Forum for PC Building

[superhead91]

Nice wire tuck

haha.. Thanks. I'd like to sleeve all the cables at some point. I wish my car was as easy to work on as my computer... and as cheap.

 

[Billy.]

Well Joe, I know you couldn't scrounge up any patience when it came to ordering your parts , but I highly recommend taking your sweet time to put everything together, and installing all the drivers and software. A little detail will go a long way and save you hassle down the road of redoing things.

 

[joe7987]

^^Yea, I'm definitely the kind of person to do something right the first time. I'm not too worried.. I'm going to be very careful with this.. lol. Also, last night I watched a video from newegg on how to put a computer together.. All seems very simple as long as I continuously ground myself and don't force anything into place.

Anyway, I have about half my parts in now. Today I got the
-Case
-Power supply
-GPU
-CPU
-Windows 7
-DVD drive

Holy s**t.. the graphics card is HUGE. I never imagined it'd be that big.

I went ahead and installed the power supply. Everything else will be in tomorrow. Unfortunately, my day is packed tomorrow, so I'm not entirely confident that I'll get to put it all together.

 

[Hecz]

Good morning guys,

Can anyone recommend a good fan speed program? thanks!

 

[Billy.]

Depends on the mobo and BIOS, but speedfan is pretty universal, lightweight, and user friendly.

 

[superhead91]

Speedfan, unless you have an Asus mobo like me. Then you have to use Asus AI Suite.

 

[Hecz]

Thanks guys. I have an MSI board. I will first try to do it from within the bios.

 

[Billy.]

I'm sure MSi has a windows software program that can control the mobo powered fans probably wrapped up with an overclocking utility, similar to Asus and ASRock and the others

 

[joe7987]

Good news.. I didn't blow anything up!

I took it a little over cautiously when plugging everything into the motherboard The names on the plugs were slightly different from the names on the sockets, and I wasn't sure if that signified subtle, but important differences. Apparently it didn't. Anyway, I spent several more hours than I needed to on that part.

The only real snag I ran into was my own stupidity. I spent an hour or two diagnosing why the system was firing up with no error code, but nothing was showing on the display. After that hour or two.. I realized the hdmi cable was plugged into the motherboard slot, and not the graphics slot

Anyway. Project success!

 

[ImportFan1]

Looks good. Not a fan of that case though. Seems like it is extremely wide open for dust and such, esp the bottom. Otherwise looks good man.

 

[Billy.]

Needs a wire tuck, but not bad at all.

After you update your drivers, get some benchmarks. I'm curious how that SSD and the 7970 perform

 

[joe7987]

I looove the case. Honestly, when there's a dust issue, the side is just held on by a few thumb screws, and then I have full access to clean it out. From what I've read, dust really isn't an issue with this case, though.

In regards to the "needs a wire tuck", I didn't do it in the pictures before the neons were added. I think I did a pretty good job with the wires, so take a look at the +5 horsepower pictures and let me know if it still sucks.

I'm installing drivers now. For some reason, it's not recognizing the sound card. I just went to install the sound card drivers, and it told me to install the sound card. I don't know what the deal is.. It's installed, and in nice and tight. I'll have to double check it, and see if maybe there's a power cable I missed, or something.

On the plus side, it's running great. Boot times are very short (10-15 seconds), and it shuts down in a matter of 3 or 4 seconds. The case is blowing COLD air. Feels like an AC unit... pretty awesome. I haven't run any benchmarks yet, or done any gaming, but I'll keep you guys updated.

 

[Billy.]

I didn't realize you bought an addon sound card. The ASRock Z68 series have pretty damn good integrated audio. Unless you're planning to produce music you probably should return the sound card! $$$ in your wallet!

To clean up the wiring you can run the CPU/Mobo power cable behind the mobo itself and come from the top. The main power cable can do the same thing - run behind the board and come out the side. Most of the fan wires should be long enough to run behind the board too.

I'll try to find some pics to help illustrate...

*edit*
To help alleviate dust collecting inside the case you can cover the mesh from the inside with a clear film. I recommend buying a pack of clear paper sleeve/protectors, then cut them to shape to cover the mesh openings and using black electrical tape you can attach them to the back side of the panels. That might also improve airflow to some of the components in the case as well. Newegg sells air filters for fans too. They come precut for different size fans; 80mm, 120mm, etc. Those will reduce dust a lot.

 

[joe7987]

Mobo cable is too thick. It will go around, but it has to turn at too sharp of an angle to then get plugged in. That's the first way I tried it, but it physically cannot turn back toward the motherboard that quickly. Everything I could run behind the motherboard, went behind the motherboard (including the fan wires).

What's left in front is the motherboard power, cpu power, neon cables, and water cooling lines. That's it.. and there's literally no way for them to go anywhere else.

I was told by quite a few to get the sound card. It's the Xonar DG 5.1, and I was told that it would be much better than the on-board audio. Regardless, it was fairly inexpensive. It's working now too. I just tightened everything up and it was recognized.

Currently downloading games - Starcraft II, Rage, Dirt 3, and Magicka

 

[Billy.]

That sucks the CPU power cable can't be rerouted. It was a b****, but I got mine to run behind the mobo and it made a big difference in appearance.

Also, something I wanted to recommend investing in is a power conditioner with battery backup. They improve the overall performance and efficiency of the pc by cleaning up the sine wave going into the power supply, which makes it easier for the power supply to deliver smooth power to the components. Also, you get the safety net of a battery backup. Mine has saved me from power failure about half a dozen times since I bought it in october. One of those times was while copying one hard disk to another . Its a cyberpower 1000PFCLCD

 

[joe7987]

^^That's something I'll have to consider down the line, when I'm no longer broke

The computer is running excellently. It was on for basically the entire day, and the air around the case was cool to the touch. GPU temperature after being on all day, with a couple of programs open was 34 degrees Celsius. I didn't take a cpu reading, but I'm very happy with the results so far. Tomorrow I'll FINALLY get to game. Took forever to download everything today.

 

[Billy.]

34C is good. Mine sit a little higher, but they are sandwiched together.. The CPU should be a bit lower. Mine sits at about 30 on the coldest core and 36 on the warmest. When youre ready to test it download Loadtester or Prime95. You'll need to open 4 Loadtester windows to fully load a 2500K but you can control the cores better than with prime95. Also, get RealTemp or Core Temp to keep an eye on each core individually. I prefer RealTemp because you can customize the color scheme to match other programs.

 

[joe7987]

Good stuff, I'll have to try that out.

Games are all running very smoothly, though I have yet to try anything too intense. So far I've run RAGE, Dirt 3, and Magicka. I'm looking forward to getting something to really test it out. I'm waiting for the steam summer sale.

 

[Billy.]

Well until you get some heavier games you could download some GPU benchmark programs

Furmark is probably the best GPU benchmark tool

*edit*
If you want a pretty heavy game but don't want to break the bank pickup Arma2. I gives my rig a workout definitely, and I can actually play the game for hours without getting bored

 

[joe7987]

^^Yea, I'll have to look out for deals on arma 2. I actually use a simulator at work that uses the same engine as arma 2 (VBS 2), and I actually live about 10 minutes away from one of Bohemia Interactive's offices. lol

I tried furmark yesterday, but for some reason it wouldn't run. I don't remember exactly what it did, but it wouldn't work. I've updated my drivers since then though, so I should probably give it another try.