Re: Power Supply Requirements For P4C800-E Deluxe and HD3850

Tom wrote:
> You wrote in news:. com thusly:
>
>> I have a P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard and plan to upgrade the GFX card
>> to a AGP HD3850,
>
> [...]
>
> Thank you Kyle and Paul for your replies. I've had to put this project
> on hold do to illness. I think I can get back to it.
>
> It sounds like from both replies that the power supply should be strong
> enough or I'll quickly know it's not.
>
> My other concern about the HD3850 is how long the PCB is and what it
> will hit when installed. I've read a lot of reviews from people
> complaining about the length of the card, but at no time do they mention
> the PCBs actual size. This is also true for the HD3850 manufactures for
> some odd reason. After spending a considerable amount of time, I finally
> know the size of the PCB. As it turns out it is 9 inches by 5 inches and
> that's a problem.
>
> To start with, this is what my Antec case looks like inside:
>
> .-----------------------------------.
> | | Power | _______1___| \
> |F| Supply | _______2___| \____ 5 1/4" Bays
> |_|__________| _______3___| /
> | _______4___| /
> |-----------------------------------|
> |---------------------. ____5___| \
> | | P4C800-E Deluxe | ____6___| >---- 3 1/2" Upper Cage
> |F| | ____7___| /
> |_| | ____8_| | \
> | | ======= <--- AGP | ____9_|F| >---- 3 1/2" Lower Cage
> |F| ======= | ___10_|_| /
> |_| ======= | _|
> |---------------------' | |
> | |F|
> | |_|
> `-----------------------------------'
>
> 1 = DVD Drive
> 2 = Empty
> 3 = DVD Drive
> 4 = SATA Hard Drive (320GB)
> 5 = 3 1/2 Floppy
> 6 = SATA Hard Drive (320GB)
> 7 = PATA Hard Drive (320GB)
> 8 = PATA Hard Drive (320GB)
> 9 = PATA Hard Drive (320GB)
> 10 = PATA Hard Drive (320GB)
> F = 80mm Fan
>
> As you can see above, the AGP port is directly aligned with hard drive
> #9 and so the hard drive has to me moved in order to get the HD3850 to
> fit.
>
> I could remove the fan in front of the lower cage, slide hard drives #8,
> #9 and #10 forward. Then attach the fan to the empty side porthole on
> the door of the case. This might give me enough room for the HD3850.
>
> I could take hard drives #4 and #6 (both SATA) out of the case and
> replace it with a mobile rack (such as a SATA ICY DOCK) where hard drive
> #4 currently sits. However, I do have concerns about using a mobile
> rack. Should I be and if not, any recommendations on which one?
>
> I could take the same hard drives (#4 and #6) and replace them with a
> larger hard drive where hard drive #4 currently sits. But I can't find
> any info on just how large of a hard drive can be attached to the SATA
> ports on the P4C800-E Deluxe with WinXP Pro SP2. I'm thinking of a 1TB
> SATA hard drive. However, then I have two 320GB hard drives collecting
> dust.
>
> Using external enclosures is kind-of out of the question as I already
> have two PATA 500GB hard drives in two USB external enclosures.
>
> I hardly got any sleep last night thinking about this. I'm stuck and not
> sure what to do about this. And I haven't even gotten the HD3850 yet.
>
> Sorry for the delay and thank you.
>

Look for a computer case, capable of holding an EATX motherboard.

"Motherboard Compatibility 12" x 13" E-ATX, Dual Xeon Board"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811165013

Exterior dimensions are 9.2" x 26" x 21.8"

http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggIma...165-013-08.jpg

The video card in that case, would fit within the confines of the
motherboard tray shown in the picture.

Some of the cases that size, are rather expensive.

Paul

Tom wrote:
> You wrote in news:gh1ene$5nf$ thusly:
>
>> Tom wrote:
>>> You wrote in news:. com
>>> thusly:
>>>
>>>> I have a P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard and plan to upgrade the GFX
>>>> card to a AGP HD3850,
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> My other concern about the HD3850 is how long the PCB is and what it
>>> will hit when installed. I've read a lot of reviews from people
>>> complaining about the length of the card, but at no time do they
>>> mention the PCBs actual size. This is also true for the HD3850
>>> manufactures for some odd reason. After spending a considerable
>>> amount of time, I finally know the size of the PCB. As it turns out
>>> it is 9 inches by 5 inches and that's a problem.
>>>
>>> To start with, this is what my Antec case looks like inside:
>>>
>>> .-----------------------------------.
>>> | | Power | _______1___| \
>>> |F| Supply | _______2___| \____ 5 1/4" Bays
>>> |_|__________| _______3___| /
>>> | _______4___| /
>>> |-----------------------------------|
>>> |---------------------. ____5___| \
>>> | | P4C800-E Deluxe | ____6___| >---- 3 1/2" Upper Cage
>>> |F| | ____7___| /
>>> |_| | ____8_| | \
>>> | | ======= <--- AGP | ____9_|F| >---- 3 1/2" Lower Cage
>>> |F| ======= | ___10_|_| /
>>> |_| ======= | _|
>>> |---------------------' | |
>>> | |F|
>>> | |_|
>>> `-----------------------------------'
>>>
>>> 1 = DVD Drive
>>> 2 = Empty
>>> 3 = DVD Drive
>>> 4 = SATA Hard Drive (320GB)
>>> 5 = 3 1/2 Floppy
>>> 6 = SATA Hard Drive (320GB)
>>> 7 = PATA Hard Drive (320GB)
>>> 8 = PATA Hard Drive (320GB)
>>> 9 = PATA Hard Drive (320GB)
>>> 10 = PATA Hard Drive (320GB)
>>> F = 80mm Fan
>>>
>>> As you can see above, the AGP port is directly aligned with hard
>>> drive #9 and so the hard drive has to me moved in order to get the
>>> HD3850 to fit.
>>>
>>> I could remove the fan in front of the lower cage, slide hard drives
>>> #8, #9 and #10 forward. Then attach the fan to the empty side
>>> porthole on the door of the case. This might give me enough room for
>>> the HD3850.
>>>
>>> I could take hard drives #4 and #6 (both SATA) out of the case and
>>> replace it with a mobile rack (such as a SATA ICY DOCK) where hard
>>> drive #4 currently sits. However, I do have concerns about using a
>>> mobile rack. Should I be and if not, any recommendations on which
>>> one?
>>>
>>> I could take the same hard drives (#4 and #6) and replace them with a
>>> larger hard drive where hard drive #4 currently sits. But I can't
>>> find any info on just how large of a hard drive can be attached to
>>> the SATA ports on the P4C800-E Deluxe with WinXP Pro SP2. I'm
>>> thinking of a 1TB SATA hard drive. However, then I have two 320GB
>>> hard drives collecting dust.
>>>
>>> Using external enclosures is kind-of out of the question as I already
>>> have two PATA 500GB hard drives in two USB external enclosures.
>>>
>>> I hardly got any sleep last night thinking about this. I'm stuck and
>>> not sure what to do about this. And I haven't even gotten the HD3850
>>> yet.
>> Look for a computer case, capable of holding an EATX motherboard.
>>
>> "Motherboard Compatibility 12" x 13" E-ATX, Dual Xeon Board"
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811165013
>>
>> Exterior dimensions are 9.2" x 26" x 21.8"
>>
>> http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggIma...165-013-08.jpg
>>
>> The video card in that case, would fit within the confines of the
>> motherboard tray shown in the picture.
>>
>> Some of the cases that size, are rather expensive.
>
> That certainly is an avenue I had not considered. After giving it
> considerable thought, I think I'm going to pass. Never the less, thank
> you for the suggestion.
>
> This then brings me back to the proposals I mentioned above. I could:
>
> 1) Remove the cage fan, place in porthole and move those drives forward.
>
> 2) Purchase a Mobile Rack (concerned about reliability).
>
> 3) Replace both SATA drives for large one (concerned about compatibility).
>
> All I know is that each one has their pros and cons (as mentioned above
> in the original quotes) and I'm just can't decide on what to do. I'm
> still open to other suggestions, if any.
>
> Thanks,
>

I chose the answer I did, because I was not able to find a working
combination of PDC20378 and 1TB drives. I don't know of a way to
predict whether they'll work or not. There really shouldn't be a
theoretical reason, why a 1TB drive should fail to work. (With
USB enclosures, they can have trouble anywhere between 200GB and
1TB, again, with no reasonable explanation for why.) So there is
some risk in buying the 1TB drive and connecting it to the
PDC20378.

This card is one way you could move some SATA drives outside the
case, and keep decent performance. This is a four port ESATA card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816133002

The Silicon Image site has BIOS you can flash to cards based on
their chipsets. Typically, there is a BIOS image for RAID and
one for non-RAID operation. So there is a possibility to
use a different BIOS and driver set with them.

http://www.siliconimage.com/support/...ctid=2&osid=0&

With respect to moving a rack or moving drives around, I
like to have some cooling on a drive. If the drive is sitting
in stagnant air, you could try a utility that monitors the
SMART data from the drive, such as Speedfan from almico.com .
First, take temperature readings from the drive, in your
current mechanical configuration. Do your mod to the cooling
or whatever, then run Speedfan again and re-check the temps.
If you need to simulate a load on the drive (causes a temp
increase), run the free version of HDTune (hdtune.com) and use
the benchmark function. That will take several minutes to read
the entire drive surface and report a speed result. And while
doing so, you can use Speedfan to monitor drive temperature.

All the drives I'm currently using, have forced air cooling
of one sort or another. My current two drives are right next
to a 120mm intake fan. To make room for the fan in my computer
case, the fan is bolted to the outside of the computer :-) I
made a metal frame to fit it. My CDROM drive is above the
fan assembly, so the tray opens. The three bays below it,
are right next to the fan.

In terms of other ways of packaging drives, one exceptionally
bad solution seems to be external drives/enclosures made
by the major hard drive manufacturers. The enclosures feature
no cooling, and the comments in Newegg note a number of failures.
Some of those fail in as little as a couple days. If the
solution you pick has clean power, good cooling, and
is not subject to shock and vibration, there is no
reason for the reliability to change.

HTH,
Paul

Tom wrote:

>
> Perhaps you could clarify something for me. The Promise controller on a
> P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard is a PDC2037_6_ (according to the Asus
> owners manual page 2-25). Also, I thought the SATA drives were using the
> Intel ICH5R chipset (page 2-23)?

I see a 20378 in the "storage" section here. A total of four SATA
ports, two on the Southbridge, two on the 20378. I just looked at
my P4C800-E Deluxe, and the 20378 has no heatsink on it. There
are a total of four black colored SATA connectors on the motherboard.
I've only occasionally used my 20378, and not the SATA ports, just
the IDE.

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?mo...=12&l3=30&l4=0

>
>> With respect to moving a rack
>
> It's a Mobile Rack. A Mobile Rack is a removable hard drive enclosure
> that mounts in a 5.25" bay. You can buy extra trays to mount additional
> hard drives on and then can swap them out as needed by unlocking and
> pulling out the tray.

Yeah, I wasn't sure if that is what you were intending or not. A mobile
rack implies more drives than places to put them, which means some of
your storage is offline. If you're just using them for occasional
access, an external USB could also be used. And then the external can be
stored somewhere out of the way, like the mobile. It doesn't have to be left
plugged in. One strike against a lot of externals, is the move to a separate
power brick. I had a couple enclosures about 5 years ago, that had internal
power, so all they needed was a regular power cord and a data cable (Firewire or USB2).
Your idea is more compact, but might need a bit more space to
accommodate the depth of the rack and its connector scheme.

>
> The computer case I'm using seems to be very hard drive friendly. As you
> can see in the above diagram, I have two hard drives in the upper cage
> which do not have fans sitting in front of them. They run one to two
> degrees different than the same three hard drives with a fan in the
> lower cage. I ran HDTune benchmark on one of the drives in the upper
> cage. It started at 28c and reached 30c by the end of the test (average
> human temp is 37c). I know that the colder the better, but I don't find
> these temps to be alarming. Perhaps it's because the hard drives are
> mounted with _screws_ into all that metal which helps dissipate the
> heat?

Sounds fine. The only time you should really be concerned, is when
the room goes over 60% relative humidity and you can smell mildew
forming in your carpets. Drives are also sensitive to humidity as
well as temperature. The drive has a "breather hole", so the HDA
is exposed to local conditions. There is an allowed environment curve,
in some of the OEM spec documents for hard drives. (But no explanation
accompanies the plot, to help you interpret it.) The curve has always
made me wonder how a computer can work in the tropics.

>
> That's certainly one way to mount a fan.

My method is fine, until you stick a finger in it :-) There is
no wire guard over it. I could fit one though.

>
> I wouldn't use one of those air tight hard drive manufacture enclosures
> if it was given to me. The two enclosures I'm using each have their own
> fan and sit in metal boxes with plenty of ventilation holes.
>
> I appreciate the time you've spend following up on this. As for me, the
> only thing I'm sure about is that all of this will become moot if I
> don't buy that HD3850 soon. I have a feeling that those cards are on a
> limited run and I should purchase it soon before they disappear.

That's been true for a lot of those cards. They could disappear
any time. And what remains (stuff like FX5200 cards) is no
substitute. I'm still using an ATI 9800Pro on my machine. I
managed to find a Core2 motherboard that still has an AGP
slot - the machine I'm typing on is a Core2 with AGP.
It is limited to FSB1066 though.

Paul

Tom wrote:
> You wrote in news:gh9u9g$ml7$ thusly:
>
>> Tom wrote:
>>
>>> Perhaps you could clarify something for me. The Promise controller on
>>> a P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard is a PDC2037_6_ (according to the Asus
>>> owners manual page 2-25). Also, I thought the SATA drives were using
>>> the Intel ICH5R chipset (page 2-23)?
>> I see a 20378 in the "storage" section here. A total of four SATA
>> ports, two on the Southbridge, two on the 20378. I just looked at my
>> P4C800-E Deluxe, and the 20378 has no heatsink on it. There are a
>> total of four black colored SATA connectors on the motherboard. I've
>> only occasionally used my 20378, and not the SATA ports, just the IDE.
>>
>> http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?mo...=12&l3=30&l4=0
>
> On the off chance I had an older PDF of the P4C800-E Deluxe owners
> manual, I grabbed it again from the Asus site. Byte for byte they are
> the same, so the manual hasn't changed. Doing a search for "2037" in the
> Asus P4C800-E Deluxe Motherboard manual shows a total of 10 returns.
>
> Only two are 20376, the other eight are 20378. So it would seem that
> page 2-25 (the page I referenced above) and page 2-26 in the manual have
> typos.
>
> I've never used the SATA_RAID# connectors or for that matter the Promise
> controller on the P4C800-E Deluxe Motherboard. I did have a Promise
> Ultra133 TX2 PCI controller card where I had one hard drive on each
> controller. That PCI card worked well up until this latest renovation of
> the case.
>
>>> A Mobile Rack is a removable hard drive enclosure that mounts in a
>>> 5.25" bay. You can buy extra trays to mount additional hard drives on
>>> and then can swap them out as needed by unlocking and pulling out the
>>> tray.
>> Yeah, I wasn't sure if that is what you were intending or not. A
>> mobile rack implies more drives than places to put them, which means
>> some of your storage is offline. If you're just using them for
>> occasional access, an external USB could also be used. And then the
>> external can be stored somewhere out of the way, like the mobile. It
>> doesn't have to be left plugged in. One strike against a lot of
>> externals, is the move to a separate power brick. I had a couple
>> enclosures about 5 years ago, that had internal power, so all they
>> needed was a regular power cord and a data cable (Firewire or USB2).
>> Your idea is more compact, but might need a bit more space to
>> accommodate the depth of the rack and its connector scheme.
>
> Supposedly another concern about using a Mobile Rack system is hot
> swapping drives. Although, it is my understanding that there is less
> risk with SATA, then with PATA drives. What ultimately made my decision
> not to go this route was the abundant amount of choices and variety of
> reviews both for and against. It just became to darn complicated.
>
> Instead, I decided to consolidate drives. As you may recall, my main
> concern was limitations with the ICH5R SATA controller on the P4C800-E
> Deluxe Motherboard. Thought I would go to the source, so I placed two
> phone calls.
>
> The first call was to Intel. I asked if there were hard drive size
> limitations with the ICH5R. I was told that the chip itself does not
> have any limitations, but that he could not say if that would still be
> the case by the time it was used on a Motherboard. That the Motherboard
> manufacturer could imposed limitations.
>
> The second call was to Asus. I again asked if there were hard drive size
> limitations with the ICH5R on the P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard. The
> surprising response I received was, "Yes". I asked what the limit was
> and was told that the limit was "250GB". To which I responded, "That's
> odd, I'm already running 320GB hard drives on the ICH5R for well over a
> year and with no problems". :/
>
> I said screw it and went ahead and purchased two Western Digital SATA
> 1TB RE3 drives, along with a Promise SATA300 TX4 PCI SATA II controller
> card. I figured if it turns out the hard drives don't work on the ICH5R,
> then I would connect them to the SATA300. The P4C800-E Deluxe gobbled
> them up as if they were candy and I have seen no indication of any
> problems.
>
> In all, I consolidated five 320GB hard drives (mixed PATA and SATA) for
> the two 1TB drives and in the process was able to remove the old PCI
> Promise Ultra133 TX2 PCI controller card. Not only am I saving power,
> but the computer is getting better air flow.
>
> Due to several factors, including this Antec full tower case being a
> little short front to back, it turns out that there was a very specific
> order to installing the HD3850 and the hard drives.
>
> First the length of the card; it is long and it seems intentionally long
> for no real good reason. The power connector is located in a bad spot
> and would have been better, IMO, if it was turned 90 degrees.
>
> Because of the length of the HD3850, this meant that the lower hard
> drive cage (see my earlier post for case diagram and hard drive layout)
> could only hold one hard drive and that hard drive must be mounted at
> the top of the cage. This was not a problem since this allowed for
> better air flow into the case from the front mounted fan. The upper cage
> received the two 1TB drives.
>
> Normally, I would have installed the graphic card first and then the
> hard drive cages. However, due to the length of the HD3850, it was
> impossible to install the lower hard drive cage without the cage itself
> hitting the HD3850 when you attempted to rotate the cage into its'
> slide. Not really a big deal, I just need to remember to removed the
> HD3850 first should I ever need to access the hard drive in the lower
> cage.
>
> With the computer case buttoned up, there is only one remaining problem
> I am having is trying to figure out which driver to use for the HD3850.
>
> I don't want to install the Catalyst Control Center, just the video
> driver. I went to ATI and download the driver and that seems to work
> okay. However, recently I learn that ATI has a hotfix driver and I see
> that Sapphire has their own hotfix drivers. So, I really don't know
> which one to use of the three.
>
> And, to make matters worse, neither ATI or Sapphire go out of their way
> to explain what the difference is between their hotfix and the standard
> ATI driver and why you would want one over the other. :/
>
> Paul, sorry for the delay and thanks for all the help, I really
> appreciate it.
>

On the hotfix drivers, did you compare release numbers ? Maybe
that will give you a hint as to which is which. As far as I know,
ATI writes the drivers, so the hotfix on the Sapphire site should
have come from ATI in the first place. I'm not aware of the
video card manufacturers being able to write their own drivers.
They wouldn't have the skills for that.

As for 1TB SATA drives, I do read occasionally of compatibility
problems, so even if a 320GB works, a 1TB may not. This might
have more to do, with changes to the chipset used on the
hard drive controller board, rather than the fact it is 1TB.
In the past, there might have been problems with the SATA
BIOS (on a SIL3112), or with the spread spectrum jumper
setting, or the "force 150" jumper. On the older VIA chipsets,
you're supposed to insert the Force 150 jumper on the hard
drive, as the autonegotiation doesn't work right if the
drive is allowed to choose for itself. But at the 1TB level now,
it may be something to do with the controller on the hard drive,
rather than the motherboard end.

Paul

On Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:29:07 -0500, Tom <> wrote:

> > As for 1TB SATA drives, I do read occasionally of compatibility
> > problems, so even if a 320GB works, a 1TB may not. This might have
> > more to do, with changes to the chipset used on the hard drive
> > controller board, rather than the fact it is 1TB. In the past, there
> > might have been problems with the SATA BIOS (on a SIL3112), or with
> > the spread spectrum jumper setting, or the "force 150" jumper. On the
> > older VIA chipsets, you're supposed to insert the Force 150 jumper on
> > the hard drive, as the autonegotiation doesn't work right if the drive
> > is allowed to choose for itself. But at the 1TB level now, it may be
> > something to do with the controller on the hard drive, rather than the
> > motherboard end.
>
> Yeah, I suppose you're right. I'm just pleased that it worked out the
> way it did, although I did purchase the Promise SATA300 as a backup. I
> know the P4C800-E Deluxe is a 4 year old Motherboard, but even after
> these many years it keeps pleasantly surprising me. It's a very solid
> board.
>
> The answer, if the question is ever asked, is yes, the ICH5R SATA
> controller on the P4C800-E Deluxe Motherboard does work with Western
> Digital RE3 1TB drives. Who knows what the future will hold.


I use Seagate ST3500320NS on my P4C800-E Deluxe.
SATA 500 GB version. No problem.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/pro...arracuda_es.2/