So I'm building a new computer ... *UPDATED/HELP!*

[Hockeywarrior]

So today I found to my dismay that my computer's motherboard has fried on me. I've had the computer for about 7 years so I guess that's too be expected.

Anyhow, I figured this would be a good opportunity to build my own PC. I want to salvage as many parts from the old one as possible, since it has some recent upgrades in it. These include the video card (a GTX 260), power supply, DVD drive, and the old HD. My plans are to buy all of the other parts and a new case and put it all together myself.

My main concern right now is how to get data off my old hard drive. My PC technically WILL start up, despite the fried motherboard but I'm afraid to start it up to get data off because half of the capacitors on the MB have burst and some are leaking battery acid and I don't want to cause any more damage to the PC. So what is the best way to get my data off of my old HD? I'm going to buy a new 1TB HD anyway.

Anyhow, any advice you all could give me as a first time builder is appreciated. I have basically put together a PC before but I'm sure there will be things that I can't foresee ahead of time being challenging.

[Kelmola]

You can temporarily attach the old HDD to the new comp and simply copy to the new HDD what you need. If it's a brand new system, you need to reinstall OS and all the programs anyway, so simply mirroring the contents of old disk might not be the best choice. You could leave the old HDD as a secondary disk, but it's more than likely that it will just slow down the system, it's quite small compared to your new HDD, and since 1 TB disks are way below 100 €/$/£ nowadays, well...

RTFM. If you misplace the jumpers or power connectors you will just fry your new mobo as well.

Remember to leave room for future expansion. And you can never have enough RAM.

Do have a set of latest drivers for all the peripherals available - burn them onto a CD or something.

Avoid static electricity - ie. do not wear a sweater and do not stand on a fuzzy carpet while assembling your PC.

Don't close the case until you have the OS up and running and everything works.

[Stefan]

If you buy a new HD then there isnt any problem, you attach the new HD to the mainboard , install win 7 64 bit( i wouldnt bother with older version anymore, i hate vista but i love 7 ) and after windows is installed you connect your old HD to the mainboard and it will show up as addition drive in your explorer, copy the files to your new HD , right click the drive letter of the old one and select format. All set

Mainboard with IDE port, have to keep an eye on that since new boards like ASrock often dont have those anymore, and i assume your old HD is IDE.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128443&cm_re=gigabyte_870-_-13-128-443-_-Product

AMD quad core 3.2 black edition , overkill for games but not expensive at all, also easy to overclock cause of the unlocked multiplier.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808&cm_re=amd_955-_-19-103-808-_-Product

4GB of DRR3 ram with low latency, person above said cant have enough ram, but even demanding games like Armed assault 2 with alot of webpages opened in the background dont bring the usage above 2.1gb , so 4gb really is a sweetspot for gaming.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231276


a 1TB drive thats fast at the same time

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

a non expensive CPU fan/heatsink , especially when overclocking, there is nothing more annoying than having a noisy fan that cant handle the heat

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185125

If you decide to have a legal win 7

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754


I hope this satisfies your needs, the parts are spot on price / performance wise, if it would still be beyond your budget we can figure something out that is cheaper although there isnt alot of wiggle room.

[Hockeywarrior]

Thanks for the helpful info and tips guys!

I just ordered all my parts from Newegg and hopefully they'll arrive sometime mid this week. Here is what my hypothetical new PC is looking like:

ASUS Rampage III Gene LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard (new)
Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor (new)
Nvidia Geforce 260 GTX 896 mb graphics (from old PC)
HITACHI Deskstar HD31000 IDK/7K (0S00163) 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" HD (new)
A-DATA Gaming Series 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) RAM (new)
Rosewill 650 Watt PSU
24x DVD Drive (old PC)
Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Case

Not cheap, but it its significantly less expensive since I am building it myself, with some components I already have. Now for the putting it together part ... will update with questions very soon most likely!

[von.small]

looks like skynet alpha, we're going to have to nuke him from above, it's the only way to be sure.

[Hockeywarrior]

ahaha well we'll see. It wont even be running anti virus scans (much less trying to take over the world) unless I build it correctly ...

[Flippy Warbear]

looks like skynet alpha, we're going to have to nuke him from above, it's the only way to be sure.

From the orbit.

[General Tso]

I used one of these to get the data off my old HDs: http://www.amazon.com/STARTECH-COM-USB-SATA-Adapter-Cable/dp/B002XJG4OW/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=office-products&qid=1281468642&sr=8-4

Granted, just plugging into the new motherboard is almost as easy since you will have the PC case off already. 

[Hockeywarrior]

I used one of these to get the data off my old HDs: http://www.amazon.com/STARTECH-COM-USB-SATA-Adapter-Cable/dp/B002XJG4OW/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=office-products&qid=1281468642&sr=8-4

Granted, just plugging into the new motherboard is almost as easy since you will have the PC case off already. 

Yea before I close up the case I'll probably just hook it up to the mother board and copy what i need.

[NTH]

If you have some left, invest in a SSD. Just get a 40GB one, use it for your OS and install you favorite games on it, like FH2.
You will always be first in the server with FH2 running on a SSD.

[Hockeywarrior]

So I've got the whole thing built now, but have yet to turn it on and make sure everything works.

I have one big question though. I'm waiting on a friend to let me borrow his Windows 7 disc so I can install it on my new 1 TB HD. I did have it previously installed on my old 250 gig HD which is also hooked up to my motherboard.

So my question is this: can I run Windows 7 (which was installed when I was using my old PC) off of the old HD without any problems or do I have to reinstall it because of the new mobo and processor?

Thanks!

[Hockeywarrior]

OK, sorry for the double post, but I have an important and disturbing development.

I checked all connections and decided to power on my PC to see if everything was ok. To my dismay, all I get is a black screen. I wait for 30 seconds and still nothing pops up. I'm pretty sure that my connections are alright. All things in the case seem to have power -- all fans spinning (including the GPU) and LED's turning on on the motherboard.

I have a few theories:

1) somewhere I wired something incorrectly
2) my PSU is not powerful enough. It is a 650 watt, and you can check to see if it is good enough for the specs above
3) I somehow damaged my video card while physically installing it on my motherboard.

If you all have any ideas please share them! I'm really really worried that I did something very bad here ...

[General Tso]

Did you hear the POST beep?  You should hear that right after you turn the power on.  If not, you might have a bad motherboard.

[NTH]

Checklist:

- You hear BIOS beeps? Depending on the sequence and lenght of beeps it give you a message.
- Does the light on the numlock on your keyboard switch on? Then it booting beyond bios iirc.
- Does the screen work? Try different cable D-Sub instead of DVI if possible.
- Does the videocard acquire additional power via a 6-pin molex
- From the PSU to the motherboard you have sometime have a twenty molex and a separate 4 molex connector. Check this.
- Did you insert your old HDD, maybe driver conflict with your old MObo and CPU driver.
- Do you see the BIOS screen?

[Kelmola]

1) somewhere I wired something incorrectly
2) my PSU is not powerful enough. It is a 650 watt, and you can check to see if it is good enough for the specs above
3) I somehow damaged my video card while physically installing it on my motherboard.

If you all have any ideas please share them! I'm really really worried that I did something very bad here ...

1) is certainly possible. Never hurts to check.
2) 650W is enough to run anything , even the most ludicrous two-card combos and latest processors, even under full stress, so simply booting up a normal system cannot be too much for your PSU.
3) Maybe you didn't damage it, maybe you just didn't push it deep and hard enough Srsly, this has happened to me several times when changing the graphics card, I think that the card is in the slot but it isn't, and some further pushing (or removing it and pushing again) WITH THE POWER OFF has solved the situation. I would say this is the most likely reason.

Also, driver conflicts only come into play after BIOS has loaded, so you should still see some text on screen even if the Winddows loading crashes later on.