I want a Gaming Rig

[Broomjockey]

Now for your latest. SATA does not do master and slave, as with Parallel, they connect two to a ribbon, while SATA devices are one per connection. What optical drive are you planning on plugging in? Odds are, you have a Parallel drive, which if you are hooking one up, set it to master right now. A later one you can set to slave. If you're connecting a HDD to the ribbon, set the Optical to slave.

Now the blockage. You might be able to bend it slightly to fit, but that can cause more headaches than is necessary. Turning the screw hole to a slot would be the best bet, as it's the easiest to do and is the safest option.

Yeah, I'm currently planning on turning the hole to a slot, if I can get my hands on some tin snips (which I'm told are the best choice for this kind of thing).

As for the SATA bit, my mobo manual says that there's four connection points, all grouped together, two are red, and listed as master, two are black, listed as slave (according to the manual). I'm pretty sure that both my HD and the DVD/Lightscribe drives are SATA, as that's what I asked for, and the cable fit into both, and the power supply cables that fit were labeled SATA, unless Parallel is a type of SATA connection, and I'm misunderstanding?

And there's no ribbon, just a simple, single, red (not sure if colour's important) cable running from each device to a seperate connection point on the board.

[JustADude]

Okay, I looked at the pictures and I'm pretty sure you can just pop the thumb-clip mounting plate off and take care of it the normal way. If you feel like Frankensteining your case, though, it'd be perfectly safe to pop the plastic bracket off and cut or file away the offending portion.

Either way is safe, it just all depends on how you want to handle it.

[Broomjockey]

Okay, I looked at the pictures and I'm pretty sure you can just pop the thumb-clip mounting plate off and take care of it the normal way. If you feel like Frankensteining your case, though, it'd be perfectly safe to pop the plastic bracket off and cut or file away the offending portion.

Either way is safe, it just all depends on how you want to handle it.

I like the ease of the screwless system, as for most operations that I'd have to perform more often (swapping video cards, moving PCI cards in slots, opening the case, etc.) I don't need any tools, so I frankensteined it a bit. Not terribly pretty atm, but it WORKS! aHA!

And I spent the time installing the OS, finding the drivers for everything, yadda yadda yadda. And now my system's up and running and letting me finally play my beautiful BioShock. But...

And there's always a but,

there's three issues.

1. It's not recognizing my wireless keyboard anymore, even though it did the first time I started the OS, so I have to use an old keyboard I had lying around. It is recognizing my mouse on a basic level, even though it uses the same wireless receiver.

2. It's telling me I have a floppy drive. I didn't even buy one, let alone install one.

3. If I turn my computer off, I have to open it up, unplug it, pop the battery off the mobo, switch the jumper, replace the battery and jumper, plug it in, and change the BIOS settings back to plugnplay. Every time, so far. And it was after the first time that I had to do that that the keyboard stopped working.

I've a funny feeling this is all related. And actually, if it was, that'd probably make it easier to fix. Anyway, any suggestions?

[lordlundar]

As for the SATA bit, my mobo manual says that there's four connection points, all grouped together, two are red, and listed as master, two are black, listed as slave (according to the manual).

Ah, so their defining them based on speed then. The "masters" have a higher allowable throughput.

It doesn't really matter the order, but plugging the optical into the "master" is a waste, as the drive will be the bottleneck, and the HDD(s) into the "slave" will simply slow the system down.

2. It's telling me I have a floppy drive. I didn't even buy one, let alone install one.

It's because you have a floppy controller on the board. Unlike an optical or hard drive, which needs it plugged in and powerd to be recognized, as long as you have the controller, it will show up. (please don't ask how I know this.) Ignore it. It's not doing anything.

The wireless going on the blink is connected to the reset procedure you're doing, as the USB recognition is tied to the CMOS (the battery and jumper, which you're resetting) What's causing you to have to reset is unknown to me. At what point in the bootup is the problem starting where you have to do the reset?

[Broomjockey]

What's causing you to have to reset is unknown to me. At what point in the bootup is the problem starting where you have to do the reset?

I push the power button, and then... nothing. No beeps, nothing on the monitor, nothing.

And so I shouldn't be worried about the floppy drive appearing, or that on the reset, it'll put it first on the list of boot devices? It just imagines I have one? That. Is. Weird. One problem off the list, one related to the other. Now, if we can just solve the boot issue, I'm solid

[lordlundar]

try holding the power button down for a couple of seconds. It's what I need to do for my machine. If not, the I'm afraid I have no clue.

[Broomjockey]

try holding the power button down for a couple of seconds. It's what I need to do for my machine. If not, the I'm afraid I have no clue.

ooo, good idea. My mom's old computer was like that. :facepalm: That's a lot easier than another suggestion I was given of updating the bios.

[Broomjockey]

D'oh! Okay, holding the power button works. However, I downloaded and installed some windows updates, and now it's fubar'ed my computer. Takes forever for windows to load and the onboard ethernet adapter is somehow disabled or something. So I'm going to try uninstalling those updates when I get some time.

[lordlundar]

Hmm, check to see how many startup programs you have installed and see if you can take a couple off. If you have too many things coming up at startup, it bogs down the entire system. And try to reinstall the ethernet adapter driver software. Lately, I've been finding Nvidia ethernet boards built in that when people update or modify their video drivers, they goof these up as well. (ahem, guilty)

[Broomjockey]

Hmm, check to see how many startup programs you have installed and see if you can take a couple off. If you have too many things coming up at startup, it bogs down the entire system. And try to reinstall the ethernet adapter driver software. Lately, I've been finding Nvidia ethernet boards built in that when people update or modify their video drivers, they goof these up as well. (ahem, guilty)

I couldn't reinstall the drivers, so I tried reformatting and reinstalling ( Goodbye BioShock progress), and now, when ever it tries to install/reinstall the original, off the disk drivers using its own install utility, and it gets to the point that it needs to restart the computer, it just hangs on the shut down screen. I left it for about 20 minutes the first time, and now I'm just leaving it until I get back home on my lunch break, and hoping that gives it enough time to sort out its issues.

Edit: Okay, it is most definitely the ethernet driver that's doing it. I installed the other three mobo drivers no problems, but trying to do anything with that just hangs the whole system. I'm going to try burning the updated one onto a cd and see what I can do that way.

[Shabo]

Sometimes the windows updates for the hardware breaks the drivers. I do not update any of my drivers through windows, especially not the vid card driver. There is also a problem where svchost update breaks the computer. Fix is here. That problem can also cause the computer to boot really slow and to hang during shutdown.

Good luck with that.

[MadMike]

Sometimes the windows updates for the hardware breaks the drivers. I do not update any of my drivers through windows, especially not the vid card driver.

I'll second that. I screwed up my video drivers that way a few years back, and it made my games run like shit. Had to reinstall them from the manufacturer's site.

Then just a few weeks ago, I did it again, although it wasn't the video drivers. I should have known better, and I did it anyway. Next thing I know, I have no sound or internet. Reinstalling the drivers didn't work, and trying to delete them gave me an error message. Luckily, system restore did the trick.

[Broomjockey]

Okay, I would like to take this opportunity to officially thank everyone for their wonderful help in getting this bastage of a machine off the ground and operating. It appears everything's finally going well.

I have no clue what the problem was, and probably never will, because I gave up, took it to the shop, and when they booted it up on the bench, everything worked perfectly. So, I'm now reinstalling the drivers, and then all my fun little things, and am not letting windows update pick ANYTHING to install.

YAY! Thank you ALL!!! *runs off to play on his new toy*