Guidance on PC building

[weisborg]

Well, there was a really smart guy that posted a reply with a board having 2 PATA slots 2 days before you ordered...

 

hehehe

[cspizz]

d'oh I shoulda paid more attention. It's not the first time.

[LOCOENG]

On the other hand new drives are always nice to have eh?

[cspizz]

I promised a lot of dumb questions, so here's another: the I/O panel has a bunch of tabs that I'm not sure what to do with. Some of them are clearly 'punch-outs' that pop in and break off easy. Others are annoying little thin tabs that don't come off easy. Are these supposed to be left on? Do I cut them off? My mobo and case both provide I/O panels, but neither manual says anything about these.

[weisborg]

Wherever you have openings that ports need to come out you pop those out, there will most likely be a lot of thin lines bent at an angle too that don't really block ports. They are kinda springy to keep the plate in place and prevent popping out and are a Ground for the ports to the case.

 

You can most likely pitch the one that came with the case, all motherboards have their own...use it.

Edited April 10, 2008 by weisborg

[cspizz]

there will most likely be a lot of thin lines bent at an angle too that don't really block ports. They are kinda springy to keep the plate in place and prevent popping out and are a Ground for the ports to the case.

 

i thought they were supposed to stay, but some of them look like they're obstructing ports [at least partially]. thx borg.

[cspizz]

i know i said i was going to forget this for now, but i'm wondering about an OS and whether i should get a 64-bit os. i'm running win xp pro on my current hp, but i lost the os install cd so i need to buy a replacement. i wanna go 64-bit to max out on memory, but the MS choices are limited and installing a 64-bit linux distro is a lot of change all at once. plus, i think not all hardware vendors make 64-bit drivers.

 

the other option is vista, but i'm loathe to adopt it, especially right now when it's so shabby.

 

i'm thinking my only option seems to be buying xp pro. my problem with that--beside giving $$$ to MS--is that the price of xp has gone up since the release of the aforementioned shabby vista.

 

what to do, what to do.

[Cynthia]

One nice thing Microsoft has done recently is to allow you to buy OEM versions that are cheaper than the regular package (with manual and support? ). Those OEM versions are around 60% cheaper.

 

I went for Vista and I think the version I got also gives me the right to replace the 32 bit version against the 64 bit when I want. (Only needs to uninstall the 32 before the 64 goes in). The OEM version don't come with both installation discs.

 

[LOCOENG]

Should be about ready to put it all together eh?

 

We will need pictures of the finished product BTW....