 in it. So I'll try it without the fan first but I think I'll probably need one.

 

[ddrueding]

If it is in an NSK2400, I think the case fan is within a few mm of the cooler. I don't think one mounted to the cooler itself would help at all.

 

[Will Rickards]

So I think switching orientations (horizontal to vertical) was not good for my boot drive, you know that scsi one I had to do all that work just to get in the box? You see it has developed quite a few bad sectors. I already had to replace this drive under warranty once a couple years back. I'm testing the other drives now. They were all 0 bad sectors approx 1-2 months ago. So I think I'm going to replace the drives with 1TB drives (1 for data 1 for backup) and just boot off that drive. But at current prices that is still $280 * 2 = $560. For $750GB it is only $180 * 2 = $360. Decisions decisions.... I'm also thinking of replacing the motherboard (same chipset or the newer version). I can't transfer video without firewire and no DVI is bugging me.

I was going to try to wait for the samsung SSDs to be available and replace my boot drive with one of those but it looks like it can't wait.

 

[Will Rickards]

Oh and just so it is noted, the random lockups I used to have with my old system are no more. The box runs 100% stable running F@H 24/7. So I still consider the old motherboard suspect and haven't made that old machine into a linux folding machine yet. Every weekend there seems to be something else that takes priority.

 

[Will Rickards]

and according to the specs my board should have firewire. hmm I'll have to look again.

 

[Will Rickards]

I just ordered 2 of the samsung 1TB drives HD103UJ from newegg. We'll see how it goes.

 

[Will Rickards]

Well got the samsung drives and put one in.... as well as the ninja mini cpu cooler. But it is only seen as 32MB in acronis true image, wtf? And windows XP x64 install disk doesn't even see the samsung drive. So I downloaded the samsung hd utils iso image and am running a low level format. First I ran a test and it reported errors with the drive. Hopefully I didn't get sent a bad drive.

 

[ddrueding]

Check the BIOS settings? I know in some (OEM at least) motherboards there are some crazy SATA (in)compatibility modes.

 

[Will Rickards]

And wouldn't you know it, the 92mm PWM fan I got for the ninja mini makes the heatsink just a hair too big for the lid to go back on the case correctly. Guess I'll use the 80mm fan that came with it or leave it off altogether.

This case sure gets dusty with all these air holes in it. Maybe I should cover the holes with something....

I'm going to have to wrap up work on this for the night(morning actually) even though the low level format is only 43% done. It is 1:15am here.
But tomorrow I plan to swap the other samsung drive in and see if it exhibits the same problems.

 

[Will Rickards]

I looked through the bios but I guess I can look again.
One of these days I have to update the bios but there is the issue of how. Normally you can use the gigabyte bios updater from windows but this is windows xp x64. And last I checked they didn't have a version for that.

 

[Will Rickards]

Well looks like it is a bad drive as it failed even after the low level format by the samsung utils.

 

[mubs]

That's too bad, Will. Where did you get them from? Where they packed properly?

 

[Will Rickards]

Newegg (NJ warehouse). They seemed to be packed properly with bubble wrap and peanuts. I probably would have done one more wrap around of bubble wrap myself but they certainly weren't moving around in the box.
But I think this drive was DOA before shipping to me. The failure wasn't bad sectors but the media detection area. I think this is in the non-addressable space of the drive. Like the first bit or something.

Hopefully the other one will work fine. I shall find out tonight.

 

[Will Rickards]

Hmm maybe it is just a bios thing....
http://www.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_Model.aspx?ProductID=2534
According to this page the F7 bios fixes some problems with 1TB drives.
So time to flash the bios.

 

[Will Rickards]

So the bios update did resolve the detection of the hard drives. They are now seen as 1000GB. But the samsung diagnostic still complains about a media error. On both drives. And now an ecc error. But windows chkdsk doesn't find anything wrong with either drive.

 

[Will Rickards]

Hmm see this link to a ?german? forum
When I translate it with babelfish.altavista.com I think he is saying samsung support is saying wait till after january when the newer firmware will be out.

I called samsung support earlier today. They escalated it to level 2. Then the tech their wanted to escalate it to a specialist and I got disconnected. I may try calling back later. I'm not sure whether these are real errors with the disks or just problems with the samsung diagnostic software. As such I'm a little reluctant to trust these drives with my data.

 

[ddrueding]

One was going to be a backup of the other anyway, no?

 

[Will Rickards]

Yes, to be placed in my removable drive bay.

 

[Will Rickards]

BAH! Three times I called samsung and each time they try to transfer me to tier 3, I get disconnected. At least the last time the voice said, we are in a meeting please call back later. I suspect it is just a firmware problem or a problem with the diagnostic software that caused the media error detection problem (I'll post pics of the errors tonight). The ecc error is more worrisome.

 

[Will Rickards]

Pictures of the samsung tests.
They have been resized and I cut the portion of the serial except for the last 3 digits. http://willrickards.net/images/HD103UJ/

 

[Mercutio]

Those drives are pretty much brand new, and Samsung's storage division isn't exactly known for being on top of the latest technology. It wouldn't surprise me at all if their software is just buggy when dealing with their biggest drives.

 

[Will Rickards]

That is the conclusion I came to. I just wanted it confirmed by level 3 support. I can't really call them at night since they close at 8pm ET.

Anyway I decided yesterday night to just use one anyway and start the restore. It said 1 day 7 hours. And it wasn't lying. It is still going little by little. This is acronis true image 10 home. I'm using the product cd to do the restore and chose to load the full version with usb drivers and such. I think it is linux based. I should know tomorrow morning whether the restore worked.

I still haven't decided what to do about the other one. I think I'm going to test it in my old pc for the hell of it. If it exhibits the same systems I might return it or rma it and see what happens. It will be a while before my 250GB backup drive is too small.

 

[Mercutio]

TrueImage usually works at 60 -75GB/hour, going from an internal drive to USB2, though backups are usually faster than restores. 31 hours seems slow, even for a full 1TB.

 

[ddrueding]

TrueImage usually works at 60 -75GB/hour, going from an internal drive to USB2, though backups are usually faster than restores. 31 hours seems slow, even for a full 1TB.

Agreed, unless it is USB1.1 or DMA isn't enabled?

 

[Will Rickards]

Well it took longer than 31 hours. I'd put it at about 40 hours. But it seems to have worked. I'm posting from the OS on the new drive.

 

[Will Rickards]

Oh and the new heatsink with 80mm fan did lower temps under full load. Only 33-34C under full load now. I'm happy.

 

[Will Rickards]

Also the machine is so quiet in regards to hard drive noise. I can't even tell the samsung is working over the fans. And that is with AAM turned off. I may have to turn those case fans down a notch.

 

[Will Rickards]

More notes... err complaining....
The case gets so dusty. I have to clean the outside constantly. And the inside once a month. There is a lot of airflow but boy howdy, it comes at a price.
And this is off the floor on top of the desk unlike the old case. Maybe I just notice it more because it isn't on the floor.

Also I bought one of those ADD2 cards to give me dual DVI ports using the onboard Intel graphics. And it doesn't fit right. If I seat it properly against the case and screw it in the card is not seated in the PCIE slot. If I seat it in the PCIE slot it isn't flush against the back and I can't secure it with the screw. And we are talking maybe 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch in the distance the screw hole is away from the hole on the card.
I'm going to try my older card in this box and see if it fits correctly.

 

[ddrueding]

I've noticed in a few cases I've had to remove, reshape, and replace the metal bracket holding the card in place. With low volume stuff like an ADD2 card, it isn't that surprising.