Experienced something strange. The bios screen disappeared. When rebooting/ starting up it was completely gone. Could not access bios in any way. I followed some clear rtc instructions on the motherboard guide. *First I had to disconnect power * disconnect all SATA deveices. *disconnected all monitors except for one. *removed one video card that was blocking the onboard battery to remove it. --------------- Removed onboard battery. Moved the rtc jumper to pins 2-3 from 2-1 for about 10 seconds. Moved jumper back to pins 1-2. ___________ Plugged in and booted up. I was able to get into Bios, then had to change date/time back powered down again . Connected the ssd, powered up and booted again, this time the ability to enter the bios screen was visible and then windows opened fine. Try shutting down and restarting multiple times and all is great. Have no idea why the bios screen became inaccessible in the first place, but all is fixed now.
Now to figure out how to disable that annoying pop up when restarting machine... " No Hardisk Detected ! " I know there is a way, I remember somewhere I read it.
I'm configuring it as bolimomo has above, and have my debit card out. Lol The only questions: Is 800 watts enough for eight 22" monitors plus TONS of studies I'll have running all at once? Do I need an SSD? I'm looking for speed, and efficiency. I observed a video clip of an SSD blowing away the mechanical alternative, and it caught my attention.
When my computer "guru" friend built my office setup, I almost put him on speed dial for the first three weeks! I guess in the words of slick willy Clinton, "I feel your pain."
As for the tower, here's what I built with some help Intel Z68 Core i5/i7 Configurator 1 x Case ( NZXT Gamma Gaming Case - Black ) 0 x Case Lighting ( None ) 0 x iBUYPOWER Labs - Noise Reduction ( None ) 0 x iBUYPOWER Labs - Internal Expansion ( None ) 1 x Processor ( Intel® Core⢠i7-2600K Processor (4x 3.40GHz/8MB L3 Cache) ) 0 x iBUYPOWER PowerDrive ( None ) 1 x Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1155 & 1156] - [Free Upgrade] Standard 120mm Fan ) 1 x Memory ( 8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1333 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand ) 1 x Video Card ( AMD Radeon HD 6450 - 1GB ) 1 x Video Card Brand ( Major Brand Powered by AMD or NVIDIA ) 1 x Motherboard ( [3-Way SLI] Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 -- 4x PCI-E 2.0 x16, 2x Gb LAN, 6x USB 3.0 ) 0 x Intel Smart Response Technology ( None ) 1 x Power Supply ( 850 Watt -- CoolerMaster RS850-AMBAJ3-US - ** Back2School Sale! ** FREE Upgrade to CoolerMaster 1000W ) 1 x Primary Hard Drive ( 500 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive ) 1 x Data Hard Drive ( 500 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive ) 1 x Optical Drive ( 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - [Lightscribe Technology] Black ) 0 x 2nd Optical Drive ( None ) 0 x Flash Media Reader / Writer ( None ) 0 x Meter Display ( None ) 0 x USB Expansion ( None ) 1 x Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard ) 1 x Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) ) 1 x Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Professional + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-bit ) 1 x Keyboard ( iBUYPOWER USB Keyboard - Black ) 1 x Mouse ( iBUYPOWER Internet Mouse ) 0 x Monitor ( None ) 0 x 2nd Monitor ( None ) 0 x Speaker System ( None ) 0 x Headset ( None ) 0 x Video Camera ( None ) 0 x Case Engraving Service ( None ) 1 x Warranty ( Standard Warranty Service - Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty + Lifetime Technical Support ) 1 x Rush Service ( Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days ) Let me know what you guys think. $1,345 total Beats $2,400!
Here is a Power supply calculator. http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp Punch in the pieces you are interested in and you can get a good idea of what is needed. I think this one only takes in account for one video card. Look at card specs and add that amount for each additional. Example...Say each video card needs 100watt for 4 total cards. The calculator estimates based on a single card. Add additional 300 watts to the total wattage needed of the entire build for remaining 3 cards.
I'm needing 1000 watts to run eight 22" monitors with the above setup I was helped with putting together? It sounds like it unless I plugged in the wrong information. from the link. Btw, I can go with this system above rig, 8 21.5" Asus 1920x1080 thin bezel monitors @ $129 each, plus the couple hundred I have in the Ergotron quad monitor stands I bought extra of at a discount, and 4 295 cards = $2940 for everything besides the power backup. Any ideas on that?
RE: Power Supply In your list, you had already configured a 1000W power supply. (You bought the 800W but they threw in a free upgrade to 1000W. So you will have 1000W.) This is probably about as high as one can have. On my older HP box, it only used a 350W and had worked fine for 3 PCI/PCIeX16 cards for a few years. Also: you don't power the 8 monitors with this power supply. Each monitor has its own power supply and each needs to be plugged in to the 110V circuit (the wall) separately. How many monitors you use is irrelevant to the power supply rating used for your computer. The only thing that affects it is the graphics card model and how many of them. Since you will be using the low-end dual cards, their power requirements are almost insignificant. You can get yours going at 500W - 600W. 800W if you want to be more comfortable. 1000W is absolutely worry free. RE: SSD You will experience a boost in performance in the following tasks/events: 1. Computer boot up 2. Starting of your application software 3. Reading/writing data to the disk by your trading app For #1 and #2, you typically only do once a day. Not a good justification for getting a SSD. For #3: if your trading apps constantly doing data read/write from the disk (not the network), then SSD should help you. If not a whole lot, then SSD can be skipped.