Hey I haven't asked any questions here in a long time.
I also haven't read that many posts here since the athlon xp 2500+ days either.
So I need to know some things about current hard ware.
First question is:
I got a sata-300 hard drive, but the board I ordered (MSI K8N Neo4-f) is only an nforce4 non-ultra so it only supports up to sata150. So...
1) Will I be missing out on a lot of speed or is this drive not using the full 300 anyway? (seagate 7200.9 160gb sata-300 8mb 7200rpm).
2) Is a sata-300 drive even compatiable with sata-150 controller?
Next question:
I read a post by clocker (i think) in a thread somewhere not too long ago that said to just use the thermal pad that's already on the heatsink. (it's an amd athlon 64 3000+)
I've went and put the heatsink onto the chip but am now having second thoughts and think I should have used some arctic silver 5 (is that even the latest anymore? ).
The main reason I didn't do that in the first place is that i've never successfully removed a thermal pad without scratching the heatsink before.
Third Question:
If I remove the heat sink (keep in mind the computer hasn't been turned on yet) will the thermal pad be stuck to the processor as well?
Fourth question:
Why do boards now need 24-pin ATX connectors on the power supplys? What do the new 4 pins do?
Thanks.
edit: BTW, full specs if you're interested:
MSI K8N NEO4-f
Athlon 64 3000+
1024mb Mushkin Ram
XFX geforce 6600le 256mb graphics card
160gb Seagate 7200rpm 8mbcache hard drive
NEC DVD Burner (dual layer, 16x burning speeds, etc etc.)
400watt 24-pin powersupply from ULTRA (not the best but I can't afford any better )
Using my old case and fans, plus the stock heatsink with stock fan (if the fan is too loud i will attach my own fan to it)
Bookmarks