One more question...

[[AHL]Dragonne]

Thanks to everyones help, I managed to build up my PC last night, and everything seemed to go very well.

I have one more question though. I noticed that while I was building up the system, that I only have a 230W PSU. Now I know that it is recommended to get a 300W PSU for running the Athlon boards. However, my PC seems to be running fine on the 230W PSU. Should I buy a 300W? Is there any inherent danger from running with a 230W? I don't want to damage my PC at all, but I'd rather not be ripping it apart again so shortly after building it.

What I am running off the PSU:
Abit KT7 mobo + Athlon 800
Creative GeForce DDR
Sound Blaster 64 PCI
Speedway ISDN Card
Panasonic 5x DVD Rom
10GB IDE HDD

Will all of these peripherals drain too much power from the PSU?

Okay, question number two. Within my PC as it was before I built it, the DVD Rom Drive was connected as a slave drive on the same IDE channel as my HDD. I have left this as it is, and it's not causing any problems, but I was wondering if I might get better performance if I connected the DVD Rom drive using a different ribbon connector to the second IDE Channel. Any advice?

Thanks again guys...

[[AHL]Dragonne]

hello?

[-=Apex=-]

Yeah i set the dvd drive up as a master on the second ide cable. You may see an improvement but that is all depent on your system plus some times when you have a disk in the drive and you take it out the system might hang it's a strange thing and it does happen :)

[Calzor Suzay]

You've not stated what dma setting your HD is, if it's dma66 or higher then the DVD rom will drag it down to dma33, the controller only works as fast as the slowest device plugged into it. If you've only got one HD and one cd/dvd I'd put them on seperate channels just to be safe.

[[AHL]Dragonne]

Oh right!! I didn't realise this. My HDD is dma-33, so theoretically they should run at the same speed then? If I'm not going to get any performance benefit, I would rather not change it around if the stability of the system is going to suffer. Are there any other benefits to be gained by changing it around?

Any suggestions regarding the PSU?

[-Spike-]

Your prbably pushing the 230w psu near to its limits in that system. Itll be fine for now, but if you add any new hardware in the future thats power intensive, such as cd writers or extra hdds, then u might want to upgrade to a 300w psu. Worst thing that would happen is the system would refuse to boot if you place too much load on the psu.

[[AHL]Dragonne]

Thanks Spike.

Well, I've ordered a 300W PSU from Dabs, so hopefully any problems will be alleviated in the near future.

Ta all, you've made building my first PC a very easy experience :E

Laters...

[[HLnC]Jay-Dee]

damn it i'm too late
i've still got a 300watt psu going to anyone who wants it for about £20 :rolleyes:

[Calzor Suzay]

If your hd's dma33 then it'll be fine on the same channel, swapping it to the other channel won't effect the os or what letter it's assigned but like you say for the sake of stability just leave it where it is.