Bill wrote:
Bill wrote:

I think I have one more session before the first post. You wouldn't
want to pay me by the hour...

Paul and Flasherly,

The first post was *completely* uneventful!!! Very quiet... not even an
error code. Then after taking a short break, I re-inserted the 24 pin
connector, even flexed the MB a little, and heard a click, and after
that things went much better.

I selected the "optimized defaults". Windows7 loaded in 15 or 20
minutes. I'm running the 4790K CPU at 4.0 GHz (no XMP features yet), and
the cores temps are 29-31 C at idle.
On one of the first BIOS screens, there's a place where they list the
CPU temp as 22C (I'm not sure where that number comes from).

I don't have much software installed yet so, besides the install, I
haven't given the system a good test yet. I haven't even got it on the
Internet. The "Windows Experience" numbers are mostly 7.9. 7.8 for
Graphics, since I have a very modest, but quiet, GPU (GX750TI, Strix).
Far superior to the GPU (HD-4400?) in the CPU however. The first time I
ran Windows Experience, I realized my video card wasn't being used.
Another story, sort of funny--when I was finished "assembling my
computer" and was admiring my handiwork, I realized I had forgotten to
put the video card in. Fortunately I had left room.

So far, the new system is hooked up to an older monitor and keyboard and
I'm toting my one USB mouse from one computer to another. I have to do
all of the stuff you do when you change computers, then I'll be good to
go! By the way, I usually use the SANDRA program for performance
comparisons, but I don't get too caught up in making comparisons. I just
like to verify I'm getting the performance I'm supposed to be getting.

Cheers, and thank you for your support!
Bill

Let's hope that click was the latch on the
24 pin connector, mating and closing with the
motherboard portion.

With the different colors in this example, you
can see the latch on the black piece, hanging
down where the matching section on the beige
motherboard connector should be. To release it,
you need to press the top of the lever, so the
bottom portion moves away from the surface of
the other connector body. Then you can pull up
on the connector and harness. They use latches,
because without a latch, thermal expansion would
gradually cause the connector to be ejected from
its mate.

http://www.playtool.com/pages/psucon.../main24pin.jpg

It's especially difficult some times, to get the
ATX 2x2 or 2x4 to release, as there is no finger
room in that area.

It's almost as difficult as actuating the heel release
on the video card, so the video card can come out of
its slot. On some motherboards, that heel thing is a
pure bitch (examine it carefully while the motherboard
is out of the computer case, because it's pretty hard
to observe it later). It can be either a spring or a
slide piece. The slide piece type, isn't nearly as bad
to work with.

You can give your cooling a workout with something
like Prime95 torture test option (mersenne.org/freesoft).
For single threaded benches, some people like SuperPI.
Selecting enough digits so the whole calculation does not
fit in the processor cache. The 32 million digit calc
is used on some of the high end processors, because
they have such a large cache to work with. In the past
when I did builds, I'd take ratios of SuperPI times
in seconds, to see what my money bought me. But this
time I didn't bother, because clock rates just aren't
climbing all that much any more. What I got on my
new build, was a lot more cores. So that programs
like 7ZIP (parallel execution) go faster. I've seen
as much as a 7X speedup on 7ZIP (which, unlike some
compressors, doesn't "speed up" that much when it
hits easy stuff).

Paul