Computer Upgrades

For those of you that might be interested in doing your own computer builds, here are some things to consider in your build.

When choosing RAM, there isn't much difference between DDR3 1333 and DDR3 1600 if you're not overclocking.  What matters more are the timings.  Look for RAM with the lowest timings at the standard 1.5 volts.  You'll see a lot of RAM that is rated at 1.65V, 1.7V, or 1.8V.  That 1.5V is key unless you want to spend a solid day messing with timings and voltages in the BIOS.  I would not recommend it (this is what I did practically all day today).  If you don't get the voltages correct, the system will generally just freeze on you, even while in the BIOS.  The tell-tale here is hitting the num lock on the keyboard.  If you're in the BIOS and the keyboard won't do anything, including num lock, it's most likely a RAM or northbridge voltage issue.  The northbridge is what controls the memory and the PCIe slots, then has a link downstream to the southbridge, which controls your USB and everything else.  So if your northbridge isn't working, you'll lose your keyboard.  This is what was happening to me.  Basically, get RAM that you can run at 1.5V out of the box, and you won't have to deal with all these shenanigans.

Order thermal paste with your motherboard and CPU.  If you need to do some troubleshooting or a motherboard RMA, you'll need to replace the stock thermal pad with some thermal paste.  Just save the hassle and order it to begin with.  Before you try to pull the heatsink off of a CPU, do a burn-in test on it to really heat it up (make sure your CPU is hitting 100%), then shut it down and remove the heatsink ASAP.  What this does for you is warms up that thermal pad so that it's a lot easier to separate the heatsink from the CPU, and the heatsink doesn't pull the CPU out of the socket.  You really don't want the CPU to come with the heatsink on most socket types, as the CPU could come off with bent pins, or in the worst case, no pins at all.  That actually happened to a guy on my floor in college.  He was not happy.  You can't really solder 938 pins (course it was 939 back then) back on a processor.

I hadn't heard of it til I tried to put my new motherboard in, but apparently the ATX 4-pin 12V lead that goes to the CPU and plugs in directly to the motherboard has been increased to 8 pins.  Basically all this does is spread the power across twice as many pins and traces for higher wattage processors.  It's only required for CPU's over 130W, but if you're buying a new power supply anyway, I'd look for one with an 8-pin 12V CPU lead.

I think that's all for now.  That first point is a big one for me right now.  I think that I finally have the system stable, but the next time is hangs on me, Newegg is getting an RMA request.

Oh and if you're currently working on something like an AMD Athlon64 3000+ and go to an Athlon II X4 630, you'll feel like you're working at lightspeed.