So i built my computer, now ive got some questions.

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

i posted a thread a while back, and ive finished putting it all together. I have a couple of questions though, but first here is what its made of.

Mobo/PSU/Case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856110073

CPU

AMD AM2 Athlon 64x2 4400+ 65w

RAM

2gb of Corsair Valueselect DDR2

CD

LG DVD drive

HDD:

SATA Western Digital 250 gig.

OS:

Windows XP pro (not installed yet)

Newegg is really slow so i cant post links.

Questions:

First, the barebones only came with an HDD and floppy ribbon cable. There is nothing there for a CD drive, so i just plugged the HDD cable into the the CD drive. Will this work?

Second, Im not sure what to do with an OS, i know ill most likely be using XP, but new copies are expensive and i hear Vista sucks. I plan to borrow XP from my brothers friend but it wont be for awhile.We had someone who was supposed to install an OS but hes an idiot so its not going back to him. Is there something i can install on it now just to run it? Like Linux maybe?

Third, Is it really that hard to install an OS? Ive read a couple tutorials on google and it doesnt seem hard, but i want the opinion of someone whos done it.

Click to read more...

 

[ARSkemp 10+ year member]

their shouldn't be a problem using the HD cable for the cd drive, look inside the bios and see if the cd drive appears their.

you can install linux if you want, but depending on which linux distro you use it might be a little complicated to set up.

installing an OS is pretty easy, just boot from the cd drive and follow the instructions on the screen.

if you have access to the internet (hopefully dsl/cable), you can "acquire" xp or vista online (may be faster then borrowing xp), since it will be just as illegal as borrowing xp from a friend (not saying i condone this //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif).

 

[DjiNN 10+ year member]

OR .. if you go to college .. u can check with your college and see if they give out FREE stuff to students like Windows, Office, and etc.. when my brother went to Umass .. He got like 30 copies of Windows from using peoples email addresses requesting copies ..

 

[lowriderram_95 10+ year member]

linux isnt that bad...just get a copy of xp pro off the internet. simple, quick, and effective. one suggestion get a decent vid card if you are interested in games at all.

 

[SuperchargedRS 10+ year member]

Go with Xp, vista sucks (sucked when it was longhorn, whereas even when XP was whistler it rocked).

Linux is better then windows...and it's worse, it depends on what your doing, allot of programs wont run in linux (under say wine) or arnt available on linux. Though there are allot of open source alternative that are really good (like openoffice), but if your wanting to play that new whatever game, you might want to run the same OS as most everyone else.

Linux is NOT hard to install, doing a big upgrade is a little different though, in windows you go to windows update and install sp2 or whatever, though there are similar ways of doing things in linux you need to know some command line functions as well (like say re-compiling your kernel). If you go linux I would recommend SUSE as it tends to recognize allot of hardware and is a nice overall distro.

Short answer, get XP, the ide cable for your HD will work for your CD/DVD just fine, set the HDD jumper to master, the cd to slave and just plug it in.

 

[ARSkemp 10+ year member]

the ide cable for your HD will work for your CD/DVD just fine, set the HDD jumper to master, the cd to slave and just plug it in.

i dont think he needs to worry about that, since only his cd drive will be connected to the ide cable, since his hard drive uses sata. I believe both of them set to master (or the default auto or whatever it is) should work fine.

 

[SuperchargedRS 10+ year member]

true most can get away w/o changing the jumpers, however that way eliminates the chance of "I tried that and...." lol

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

If i did run linux it would only be temporary so i could at least run it on the internet. It wont be used for much gaming just normal fast daily 24/7 type PC. The PC im posting on is probably going on HTPC duty being its so small (dell optiplex)

The guy i brought it to said i had SATA power and legacy power both in the HDD, when i had sata signal and legacy power. He had the drive replaced. He made us replace the barebones as well. These are some reasons why the guy was an idiot and im just going to install the OS myself.

One more question, when he had me send the Mobo back i took the processor heatsink off to remove the CPU. Being i didnt know what the gray sludge was, i wiped it off. Now that i know what it is, is it necessary to reinstall thermal compound between them? I have yet to turn on the computer because of it. Is there any places i can get it besides online? Mostly because it will take 3 days to get here. Radioshack? Walmart?

 

[MikeofTulsa Moderator]

look into getting an oem copy of windows, got mine or abour 100.00. I'd definatly recomend putting some of the thermal paste on there.

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

See im broke right now. I dont know if it should risk the viruses or spyware i might get downloading it normally, being ive heard the RIAA is cracking down i dont know what theyd do if they caught me downloading XP via torrent.

I dont go to college, but my mom and sister are starting an online type deal, and i could ask them.

If i did get an OEM copy, i could use it over and over until Vista gets worth upgrading to?

 

[SuperchargedRS 10+ year member]

Put some paste on that heatsink (you can get it at staples, bb, etc.), if you just want to run on the net, get a "live distro" this is a version on linux that boots and RUNS off a cd, this way you dont have to install anything untill your ready (less work), just google it and you will find many flavors of linux live distros (I think suse has one; I would go for that one if I were you).

As far as XP.... it shouldn't be that hard to find a "copy" also running windows 2000pro might be a good idea, i built a few systems for specific applications (i.e. the comp ran 1 program) and that's what I installed as it is easier on ram etc. Also 2000 doent have all that activation crap that XP has

 

[melnlovr911 10+ year member]

The only issues ive had with linux are wireless adapters. Other then that everything has worked fine from install (Ubuntu). I think that would work fine until you got a copy of xp.

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

Put some paste on that heatsink (you can get it at staples, bb, etc.), if you just want to run on the net, get a "live distro" this is a version on linux that boots and RUNS off a cd, this way you dont have to install anything untill your ready (less work), just google it and you will find many flavors of linux live distros (I think suse has one; I would go for that one if I were you).
As far as XP.... it shouldn't be that hard to find a "copy" also running windows 2000pro might be a good idea, i built a few systems for specific applications (i.e. the comp ran 1 program) and that's what I installed as it is easier on ram etc. Also 2000 doent have all that activation crap that XP has

So do i have to burn it to a CD? My only CD burner is in the new computer.

Will there be any issues with uninstalling linux when i get XP?

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

i have an old tube of arctic silver 2 paste you can have for the cost of shipping and i might be able to hook you up with xp

if you want to try linux check out kubuntu

easiest way to install an OS is to change the first boot device in the bios to the cd drive. windows will give you options for formatting and partitioning during install

 

[SuperchargedRS 10+ year member]

No because you arnt installing linux, it doesn't write a single file to your system

see below

http://software.opensuse.org/

A LiveCD, Live CD or LiveDistro is a computer operating system that is executed upon boot, without installation to a hard drive. Typically, it is named after the bootable medium it is stored on, such as a CD-ROM (Live CD), DVD (Live DVD) or a USB flash drive (Live USB).

The term "live" derives from the fact that these distributions are a complete, functioning and operational operating system residing on the distribution medium. A LiveDistro does not alter the operating system or files already installed on the computer hard drive unless instructed to do so. LiveDistros often include mechanisms and utilities for more permanent installation, including disk partitioning tools. The default option, however, is to allow the user to return the computer to its previous state when the LiveDistro is ejected and the computer is rebooted. It is able to run without permanent installation by placing the files that typically would be stored on a hard drive into RAM, typically in a RAM disk. However, this does cut down on the RAM available to applications, reducing performance somewhat. As of 2007, certain LiveDistros run a graphical user interface in as little as 32Mb RAM.