[Servant of Eru]

Well, all's well with the parts I ordered, and the only things I have to get to have everything i need to build it is a modem, tool kit for working on PCs, and the CPU fan that's in the mail. The first two can be picked up locally, the third I'm waiting on.

The reason I'm starting a new thread is because while I've done upgrades and tinkered with BIOS settings before, I've never built one from scratch, or set up the complete BIOS. I basically need a guide of what I should setup and install in the case first...and what to assemble outside the case etc.

Parts I'm worried I might run into trouble in in particular are:

1. Applying the Arctic Silver and installing the CPU/Heatsink/Fan.
2. Setting up the BIOS.
3. Getting all the settings working properly once Windows is installed.

Any webpages specifying building a computer from scratch would be lovely, as well as personal tips. I'm pretty much a greenhorn...so any help is appreciated.


Jim

 

[WarC]

TAKE YOUR TIME! I can't stress that enough. NEVER lose patience with a piece of hardware and try to force it or do something to save time. Patience is key to building/maintaining computers.

I normally set the jumpers and install the CPU/heatsink while the motherboard is out of the computer...Then I get the board within range of the connectors from the case and hook those up too, before I mount the motherboard to the case.

Theres gotta be a million guides out there to help you along, and the manuals that come with all of your hardware should come in handy, too. Type "building a computer" in Google for starters.

BIOS isn't such a scare, its one of the easier points of setting a computer up and the motherboard manual will define everything you need defined once your inside.

Push out a glob of Arctic Silver on some sort of pallette first, and then apply a small even coat on the core of the processor and then a smaller coat on the bottom of the heatsink where it will touch the core. I find it the easiest to do with my own finger, although you'll want to wash your hands before working on your machine after that.

www.tomshardware.com is an excellent resource that I use often. There should be plenty of guides there.

Good luck, and happy computing!

 

[McTimson]

Just mash everything together, it'll work....

WarC has some good advice, use that stuff.

 

[bookime wood]

Make sure you earth yourself regularly, touch a radiator or something metallic, parts don't like static.

Put your parts in order

CPU/ paste/ hsf link for artic silver appl http://www.arcticsilver.com/instructions.htm I found the best method is to cut a bit of plastic old fast food containers will do, cut it to the size of the cpu die, and use it to spread a small amount of paste, don't use your finger, grease/dead skin will not help, not to mention 25 yrs later the finger might drop off.

Put the ram in, if it dual channel slots 1+3 or 2+3

Mount the motherboard into the case, chieftec case I think? You will breeze it, loads of room in a chieftec, make sure the motherboard is not touching the back. Put your hard drives in and optical drives, connect cables.

Check nothing is loose and the motherboard is not shorting, and that jumpers are all in the correct position, and fire that machine up.

And don't forget to clear CMOS

 

[Servant of Eru]

Kewl...Okay, I have two Rounded cables, each good for two drives each...do I just hook those up to the IDE slot, with the double ended connector hooked up to the two optical drives, and the two HDDs?

 

[bookime wood]

Originally posted by Servant of Eru:
Kewl...Okay, I have two Rounded cables, each good for two drives each...do I just hook those up to the IDE slot, with the double ended connector hooked up to the two optical drives, and the two HDDs?

The blue IDE slot on your motherboard is the primary slot, so plug the HD into that, and put the optical on the secondary slot, remember to set the jumpers on hd/optical drives to master/slave.

Worth a thought, some ppl have encountered data corruption/slower speeds with rounded cables on there hd, they blame poor quality cables or in some cases it just happens. I have used rounded cables without any problems in the past, but I stick to good old ribbons for my HD, using rounded on the optical drives will be fine.

bookime

 

[Rockn]

Poor quality cables is the key point there. Xoxide usually has quality ones but you can get good ones from CompUSA and MicroCenter as well.

 

[Servant of Eru]

Originally posted by Rockn:
Poor quality cables is the key point there. Xoxide usually has quality ones but you can get good ones from CompUSA and MicroCenter as well.

I'm pretty sure mine are good ones...I paid enough for 'em. They're Cables Unlimited...seem to be good from my inspection of them. I chose to use them not only because they look cooler in modded case, but they also leave more free airflow throughout the case, which is what I want since I'm planning on doing some overclocking. One more thing, how many fans should I have for a good overclocking setup, and is there an easy way to tell whether they're facing intake or outtake without hooking them up and turning them on? I've got four not including the power supply so far (80mm), I have room for two more (80mm) without additional modding. I'll also have a Coolermaster Aero 7+ CPU fan with a Thermaltake Copper Shim and Arctic Silver 5. I'm thinking this setup should be quite chilly should I set three of the six 80mm fans to intake, and three of them to outtake. What do you guys think?

 

[Rockn]

I am sure you can tell the quality just by looking at them....NOT. I have also heard that rounded cables really don't make that much difference in keeping your PC cooler..they just make it look nicer. All fans come with an airflow indicator with an arrow molded into the fan. You really don't need the copper shims any longer since heatsink/fan manufacture has come a long way since the initial AMD days where cores were getting cracked.

YOu can go to the extreme of having too many fans and actually doing more harm than good. I only have one intake and two exhaust fans (not including the PSU fan) and mine stays nice and chilly. Try the 2:1 setup record the CPU temp or case temp, add another one to each end and record it again. You will be surprised how littel difference the extra fans make....getting the heat off of the CPU and out of the case is the biggest deal.

 

[Servant of Eru]

Would 2:2, with the fans making the air flow in from the front and out the back be a good setup? Because it would be easy to configure it that way with the fans I already have. Or would that be too much intake?

 

[Servant of Eru]

How big of an OS is Linux? I just realized I'm probably not going to need a 120 Gig HDD to run Linux off of...I'd probably be better off buying a smaller one in the distant future when I start taking my Computer Programming Courses and need to run it...And rather than using one of the 120s for Linux, one for Windows, I can use a RAID array where it writes and reads off of both of them for increased speed. How would I go about setting up RAID?

 

[Servant of Eru]

Also, I just realized that the bar that goes at the back of my power supply won't fit unless I do some sort of drilling job to make it placed farther back....and even then, it won't fit well because of the 80mm fan that's attached to the back of the power supply I chose. Do I really need to have it screwed in...or will the screws attaching the power supply to the back of the case hold it in adequately? On my last computer case that was all that held it in place.

 

[Servant of Eru]

B-U-M-P

 

[Rockn]

The big fan hanging off the PSU goes inside the case....hanging down. If it is an ATX PSU and an ATX case you are installing it incorrectly. RAID is set up the same way for any OS...set up the controller first, initialize the array and install.

120GB is more than enough so why not buy it as cheap as it is....money isn't an object for you correct?

Just put 50 fans in the front and 150 fans in the back...when it starts to taxi down the street and get airborne you probably have too many fans.

 

[Servant of Eru]

Originally posted by Rockn:
The big fan hanging off the PSU goes inside the case....hanging down. If it is an ATX PSU and an ATX case you are installing it incorrectly. RAID is set up the same way for any OS...set up the controller first, initialize the array and install.

120GB is more than enough so why not buy it as cheap as it is....money isn't an object for you correct?

Just put 50 fans in the front and 150 fans in the back...when it starts to taxi down the street and get airborne you probably have too many fans.

Well...erm....thanks....Seriously Rockn, money is an object, I've spent about all I want to on it...but in the distant future...if 120 Gigs is overkill for running Linux and dabbling in some coding during my computer classes....so I might as well put it to good use now. I'm looking for some serious help here, not sarcastic BS. I was only asking you about the fan setup as you seemed to be experienced in the matter.

 

[McTimson]

Are the fans all the same? If so, just put 1 blowing in from the front, and 1 blowing in the back....then get something like motherboard monitor, check your temps, and if they're too high, then add more fans.

120 gigs is definitely overkill for something you're just going to do coding in...Linux itself will maybe take up 2-3 gigs, and coding stuff will be, lets say, another gig. You could easily just make another partition, and have only 1 120 gig drive.

A lot of this stuff if better figured out of you just try it yourself...it's hard to tell which fan setup will be best unless we are right there with all the components. Running your case a little hot for a few minutes won't do any harm, giving it too much intake while you're testing it is nothing, it's probably a lot easier to just mess around with the stuff yourself. Just don't do something stupid, like try watercooling it by throwing a bucket of water at it.

 

[Servant of Eru]

I know this sounds stupid, but I can't figure out how to mount the 5 1/2 drives. There's two circular holes where each of them go, one on each side...only they're too big for screws. There's screw holes for the 3 1/2 drives, but not the 5 1/2. I'm thinking they have something to do with the eight plastic and metal strips at the bottom of the case that are labelled 'Cav tools' but I can't figure out how they fit together. Could someone please help. I've looked on the Chieftec website and I can't find anything, and the case didn't come with instructions.

 

[McTimson]

One drive rail must be screwed onto each side of the drive to be mounted, and then the drive can simply be slid into the case.

 

[Servant of Eru]

Thanks Tim...that makes sense...just threw me off since they're mostly plastic. :up:

 

[bookime wood]

The plastic strips at the bottom of the chierftec are for your optical drives, screw them onto the drives and they just slide into the slots, they are excellent for a fast change.


bookime