Let's make a gaming PC - The Bear and Badger

superflyninja

I am in need of assistance my good fellows. Long story short, I have windows 11 running on an older style SSD. I got a new nvme, installed Windows 11 on it and i couldn't boot to that drive, seems it wasn't recognised sas a valid boot drive. I had to faff around to get back things running again. I unplugged the nvme and could then get back into my original windows drive. So I plugged back in the nvme and a choice of which windows to boot appeared. I checked the boot order in the bios and it was set to the windows chooser. Fine. But I want to boot straight into my nvme.
So tonight, I stupidly disconnected the old SSD. Now the pc is stuck on a screen saying no boot drive found please insert boot media. I tried popping back into my windows instsll usb but nothing happens. I plug the SSD back in and still same. I turn off power and remove the CMOS battery for a couple of mins. Still the same when I turn back on. I can't get into the bios either, the gigabyte screen briefly comes up but it won't react to the F12 or DEL key presses. Tomorrow I think I have one last thing to try, to reset via the jumper method.

If that doesn't work, what the hell can I do?

Any assistance much appreciated

Kow

Is it in fast boot mode? I remember having some similar issue like years ago. Holding the power button to turn on made it boot differently or something but I really can't remember any more, sorry.

superflyninja

Yeah that's part of the issue, I have the bios in ultra fast boot

Diluted Dante

Take the battery out of the motherboard?

superflyninja

Yup did that a few times last night. Today Ill try the jumper method and if that fails ill hurl the pc through the window.

Update:
At lunch I jumped the bios and it thankfully reset. The drives still wouldnt boot however, but thankfully I could access the bios. Long story short, the problem was an option called CSM was enabled, if thats turned on then windows drives cant boot. Turned it off and bingo.
However, Im still faced with the issue of booting. On boot I get the windows boot manager, I think its coming from my old SSD, though I did an override in the bios to use a windows boot manager from my new drive. Or is this just how it is now? I had thought that you could order the drives themselves, not so much boot managers.
I can set a default install of windows to boot from btw, so I can switch to the new drive when Im ready. I was hoping to format the old SSD and use it as an app install drive. Id be concerned if the boot manager is coming from that drive that i balls things up again.

Blue Swirl

Just my M.2 to arrive in the post, and then I can start ~~fucking this up~~ building.

jdanielp

Do you have a tiny screwdriver? I needed, but didn't have, one to secure the M.2 to the motherboard when I built a PC the other year. I managed to bodge it using a relatively small screwdriver at an angle but it was very awkward and frustrating.

LesterUnlimited

Thanks for the heads up, I've just ordered a screwdriver set. Just my case and storage to arrive now.

LesterUnlimited

Blue Swirl wrote:

Just my M.2 to arrive in the post, and then I can start ~~fucking this up~~ building.

Is this your first build Blue?

Blue Swirl

jdanielp wrote:

Do you have a tiny screwdriver?

Aye, I have a set of small screwdrivers. Not magnetic, so hopefully I don't lose a screw that's crucial.

LesterUnlimited wrote:

Is this your first build Blue?

Yup. Well, a full computer. I've put RAM in things before, and I added a second HDD to my Mac mini when they were user upgradeable. But this'll be my first from-the-ground-up.

LesterUnlimited

Blue Swirl wrote:

jdanielp wrote:

Do you have a tiny screwdriver?

Aye, I have a set of small screwdrivers. Not magnetic, so hopefully I don't lose a screw that's crucial.

LesterUnlimited wrote:

Is this your first build Blue?

Yup. Well, a full computer. I've put RAM in things before, and I added a second HDD to my Mac mini when they were user upgradeable. But this'll be my first from-the-ground-up.

Ha ha same! Good luck man, I should be building mine tomorrow or the weekend. I'm kind of anxious.

Kow

I built my first one last year and it was actually all pretty easy. Motherboards will come with tiny screws for m.2 so if you're only putting one in, make sure you put the extra screws somewhere safe because they're fucking tiny.

b0r1s

Don’t forget cable ties. Gotta keep those cables tidy.

Edit - in fact I’d say the cable routing is the trickiest part of building a Pc as some of the connections can be a bugger to get to depending on how you configure your coolers etc.

tigersgogrrr

It's surprisingly easy to build a PC. Like Lego, only more worrying.

b0r1s

That first switch on!

superflyninja

I had some drama building my first pc (only couple years back). The first two power supplies didn't work properly.Third time lucky when I finally bought an EVGA psu. That switch on felt epic indeed.

LesterUnlimited

superflyninja wrote:

I had some drama building my first pc (only couple years back). The first two power supplies didn't work properly.Third time lucky when I finally bought an EVGA psu. That switch on felt epic indeed.

I like how I bought a Gigabyte graphics card, went to bed and when I woke up, Reddit was waxing lyrical about EVGA and saying Gigabyte are a piece of shit and I'm like oh fuk.

LesterUnlimited

b0r1s wrote:

Don’t forget cable ties. Gotta keep those cables tidy.

Edit - in fact I’d say the cable routing is the trickiest part of building a Pc as some of the connections can be a bugger to get to depending on how you configure your coolers etc.

Uh I think intakes 3 at the front, PSU at the bottom is an intake (?) 3 exhausts at the top CPU AIO and a random exhaust at the back.

I just ordered a load of cable ties and a pair of them cutters.

b0r1s

It’s more just all the cables fitting neatly behind the board then bringing em around the front to plug in. It sounds like you have the same setup as me with fans except I just have two large fan intakes at the front, 1 at the back and then two connected to the AIO on top. Works well and the system runs quiet and cool. So with three you are more than covered.

b0r1s

Just seen the pricing for the 4080 cards. Nearly double the 3080’s! Glad I didn’t wait and built when I did.

LesterUnlimited

b0r1s wrote:

Just seen the pricing for the 4080 cards. Nearly double the 3080’s! Glad I didn’t wait and built when I did.

I think my 2015 PC with a monitor was like £900!

Blue Swirl

Kow wrote:

Motherboards will come with tiny screws for m.2 so if you're only putting one in, make sure you put the extra screws somewhere safe because they're fucking tiny.

One thing I did buy was one of those little trays for keeping pills in. I thought I could re-purpose it as a "don't loose this fucking screw you dope" device.

b0r1s wrote:

Don’t forget cable ties. Gotta keep those cables tidy. Edit - in fact I’d say the cable routing is the trickiest part of building a Pc as some of the connections can be a bugger to get to depending on how you configure your coolers etc.

My last trip to Taipei to find an M.2, the only thing I did find was some zip ties. I'm not too worried about putting everything in the right place, but as you say, making sure everything's in the right place and can be plugged into where it needs to be plugged into I suspect will drive me insane.

tigersgogrrr wrote:

It's surprisingly easy to build a PC. Like Lego, only more worrying.

When my brother asked me if I reckoned I could build a PC, I said I should be able to - it's just adult Lego. Which can electrocute you.

Blue Swirl

b0r1s wrote:

Just seen the pricing for the 4080 cards. Nearly double the 3080’s! Glad I didn’t wait and built when I did.

I think about now is meant to be a good time to build. The price of (non-4080) graphics cards has gone way down because the crypto-bros don't want them any more. For example, my card's RRP is about £300, but I found it here in some random shop on sale for £200 ish.

superflyninja

LesterUnlimited wrote:

superflyninja wrote:

I had some drama building my first pc (only couple years back). The first two power supplies didn't work properly.Third time lucky when I finally bought an EVGA psu. That switch on felt epic indeed.

I like how I bought a Gigabyte graphics card, went to bed and when I woke up, Reddit was waxing lyrical about EVGA and saying Gigabyte are a piece of shit and I'm like oh fuk.

I have a gigabyte gfx card, zero trouble with it. Though I too have heard people banging on about EVGA. Ill now bang on about the quality of the EVGA PSUs though. From the troubles I had with PSUs they seem to be a very flakey component, one that really needs to be good quality.

LesterUnlimited

superflyninja wrote:

LesterUnlimited wrote:

superflyninja wrote:

I had some drama building my first pc (only couple years back). The first two power supplies didn't work properly.Third time lucky when I finally bought an EVGA psu. That switch on felt epic indeed.

I like how I bought a Gigabyte graphics card, went to bed and when I woke up, Reddit was waxing lyrical about EVGA and saying Gigabyte are a piece of shit and I'm like oh fuk.

I have a gigabyte gfx card, zero trouble with it. Though I too have heard people banging on about EVGA. Ill now bang on about the quality of the EVGA PSUs though. From the troubles I had with PSUs they seem to be a very flakey component, one that really needs to be good quality.

Yup I just had a look at my current one and it's Gigabyte 1050Mini which has been soldiering on fine for years.

voices

The pricing on the two 4080 variants is really offputting - $900 for the lower end one (which isn't just a lower GDDR model - it's stripped down further and has a lower power budget).

I'm disappointed, but probably need a reality check on all the better ways I could be spending a grand.

SpaceGazelle

Wait for amd in November. Their computing power per watt is also going to be way way ahead.

Blue Swirl

My M.2 drive still hasn't arrived. Was expecting it yesterday, so I'm going to have to start chasing the seller. Hopefully it arrives tomorrow, otherwise I'll have to wait until weekend after this.

voices

SpaceGazelle wrote:

Wait for amd in November. Their computing power per watt is also going to be way way ahead.

I want AMD to have a compelling option, but the compute cores in Nvidia GPUs are great for some stuff (upscaling videos, some AI stuff like the old Leila chess engine and some other stuff related to videos from Japan....

).

Probably all stuff I can live without, and the extra efficiency would be great. I think AMD might kill it if they come in at the right price/performance.

Edit: And DLSS 3.0 - maybe that's more improtant. Honestly the AMD cards are going to have to kill it to go with them.

SpaceGazelle

Yeah but they're currently only releasing 3.0 for 4000 series.

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