I realized this rant got a little long so I'm just gonna put my questions at the top here so you don't have to read it if you don't want.
At one point I turned on the computer without connecting the video card's secondary power and it made this noise like a tea kettle whistling on the stove. I unplugged, hooked it up and it started fine. Did I damage my video card?
In speedfan I get 6 temperature readings. 3 associated with an it8712f chip, 2 associated with acpi and 2 associated with intel core. I'm pretty sure I know what the last two are, but what about the others?
In nvidia system monitor all the voltages are in red.
Cpu - 1.3000
memory - 2.000
fsb - 1.2000
ht(spp-mcp)- 1.2000
nforce - 1.5000
Is this a problem?
I did have one incident where the screen turned all yellow in stalker, but I checked the vid card temperatures and they seem pretty normal, 56 idle, 76 under load. The problem hasn't happened again.
Also during the build I pulled on a memory chip the wrong way and the heatspreader started to come off. I shoved it back on, but I'm not sure how bad that is.
Anyway thanks for all the help so far. This site is awesome!
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Ok so this build has been one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. Sure I haven't done one in a while so I'm probably a bit out of practice, but damn I really wanted to take a baseball bat to this thing several times. I'm afraid a lot of the trouble has to be blamed on the Coolermaster Stacker RC-30 I was so psyched to get. The whole point of getting a premium case was that I didn't want to deal with stupid little things like the side panels not coming off or the video card not seating properly.
So as I mentioned the first problem was the side panels. They just would not budge. After I got the hang of where to apply pressure and where not to this problem disappeared though.
But then it was getting the motherboard to sit on the tray and get its outputs through the rear i/o shield. This was near impossible. I tried putting the shield on the motherboard and then installing it. I tried installing the motherboard with the back panel off, but then the back panel would go back on. Eventually I just had to cut off the little metal tabs on the i/o shield and keep it shoved up against the back of the case long enough to fit a screw in.
Also the cpu+hsf seemed to take a hell of a lot of pressure to get seated. At one point it really seemed like a choice between getting it clipped down or not breaking the mobo in half. But as frustration grew I applied more pressure and eventually clicked.
Then there was the video card, an 8800gts 640mb. At first it seemed to go in nice and easy. Ah what a relief. But for some reason the hole on the card's bracket was nowhere near the hole on the case's back banel.
I took it out, put it back, leaned on it, wiggled it, but nothing. It seems the back panel of the case leans back slightly when the mobo tray isn't completely locked into the case. Of course screwing down the vid card while the mobo tray is all the way in the case is impossible becase the case is in the way. Eventually I ended up pushing on the back panel while trying to screw down the vid card. The screw still ended up going in at a weird angle and I really had to crank on the thing. But at least it was in.
I will say that the Q-connector for the case's front panel wires is the greatest invention ever and exactly what I was ranting should be included in my last build.
So I get it all together finally, and optimistically put the side panels back on. Then I hit the power.
....
Hahahaha, nothing. Monitor doesn't make a peep. Of course there are no post codes because this case doesn't have a speaker. So I rip out a speaker from another case I fortunately had lying around. No video signal.
I must have taken out and put back that card 10 times. Then just as I was about to rma the thing, poof! The monitor comes on and it posts!
On to installing windows xp. Now I need to press F6 and install the raid drivers from a floppy. Floppy? I didn't get no stinking floppy!! Back to canibalizing the other computer. So I get the drivers I need on there and begin intalling. Fails to read half way through installation and I have to start over. I think I may have had the floppy's ribbon cable upsidedown. Anyway eventually got through that hoop.
There were a other problems along the way but this getting a bit long. I will say that it runs pretty damn good now! I've tried oblivion and stalker with all the bells and whistles and they run great! And I'm kind of amazed I didn't have to rma anthing (yet).

At one point I turned on the computer without connecting the video card's secondary power and it made this noise like a tea kettle whistling on the stove. I unplugged, hooked it up and it started fine. Did I damage my video card?
In speedfan I get 6 temperature readings. 3 associated with an it8712f chip, 2 associated with acpi and 2 associated with intel core. I'm pretty sure I know what the last two are, but what about the others?
In nvidia system monitor all the voltages are in red.
Cpu - 1.3000
memory - 2.000
fsb - 1.2000
ht(spp-mcp)- 1.2000
nforce - 1.5000
Is this a problem?
I did have one incident where the screen turned all yellow in stalker, but I checked the vid card temperatures and they seem pretty normal, 56 idle, 76 under load. The problem hasn't happened again.
Also during the build I pulled on a memory chip the wrong way and the heatspreader started to come off. I shoved it back on, but I'm not sure how bad that is.
Anyway thanks for all the help so far. This site is awesome!

---------
Ok so this build has been one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. Sure I haven't done one in a while so I'm probably a bit out of practice, but damn I really wanted to take a baseball bat to this thing several times. I'm afraid a lot of the trouble has to be blamed on the Coolermaster Stacker RC-30 I was so psyched to get. The whole point of getting a premium case was that I didn't want to deal with stupid little things like the side panels not coming off or the video card not seating properly.
So as I mentioned the first problem was the side panels. They just would not budge. After I got the hang of where to apply pressure and where not to this problem disappeared though.
But then it was getting the motherboard to sit on the tray and get its outputs through the rear i/o shield. This was near impossible. I tried putting the shield on the motherboard and then installing it. I tried installing the motherboard with the back panel off, but then the back panel would go back on. Eventually I just had to cut off the little metal tabs on the i/o shield and keep it shoved up against the back of the case long enough to fit a screw in.
Also the cpu+hsf seemed to take a hell of a lot of pressure to get seated. At one point it really seemed like a choice between getting it clipped down or not breaking the mobo in half. But as frustration grew I applied more pressure and eventually clicked.
Then there was the video card, an 8800gts 640mb. At first it seemed to go in nice and easy. Ah what a relief. But for some reason the hole on the card's bracket was nowhere near the hole on the case's back banel.

I took it out, put it back, leaned on it, wiggled it, but nothing. It seems the back panel of the case leans back slightly when the mobo tray isn't completely locked into the case. Of course screwing down the vid card while the mobo tray is all the way in the case is impossible becase the case is in the way. Eventually I ended up pushing on the back panel while trying to screw down the vid card. The screw still ended up going in at a weird angle and I really had to crank on the thing. But at least it was in.
I will say that the Q-connector for the case's front panel wires is the greatest invention ever and exactly what I was ranting should be included in my last build.
So I get it all together finally, and optimistically put the side panels back on. Then I hit the power.
....
Hahahaha, nothing. Monitor doesn't make a peep. Of course there are no post codes because this case doesn't have a speaker. So I rip out a speaker from another case I fortunately had lying around. No video signal.
I must have taken out and put back that card 10 times. Then just as I was about to rma the thing, poof! The monitor comes on and it posts!
On to installing windows xp. Now I need to press F6 and install the raid drivers from a floppy. Floppy? I didn't get no stinking floppy!! Back to canibalizing the other computer. So I get the drivers I need on there and begin intalling. Fails to read half way through installation and I have to start over. I think I may have had the floppy's ribbon cable upsidedown. Anyway eventually got through that hoop.
There were a other problems along the way but this getting a bit long. I will say that it runs pretty damn good now! I've tried oblivion and stalker with all the bells and whistles and they run great! And I'm kind of amazed I didn't have to rma anthing (yet).