Looking to Build a Desktop

[Shin Johnpv]

Yeah I would return the PSU and get another one to start with.

[gamevet]

Agh.

So, I bought the things I said I was going to and now I'm getting some weirdness.
The PSU always starts making some noise near the back where the power switch is. Kinda like a grinding or crackling. It almost sounds like a really loud hard drive.
Tested it under varying power conditions, too! The thing posts, boots to the bios screen, though it seems to take a little while longer than it should according to my friend. It's running pretty cool, too.
There was one time where nothing was getting power until I wiggled the 24-pin cable coming out of the PSU a bit, too.

I'm guessing it's just a bad PSU and hoping it's not a bad mobo.

Yeah, take that thing back and get a refund. You don't have a Fry's in your area? If you do, get your power supply there. You could have gotten a 650 Watt Corsair power supply for under $100. You shouldn't being paying over $100 for a Bronze rated power supply.

[stormy]

The HX line is better than the TX line. It's a Seasonic OEM with a great reputation.

[Shin Johnpv]

Plus the HX series is semi-modular (the Motherboard and CPU cables are internally attached, but all the other cables are modular). Though you can get it for like 20 bucks less through Newegg, instead of Micro Center.

[ChaoofNee]

I got a replacement PSU. No noise! Yayyy!

Now, this set up is getting to me. Mobo posts right away, but then hangs on the startup screen for 20-30 seconds seemingly searching for IDE drives that aren't there. I even booted from the Mobo utility disc and it wouldn't actually get to any sort of main menu because "IDE drive does not exist or all primary petitions are occupied!"

Tried booting from Ubuntu on USB AND CD and it kept hanging after looking for SATA drives, even when none are plugged in.

Tried installing Windows off the disc. It took ten minutes to get from the blue wallpaper to "Install Windows" and then just hung on the spinning ring for a while without anything happening.

Now, I have yet to see where the SATA controller options are in the BIOS. I've seen the IDE, but am not sure whether or not I should just disable it all. Also was curious about the AHCI options you mentioned, stormy. There were 2 options set from Auto to AHCI (one of them was "GSATA") and was wondering if there were any other options I should change for the SSD. Also, for 64-bit.

This is my first build ever and the BIOS is a bit overwhelming for me. Hahah.

Thanks for all of the help already, guys.

[gamevet]

Plus the HX series is semi-modular (the Motherboard and CPU cables are internally attached, but all the other cables are modular). Though you can get it for like 20 bucks less through Newegg, instead of Micro Center.

The one I posted is modular as well. It too has the motherboard and CPU cables internally attached, just like my modular power supply from Thermaltake.

The HX line is better than the TX line. It's a Seasonic OEM with a great reputation.

That would justify the price. Seasonic is considered one of the best out there.

I got a replacement PSU. No noise! Yayyy!

Now, this set up is getting to me. Mobo posts right away, but then hangs on the startup screen for 20-30 seconds seemingly searching for IDE drives that aren't there. I even booted from the Mobo utility disc and it wouldn't actually get to any sort of main menu because "IDE drive does not exist or all primary petitions are occupied!"

Tried booting from Ubuntu on USB AND CD and it kept hanging after looking for SATA drives, even when none are plugged in.

Tried installing Windows off the disc. It took ten minutes to get from the blue wallpaper to "Install Windows" and then just hung on the spinning ring for a while without anything happening.

Now, I have yet to see where the SATA controller options are in the BIOS. I've seen the IDE, but am not sure whether or not I should just disable it all. Also was curious about the AHCI options you mentioned, stormy. There were 2 options set from Auto to AHCI (one of them was "GSATA") and was wondering if there were any other options I should change for the SSD. Also, for 64-bit.

This is my first build ever and the BIOS is a bit overwhelming for me. Hahah.

I'd go into the system H/W monitor in your bios, to make sure the board is posting the proper voltages and the CPU temp looks good.

The motherboard on my PC also has what is called a safe setting, where everything is set to the lowest settings. You could check to see if you can set your board to that.

You should also check the status of your memory while in your bios.

[Shin Johnpv]

The one I posted is modular as well. It too has the motherboard and CPU cables internally attached, just like my modular power supply from Thermaltake.

I didn't realize there were TX's that were modular as well, my mistake. All the other TX's I've seen haven't been modular.

[ChaoofNee]

I'd go into the system H/W monitor in your bios, to make sure the board is posting the proper voltages and the CPU temp looks good.

The motherboard on my PC also has what is called a safe setting, where everything is set to the lowest settings. You could check to see if you can set your board to that.

You should also check the status of your memory while in your bios.

Tried all of that. everything seems kosher.

[stormy]

I got a replacement PSU. No noise! Yayyy!

Now, this set up is getting to me. Mobo posts right away, but then hangs on the startup screen for 20-30 seconds seemingly searching for IDE drives that aren't there. I even booted from the Mobo utility disc and it wouldn't actually get to any sort of main menu because "IDE drive does not exist or all primary petitions are occupied!"

Tried booting from Ubuntu on USB AND CD and it kept hanging after looking for SATA drives, even when none are plugged in.

Tried installing Windows off the disc. It took ten minutes to get from the blue wallpaper to "Install Windows" and then just hung on the spinning ring for a while without anything happening.

Now, I have yet to see where the SATA controller options are in the BIOS. I've seen the IDE, but am not sure whether or not I should just disable it all. Also was curious about the AHCI options you mentioned, stormy. There were 2 options set from Auto to AHCI (one of them was "GSATA") and was wondering if there were any other options I should change for the SSD. Also, for 64-bit.

This is my first build ever and the BIOS is a bit overwhelming for me. Hahah.

Thanks for all of the help already, guys.

It looks like the motherboard isn't recognizing the drives. First of all double check all your connections to SATA and the power. Then verify which ports you are plugged into. I think the GSATA ports are extra SATA ports running off a separate SATA controller that Gigabyte has added to the board instead of the main chipset. I would not use them. Plug into the other SATA ports.

When you enter the Bios you should be able to see your drives listed by model number under the port they're connected to. It might still refer to SATA drives as IDE, that is just how it talks to it. All your drives are recent so set the port to use AHCI instead of auto or IDE.

If everything looks OK and you're still not getting your drives recognized it might be a bad motherboard. Even if you don't set the drives to AHCI they will still work on legacy IDE channel (that's how my MB came configured by default), so that should not be the cause of your problems right now. Do you have an old drive that you know works? Try booting with that just to be sure it's not some issue with your new drive.

[ChaoofNee]

Rad. Plugging it into the normal SATA ports did it. Recognizes fine!

It still hangs a bit at the post screen. Takes it about five seconds or so to recognize all of the SATA ports. I think I'll try just disabling GSATA to see if it helps.

Running Memtest86+ at the moment to double check the RAM before I start installing Windows and such.