Everything query

Most case fans generally use the power supply hook up, but I've seen a few that do run off the fan headers on motherboards.

And yeah, leave most stuff as is until ya get everything finished with the install.

 

Okay, thanks.

It seems the only real disadvantage to this board as opposed to the Ultra2 is the fact that it only supports USB 1.1, and it only has one pin header instead of two. So, once I plug in my front USB ports, I'll only have two in the back (the two built onto the board). However, that problem can be easily remedied by purchasing a USB 2.0 PCI card. I've seen a few 2-port ones for cheap, and a few 4- and 5-port ones for a bit more. Anyone know of a 4- or 5-port one for under $25?

 

Not off the top of my head. Might try a search on Pricewatch and see if you see any company that happens to sell it (not that I'm suggesting buy the cheapest one you can find) at a price you want. I've seen some 4 port ones by Belkin, I think, at Best Buy here in town. I'm not completely sure it was Belkin, but I do remember seeing a 4 or 5 port USB 2.0 hub for around $40.
Sometimes it pays to check around locally too, BTW.

 

Yeah, I guess so, thanks.

Do I need to worry about putting a fan on the Northbridge chipset?

 

Unless you plan on serious overclocking, the heatsink covering the northbridge will be fine.

 

Hmm...WILL it have a heatsink?? I think I've seen pictures before where the chipset is completely exposed.

 

Should come with a heatsink ontop. Anymore, that's pretty standard. Some are fancier than others, but I haven't seen any recent motherboards that don't have one on it. All the reviews I've seen show the KT3 Ultra with a heatsink on it.

 

This is the one I got. Is that orange thing on the Northbridge chipset the heatsink? If so, the Northbridge has one, and the Southbridge does not, from looking at that picture.

Also, two of my friends and I disassembled his HP computer. Man, those cases are cramped. Anyway, we took out everything, including the heatsink and processor, put it all back together, and it worked. That was the first time any of us had done that. Anyway, his processor is a Pentium III 1GHz. Whenever we removed the heatsink, I was surprised to see that the processor was completely clean, as was the bottom of the heatsink. No dried up thermal paste of any kind, no white residue. We put it back on just like that, completely dry, and it worked just fine. Why do you think there was no paste and the processor was completely clean, as if it had never been on it? Did heatsinks used to run without any kind of thermal pad or paste?

 

Yes, the orange part is the heatsink.

I know about the HP's being cramped. Don't like them. Anyway, I'm a bit shocked that there wasn't even a thermal pad too. When they just started having to use heatsinks, I don't think thermal pads or other thermal interfaces were used, but as time went on, and the processor became faster and more transistors were in a smaller space, the need to have better cooling became necessary.
That P3 may be running fine, but it won't hurt to have some thermal paste on the core (just a thin coat) to improve heat transfer.
While that may save a little money, not having any sort of thermal inteface could have some devastating results, especially if that was an Athlon or Duron based system.

 

Ahh, okay then, thanks.

 

Well, my MSI KT3 Ultra motherboard shipped out today. I won't have my processor by the time it arrives, but I'll at least be able to fit it into the case. Big day for me, as I've never done that before.

 

Also, I found an AMD Athlon XP 2100+ processor, with the Palomino core, retail, for $96. Good deal? Is the Palomino core okay or should I go for the Thoroughbred?

 

Not too shabby for a retail. Palimino is fine. Unless you can get a similar speed Tbred for roughly the same price or better, skip it. You might want to stick with the Palimino just to be on the safe side.

 

Safe side? Is Palomino better?

 

Unless you know for sure it has a BIOS version that supports the T-breds, the Palimino is just as good.

The only real difference between the Tbred and Paliminos is that the Tbred has a smaller die size. You're not missing out anything if you want a 2100+. A Tbred and Palimino running at that same speed will perform exactly the same.

 

Okay, thanks. I guess I'll get that then.

It doesn't specifically say that it includes the heatsink and fan, however it does say retail, and all retails come with the heatsink and fan, correct?

 

Yup. And a 3 year warranty.

 

Ahh, that's very nice.

Okay, well, we have to go back to the initial installation questions once again. You see, my friend got an old 120MHz computer with Windows 98 on it. He formatted the drive, so we had to reinstall the OS. We decided to install Windows 95 on it, since it only had 16MB of memory. After much time, we finally figured out that we had to format the drive again with the /s parameter WITH the startup floppy in, so that it could copy basic system files. Then, after that, we had to boot again using that disk, and then put in a floppy with CD drivers on it. We then installed the drivers, again rebooted with the original system floppy, and then ran setup from the Windows 95 CD-ROM.

Now, I will be installing Windows XP on my new system. As you already know, you can boot off the CD with XP, so there is no need for a startup floppy. However, the CD driver thing is still an issue. Initially there will be no CD drivers, so how will my computer recognize the XP CD? I think this has come up before, and everyone said that XP will load a default driver, but my computer still has to recognize the XP CD before it can even load the default drivers. So how will this work with a new PC?

 

I'm actually not sure. I suppose it probably uses a generic CD-ROM driver at least during setup until it can copy over a better CD-ROM driver. Syngod actually might be able to answer your question a little better though.

 

Hmm, but even if it has a generic driver to use, the CD-ROM drive has to recognize the XP CD before it can even copy the generic driver! How perplexing...

Now, I know for sure that when installling XP I will NOT need a bootup floppy OR a floppy with CD drivers, correct? I'll be okay JUST with the XP CD and a blank, unformatted HDD?