At the end of 2019 I thought was a good time for me to build a new
computer. I wanted something cheap and easy to build, yet strong
enough to carry on my daily tasks. So, I ordered it from a
local trusted (by me) store called ForIT.
- And the parts are here:
Besides these I used some of my older components such as HDD's and optical units.
HARDWARE:
MB Asus PRIME
B450M-A
CPU AMD Ryzen 3
3200G 3.6GHz box (12nm)
Cooler Deepcool
GAMMAXX 400
Therm compound ---
box Need a good thermal paste or a graphite thermal pad
RAM G.Skill Flare
X (for AMD) 16GB DDR4 3200 MHz 14-14-14-34 @1.35V
SVGA --- OnChip
SSD ADATA
SX8200 PRO 512GB PCI Express 3.0 x4 M.2 2280
HDD Toshiba P300 3TB SATA-III 7200 RPM 64MB bulk
Stick USB
Flash ADATA S102 Pro Advanced 256GB
BD-RW Pioneer
BDR-209EBK
BD-RW LiteOn
iHBS112 2 (not mounted because sata 5 and 6 are deactivated by the
ssd)
Sound card ---
onboard
LAN --- onboard
CASE BITFENIX
Comrade black
PSU Corsair VS
Series VS550, 80+ , 550W
Keyboard Kit Benq
i150
Mouse Cooler
Master Storm Mizar
UPS nJOY
CABLE APC Essential
SurgeArrest 8x Schuko White
Monitor Dell Gaming
SE2717H 27 inch 6ms Silver FreeSync 75Hz
Scanner HP 2400
Rack RaidSonic Icy
Box Mobile Rack IB-158SK-B + External RaidSonic Icy Box IB-550StU3S
Speakers QuickShot
QS-835
Webcam Microsoft
VX700V2
OS Microsoft
Windows 10 Pro, 32/64-bit, Eng
Here are some more
photos with the components:
- The case BITFENIX
Comrade, was unexpectedly good, well made and beautiful finished. I
didn’t expect that for a product in this price range.
- The PSU is a good quality Corsair VS Series VS550, 80+, 550W. It is
too much for this system that won’t have a dedicated video card,
but it came with a good price and I like it.
- The motherboard Asus PRIME B450M-A was less then what I wanted, but
I guess this is the limit of B450 chipset and at this price point was
to be expected.
- The CPU came with 4 cores at 3.6GHz base that should do a decent
job for what I need and a Vega 8 Video Card that will use 2 Gb of the
16 Gb of the system RAM. That’s why is important to have a fast RAM
with good timings on this system.
- I am well aware this cooler is overkill for such a tiny CPU, but
ambient temperature in the summer sometimes reach 35C. Plus, it
wasn’t that expensive and I have other reasons too.
- A good and fast RAM with good timings is important for any Ryzen
system, but especially for one with integrated graphics.
- The SSD is the good ADATA SX8200 PRO 512GB. It should be fast and
large enough to keep my OS, programs and most of my games.
- The motherboard with memory and cooler installed. The cooler sits
at a safe distance of the RAM.
- The completed system. As you can see, I do not care about cable
management as long it don’t interfere with the airflow, as I do not
care of the stupid led dancing.
My only regret is that SATA 5 and SATA 6 ports are deactivated
because of chipset limitation when I installed the M2 SSD, that’s
why I can’t install one more optical drive and one more HDD. Or one
HDD and one SATA SSD. Oh well, I will survive.
After some pleasant work this is the end result:
BOOTING UP:
- After I assembled
the system, at first boot, right off the bat, no image on my monitor
Dell SE2717H through HDMI cable. Asus PRIME B450M-A motherboard UEFI
delivers a HDMI signal that is not understood by my monitor. DVI
interface is the same as HDMI: no image, signal out of range. The
only solution was to plugin the old VGA cable and finally the image
appeared. This is what I saw at the first boot:
Reference: https://community.amd.com/thread/226916
- Next I tried to hook
up the computer on HDMI to my Samsung TV and image appeared. That's
how I knew the ASUS mobo HDMI port actually works.
- Next I tried to do a
BIOS update to see if this solves the problem. Connected internet
cable (internet was already setup on my router) and fired up from
BIOS the ASUS EZ Flash 3 Utility to flash the BIOS from version 1823
to version 2006.
BIOS flashing succeeded but didn't help with the HDMI problem. I
might try later to buy a new HDMI cable that support the latest HDMI
version (over 2.0) to see if that helps, but I think the problem is
my old monitor and especially the dumb ASUS motherboard.
Update: Later I
noticed that, when Win10 boots up, the signal is converted by Windows
and image WORKS with HDMI too, but on POST and BIOS the image is not
available; it says the signal is out of range. The only way to access
the BIOS on my Dell monitor is with the VGA cable.
- Installed Win10x64
while I was connected to the internet and I used a license previously
bought from eMag
WP_20200101_19_20_44_Installing
Win10x64PRO (license3)
- On SSD I created a
partition of 150 Gb for Windows and Programs:
- The next problem was with SATA devices. I had connected my (empty)
internal rack (RaidSonic Icy Box Mobile Rack IB-158SK-B) on SATA4 and
the two blu-ray units on SATA5 and SATA6. As can be seen on my first
boot photo, none of them were shown in BIOS.
After some research
I read a post where users asked themselves if a M2 NVMe SSD won't
disable the last two SATA ports on B450 chipset. I went to my computer,
removed the NVMe ADATA SSD and my DVD writers were shown in BIOS at the next boot. That's how I
am left only with 4 SATA ports.
- Re-routed my wires
to accomodate my most used SATA devices on the first 4 SATA ports and
the result was:
- M2 - SSD ADATA
SX8200 PRO 512GB (this disables SATA5 and SATA6 and is not specified
in the trashy Asus motherboard manual).
- C:\ 145.85 Gb [windows and programs boot partition]
- F:\ 330.45 Gb [games partition]
- SATA1 (hot plug
disabled) - BD-RW Pioneer BDR-209EBK
- D:\
- SATA2 (hot plug
disabled) - HDD Toshiba P300 3TB SATA-III
- G:\ 1024.00 Gb [storage partition]
- H:\ 1770.50 Gb [storage partition]
- SATA3 (hot plug
disabled) - HDD Western Digital WD1001FALS
- SATA4 (hot plug
enabled) - Rack RaidSonic Icy Box Mobile Rack IB-158SK-B
- I set the BIOS as
shown on these screenshots. I slightly undervolted the CPU, activated
the overclocked profile from the memory, setting them at DDR4-3200
14-14-14-34 @1.35V, and left almost everything else at default
settings.
- After Windows 10 installation I started to configure it to suit my
very specific taste, then install and configure each of the zillion
programs, apps and games I use on almost daily basis.
- After I set in
place some more things, I started a backup of my entire SSD, to save
my settings in case something will go wrong, or if a virus or other
cataclysm will destroy my OS. For this I use Todo Backup which
license I bought a few years ago and it serves me faithfully even
today.
When I will finish to install all my programs, games and stuff and
set them up, I will make one more SSD image and store it safe. This
way I can easily restore my OS, programs and all settings from the
backup and have my OS back and running in a matter of minutes.
I plan to keep this system for a while and I hope it will serve me well.
