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Building manually a Tower, Physically - Asking for advice

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Hiya guys, I'm going soon to do something that may be simple to many, but being my first time scares the hell out of me, and I want to do it FINE.

Thanks to you I finally bought my new rig, that is made of:


Case: Corsair Obsidian 650D
CPU: Intel i7-4930K Ivy Bridge Processor, 12 MB Cache, 3.40 GHz
MOBO: SUS X79-DELUXE
RAM: 2 pair of Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1600MHz DDR3
GPU: Sapphire TRI-X R9 290X 4GB GDDR5 OC (UEFI)
Optical Drive: LG BH16NS40 Blu-ray
HDD: one 500SSD and one 2TB HDD
PSU: Seasonic Platinum-1000


Now, I'll have to BUILD IT, physically. Manually.
Any good guide? Advice? How to be safe from static-electricity?

Thanks in advance for any help, instead of just googling I'd really be grateful to hear your knowledge.
 
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Plenty of helpful videos on youtube man.

What do I do when I build a PC;
- Personally I start by installing ram in the mobo, then the cpu in the mobo and attaching the CPU heatsink to the mobo first before inserting the mobo (with the ram and cpu installed) into the case (in case the hole in the mobo tray is not aligned well to install the backplate for the cooler). Before installing the mobo into the case, ensure the mobo standoffs are installed (if they aren't installed already) and that you install the mobo I/O shield into the case. Then plug in any case cables (front USB, audio etc) onto the mobo.
- Then I will put in the optical drive(s) and hard drive(s) and attaching the appropriate sata cables.
- Next I would install the power supply and attach PSU cables to everything
- Lastly I would install the graphics card and attach the appropriate PSU cables to it.
- Before turning on I would ensure all the cables are plugged in correctly and make sure there isn't anything blocking fan movement.

As far as static electricity goes, just be careful and ground yourself regularly. I've never killed anything with static electricity before out of all the PCs I've built so you would have to be really unlucky to be victimised by static electricity.

Pretty good guide here;
 
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Hiya guys, I'm going soon to do something that may be simple to many, but being my first time scares the hell out of me, and I want to do it FINE.

Thanks to you I finally bought my new rig, that is made of:


Case: Corsair Obsidian 650D
CPU: Intel i7-4930K Ivy Bridge Processor, 12 MB Cache, 3.40 GHz
MOBO: SUS X79-DELUXE
RAM: 2 pair of Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1600MHz DDR3
GPU: Sapphire TRI-X R9 290X 4GB GDDR5 OC (UEFI)
Optical Drive: LG BH16NS40 Blu-ray
HDD: one 500SSD and one 2TB HDD
PSU: Seasonic Platinum-1000


Now, I'll have to BUILD IT, physically. Manually.
Any good guide? Advice? How to be safe from static-electricity?

Thanks in advance for any help, instead of just googling I'd really be grateful to hear your knowledge.

That's some really nice parts you've picked out and that rig should serve you well for several years with no need for an upgrade besides maybe the GPU in a couple of years but maybe not even that will be necessary.

Some people recommend a static wrist band but I've never used one and never had an issue with static electricity and the local PC repair shops work on PCs all day everyday and they don't even wear static wrist bands, at least the ones I've seen many years ago.

One final thing. I was nervous when I sat down to assemble my first rig. I was worried that something bizarre would go wrong and I would encounter some problem that would baffle people here and on Tom's Hardware lol There was no problem and I felt a little silly for worrying when it all went together so easily. The thing that settled it for me was that I was getting a rig exactly like I wanted and with exactly the parts I wanted and if worst came to worst I could always take it to a local computer repair shop and usually they can inspect it and tell pretty quickly what part is faulty for free and even if they had to keep it they only charged $60 an hour. Back when I was using them for repairs they never charged more than one hour labor for anything that I brought to them.
 
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Hiya guys, I'm going soon to do something that may be simple to many, but being my first time scares the hell out of me, and I want to do it FINE.

Thanks to you I finally bought my new rig, that is made of:


Case: Corsair Obsidian 650D
CPU: Intel i7-4930K Ivy Bridge Processor, 12 MB Cache, 3.40 GHz
MOBO: SUS X79-DELUXE
RAM: 2 pair of Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1600MHz DDR3
GPU: Sapphire TRI-X R9 290X 4GB GDDR5 OC (UEFI)
Optical Drive: LG BH16NS40 Blu-ray
HDD: one 500SSD and one 2TB HDD
PSU: Seasonic Platinum-1000


Now, I'll have to BUILD IT, physically. Manually.
Any good guide? Advice? How to be safe from static-electricity?

Thanks in advance for any help, instead of just googling I'd really be grateful to hear your knowledge.

Hello again,

One thing I might suggest, if you're at all worried about whether everything works before putting everything in the case, you could do a quick test outside of the case. Place the motherboard on the cardboard box it came in - do not place it on the anti-static bag its stored in, as ironically it can actually be static on the outside. Install the CPU, the stock CPU cooler if using watercooling, and the RAM. Attach the 24-pin motherboard and 8-pin CPU cables from the PSU into the motherboard, and plug the PSU into the mains. Attach a cable from the back I/O to a monitor. There is a "Power-On" button on your motherboard, which you should press, and see whether you get into the BIOS. Assuming all is well, you can then detach the PSU cable and install the components in the case.

In terms of anti-static, if you're really worried, plug in your PSU to the mains (but the switch on PSU must be off), and regularly touch the metal parts of the PSU or the case when the PSU is installed.

Layton
 
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-No need for gloves just make sure your hands are dry not wet or oily.
-Build it on a table top/counter not a rug.
-First clip the motherboard IO panel in, I have installed everything before but forgot to install the IO panel and it is a nuisance to remove it all and redo, so do it first.
-Put loose screws in a cup so you don't lose them.
-Make sure you connect the following: 8 pin eps, the 24 pin, and the pci-express power wires.
-Make sure the CPU goes into the socket smooth and the correct orientation.
-Make sure the ram goes in the correct direction.
-Use a dot of thermal paste in the center of the processor before putting the heatsink on, don't need very much.
-Use the motherboard owners manual to figure out where to plug in the case wires: power/reset/front panel audio etc
-Don't loose any screws behind the motherboard
-Make sure you thread the stand offs in cleanly and then the screws straight, if you cross thread them it makes motherboard install a bitch (had a guy do this and then wanted me to remove his motherboard and replace it later, the same guy spilled water into his pc and fried everything... twice)
 
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-No need for gloves just make sure your hands are dry not wet or oily.
-Build it on a table top/counter not a rug.
-First clip the motherboard IO panel in, I have installed everything before but forgot to install the IO panel and it is a nuisance to remove it all and redo, so do it first.
-Put loose screws in a cup so you don't lose them.
-Make sure you connect the following: 8 pin eps, the 24 pin, and the pci-express power wires.
-Make sure the CPU goes into the socket smooth and the correct orientation.
-Make sure the ram goes in the correct direction.
-Use a dot of thermal paste in the center of the processor before putting the heatsink on, don't need very much.
-Use the motherboard owners manual to figure out where to plug in the case wires: power/reset/front panel audio etc
-Don't loose any screws behind the motherboard
-Make sure you thread the stand offs in cleanly and then the screws straight, if you cross thread them it makes motherboard install a bitch (had a guy do this and then wanted me to remove his motherboard and replace it later, the same guy spilled water into his pc and fried everything... twice)

Great stuff, thank you. :) Because of english not being my first language I probably didn't understand correctly this line though:

"-Make sure you connect the following: 8 pin eps, the 24 pin, and the pci-express power wires."

Do you mean I should be careful to connect the exact amount of pins? That I could connect 7 and 23? Eps stands for...? Sorry Vario, really, I'm not bad at english but speaking of technical stuff can be hard since I'm, as you can see, quite careful.

The dot of thermal paste is something I'll be able to see in the tutorial, am I right?
 
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"-Make sure you connect the following: 8 pin eps, the 24 pin, and the pci-express power wires."

Do you mean I should be careful to connect the exact amount of pins? That I could connect 7 and 23? Eps stands for...? Sorry Vario, really, I'm not bad at english but speaking of technical stuff can be hard since I'm, as you can see, quite careful.

The 8-pin/32-pin is a reference to the size of the plug and cable end coming from the PSU - read your PSU manual if you're not sure which is which, although they're usually labelled. The EPS cable is the power cable for the CPU (and other things), which usually has a motherboard socket close to the CPU socket.

The dot of thermal paste is something I'll be able to see in the tutorial, am I right?

People often use different methods, so the dot of thermal paste method may not appear in the tutorial. The general advice for the size of the dot is between the size of a grain of rice and a small pea. When they say in the tutorial apply thermal paste, you do the dot method.

Layton
 
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8 pin EPS power connects to the top left of the motherboard, 24 pin goes into the right side middle and the PCI-E goes into the videocard. Also make sure you don't mix up the 8 pin EPS for the PCI-E.

read this
http://www.mysuperpc.com/build/pc_connect_power_supply.shtml

if you have any problems take some photos and post them up and we can figure it out
 

hat

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Thank you guys, as always. :) I'll take extra care for those links when the time come.

I only miss the RAM, the OS and the Monitor now. I think I'll have everything in between the 24th-30th.

I'm also buying this, for exagerated carefulness, it's my first time so hey, brrr!

http://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B004CS5WIG/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=APTM5W1B4STU0
The strap isn't necessary but if it makes you feel safe I guess it's a good buy. Just regularly ground yourself when working with the system and work in an environment where it is very hard to build up static electricity. I.e work on tiles/wood, wear shoes and so on.
 
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-
-First clip the motherboard IO panel in, I have installed everything before but forgot to install the IO panel and it is a nuisance to remove it all and redo, so do it first.
-

this one first. Ha ha its not so funny. I have experience this and believe me, it is very very frustrating if you forgot the IO panel. I was so excited (my first build), every thing done cable management, looking nice. looking clean and neat. and when I want to power up, notice that big hole at the back of case. Its a big Doh!!! after that :banghead::banghead:


My advice with the OP, take your time. Dont rush. Its better to alocate a day for building it so you can after wards enjoy your rig :clap:
 
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Everyone has pointed out the big things. Things are pretty much dummy-proof these days. If it looks like it fits, it's probably supposed to go there.

I can only think of a few things to add. One, be careful of is not to mix up the 8-pin PCI-E power with the 8-pin EPS power (aka CPU power). The keying is different so it won't go in (unless you force it), but it's hard to notice. Two, you're probably going to notice that it takes a lot of force to install the memory. Make sure you have the notch lined up and then push down hard until the tabs on each side lock themselves in. If the tabs don't lock themselves in, the memory probably isn't seated properly.

What was annoying was those 40-pin IDE cables that had no keying. Be thankful you don't have to play with these. I eventually remembered the red stripe generally goes towards the power, but when it fit two ways and only worked one way? Gah! Well, let me just pull it out and sw.. dang it. Just bent the pins.


Also, it's worth taking a little extra time to route what cables you can behind the motherboard tray. Makes things tidy, helps with airflow a little bit.
 
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Everyone has pointed out the big things. Things are pretty much dummy-proof these days. If it looks like it fits, it's probably supposed to go there.

I can only think of a few things to add. One, be careful of is not to mix up the 8-pin PCI-E power with the 8-pin EPS power (aka CPU power). The keying is different so it won't go in (unless you force it), but it's hard to notice. Two, you're probably going to notice that it takes a lot of force to install the memory. Make sure you have the notch lined up and then push down hard until the tabs on each side lock themselves in. If the tabs don't lock themselves in, the memory probably isn't seated properly.

What was annoying was those 40-pin IDE cables that had no keying. Be thankful you don't have to play with these. I eventually remembered the red stripe generally goes towards the power, but when it fit two ways and only worked one way? Gah! Well, let me just pull it out and sw.. dang it. Just bent the pins.


Also, it's worth taking a little extra time to route what cables you can behind the motherboard tray. Makes things tidy, helps with airflow a little bit.

Thankfully IDE is dead now, those things sucked and they took up so much space. You couldn't really tuck them very well and all the smaller round wires would get wrapped around the ribbon cables making a spaghetti mess. Then you get some dust and hair in there a few months later and its like some kind of hairy zerg organism growing in your case LOL

I covered the PCI-E vs EPS/CPU 8 pin above but its important enough to repeat for sure! You can unfortunately physically connect those types of plugs and it will probably fry your shit.
 
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Thankfully IDE is dead now, those things sucked and they took up so much space. You couldn't really tuck them very well and all the smaller round wires would get wrapped around the ribbon cables making a spaghetti mess. Then you get some dust and hair in there a few months later and its like some kind of hairy zerg organism growing in your case LOL
I liked that they could be folded neatly, like this. Otherwise, yeah. Nightmareish.


Edit: Just noticed the master/slave label on the ribbon which reminded me of having to set those cursed master/slave/CS jumpers. Hated trying to wrap my head around the case trying to figure out if one drive was master or slave so I could set the jumper for the second device. Yet another thing our lord and saviour SATA has saved us from.

I covered the PCI-E vs EPS/CPU 8 pin above but its important enough to repeat for sure! You can unfortunately physically connect those types of plugs and it will probably fry your shit.
Oops! Must have missed it. :toast:

Edit: Found an image
 
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Guys, I'm working on it and I'm finding a couple of problems indeed.

I had to remove the Noctua a couple of times, I hope the thermal paste isn't damaged but now my issue is with the PSU.

The PSU has NOTHING attached to it, and I didn't find ANYWHERE a how-to. Every PSU shown has the main cables already attached, mine has not.
 
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hey, you have whats called a modular psu, it means you only have to plug in the cables you need for the devices you have, when you need more cables for more devices plug em in, there should be a manual to show what cables are for what devices, also its quite easy as most cables only fit the devices their designed for or look on the Seasonic Website for Seasonic Platinum-1000 manual
 
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hey, you have whats called a modular psu, it means you only have to plug in the cables you need for the devices you have, when you need more cables for more devices plug em in, there should be a manual to show what cables are for what devices, also its quite easy as most cables only fit the devices their designed for or look on the Seasonic Website for Seasonic Platinum-1000 manual

The thing is that the "female" and the "man" of the cables are not easily spotted for me, the manual actually somewhat doesn't say anything about them. But your info already is useful since I now know I don't have to plug EVERYTHING.

The 24 pin for example... I'm not sure where to plug it into the PSU, it's quite scary.
 
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Guys, I'm working on it and I'm finding a couple of problems indeed.

I had to remove the Noctua a couple of times, I hope the thermal paste isn't damaged but now my issue is with the PSU.

The PSU has NOTHING attached to it, and I didn't find ANYWHERE a how-to. Every PSU shown has the main cables already attached, mine has not.
hey, you have whats called a modular psu, it means you only have to plug in the cables you need for the devices you have, when you need more cables for more devices plug em in, there should be a manual to show what cables are for what devices, also its quite easy as most cables only fit the devices their designed for or look on the Seasonic Website for Seasonic Platinum-1000 manual

The manual is here, but it isn't very pictorial:

http://www.seasonicusa.com/images/BrochureManuals/P_series_Manual.pdf

However, the PSU and cables should all be labelled, like in this image:



- The M/B is where the motherboard 24-pin cable plugs in - the other end of the cable should be plugged into a large socket on the right hand side of the motherboard
- The CPU is where the 8-pin CPU cable plugs in - the other end plugs into an 8-pin socket at the top of the motherboard near the CPU socket
- The PCI-E is where the two PCI-e cables plug in - the other end are then plugged into the power sockets on your GPU.
- The Peripheral is where your SATA power cable plugs in - the other end is plugged into your SSDs and hard drives.

Those should be all the cables you need. Also, look out for multiple connectors on each cable, for example the PCI-E cable may have two connectors on it, so only one cable is needed to be plugged into the PSU.

Layton
 
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yeah @Layton correct sir,, thats not the best, it seems for for people used to building systems and dont need any help

@Sabaku_no_Maiku if your not sure take a pic and we can help you out m8
 
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Thank you very much Layton, really good infos there, just one more thing: how do I know when of "two connector" I have to use only one?
 
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Thank you very much Layton, really good infos there, just one more thing: how do I know when of "two connector" I have to use only one?



In this image you can see that at one of this PCI-e cable (top of image) is the connector that plugs into the PSU, and on the other end (bottom of image) there are two 6+2 PCI-e connectors that would plug into your graphics card. The GPU you have requires one 8-pin and one 6-pin connector, therefore you can use both connectors and thus only one PCI-e cable to plug in your graphics card. Basically, you need to mentally picture what components require which power connectors, and whether you need more than one cable depending on location of the cables in the case.

The cables for your PSU are very similar to my semi-modular XFX power supply. I have non-modular 24-pin and 8-pin motherboard cables, and a non-modular cable with two 6+2 pin connectors powering my graphics card. I then ended up having to do two SATA modular power cables as my optical drive was too high up in the case to use the same cable as my HDD cable. However, the SATA cable I have for my HDD has a second connector which can allow me to easily add another drive without having to route a second cable. Finally I have a modular Molex cable powering my fan controller.

I hope this helps,

Layton



EDIT: based on the build list above, you will need the following cables to be plugged in to your PSU:

- 1x 24-pin M/B cable - attach to right-hand side of motherboard

- 1x 8-pin CPU cable - attach to top of motherboard

- 1x PCI-E cable with two 6+2 connectors - power your graphics card

- 2x SATA power cable with two connectors (at least) - you will need to route cable no.1 to the top of your case to power the Hot Swap Bay and the Blu-ray drive, and this may require a cable extension kit. Cable no.2 needs to be routed towards your hard-drive tray to power your SSD and 2TB HDD.

- 1x Molex power cable - power your fan controller
 
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Ok guys, I'm going to work on the PSU now. Thank you very much, you're help is INCREDIBLE.

My only fear about what I've done BEFORE: I had some problems putting the Noctua in the right place so I removed it 3 times while the Thermal Paste was already on it, should I clean and re-do everythign or it will not be an issue?
 
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Ok guys, I'm going to work on the PSU now. Thank you very much, you're help is INCREDIBLE.

My only fear about what I've done BEFORE: I had some problems putting the Noctua in the right place so I removed it 3 times while the Thermal Paste was already on it, should I clean and re-do everythign or it will not be an issue?

If you have some extra thermal paste then yes, to be on the safe side you should clean the old paste away and apply some new.
 
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