First build in years, advice please?

preacher said:
Thanks for that link. The Cooler Masters come out well though.

Must be time to stop dithering and order, I think. :)
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The IB i5K CPU has gone up now to £189. There was no harm doing your research and getting a good idea of what you want.

As I said you aren't really that far from qualifying for free P&P. Offers change on wednesday and they may suit you better, last week was much better than this weeks in all honesty. The 6950 was the only thing in your basket on offer I do believe.

I don't see the harm in waiting and posting a while longer ;)
 
Yes indeed. There are always specials. If you don't like them today, some new ones will be out tomorrow.

As honosuseri says post more questions and comments for now and see what tomorrow brings.
 
Well, the actual build is likely to be some days off, if not a couple of weeks (when I have some annual leave), so I guess I'll see what new offers are out on Wednesday. Didn't realise that was the day they change.
 
Hmm, what about thermal paste? Do these aftermarket coolers generally come with good thermal compound, or should I get something else? I'm certain I have some Arctic Silver around somewhere, is that still considered good? Don't ask me how old it is though. :)
 
Haven't spotted any dazzling special offers in this week's crop, so still thinking of the same build, but with one possible change.

I have a hot-swap drive enclosure which is eSATA or USB 2.0, so eSATA support on the motherboard would be useful.

Is this a good upgrade to the mobo? Haven't really hunted through the different boards, to be honest, I just looked for a similar Gigabyte model with eSATA.

1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99

 
Well, thought I would pop back to give an update. Thanks for all the advice, I ordered a short while ago, but have only just had enough free time to build.

The PC is mostly assembled now - it boots past POST, but I haven't fitted a hard drive yet. Still got to re-do the cabling - I wanted to make sure it would boot before attempting cable management, though it looks like the R3 case will make that a lot easier.

Quick question about thumb screws: if there's a thumbscrew to attach something, should I assume it only needs to be finger-tight? I don't want to damage the motherboard, but I don't want them to work loose through vibration. I'm mainly thinking of the screws on the cooler.

Thanks for all the help, should have it up and running tomorrow. (I'm off out shortly so can't finish it now. :()
 
Thumbscrews aren't to secure the mobo itself, they are commonly used for securing the sides of the case, and for securing PCI cards to the chassis. Maybe the HDDs and optical drives, depends on the case.

When you tighten the cooler. Even the pressure applied by starting with the top left screw, then do the bottom right and continue from there. Never overtighten the screws, finger tight and a slight turn is enough :)
 
Yep, it's the screws holding the cooler to the mobo that I mean, and wasn't sure about.

There were thumbs screws to attach the cooler's mount to the motherboard, and then again to attach the heatsink to the mount. I was careful to tighten them evenly, but didn't use a screwdriver on any of them. Should I give them an extra quarter turn with a screwdriver or will they be fine as they are?
 
I use a screwdriver not so much to tighten but to tighten evenly nice and snug.

Got tired of watching paint dry ;)

When mounting the HDDs the screws are just barely snug... Rubber vibration dampener keeps them from working loose and if they are tighter HDD vibration/noise will transmit into case.

If the feet on case require inside access to remove do so now before you install PSU. The caster base does not use the stock feet. ;)
 
My top tip for fitting aftermarket heatsinks is masking tape.

You have to usually put bolts through the backing plate and then through the back of the mobo. Use the tape to hold those bolts in place on the backing plate. Flip the mobo over and the bolts won't drop out ;) You can then slide the washers/spacers down the bolts. Mount the heatsink and secure it as i mentioned before :)

It'll be fine finger tight but there is no harm tweaking them a lil tighter if it gives you piece of mind :)
 
The masking tape tip would have been useful earlier :D but I'll remember that for next time.

Also I won't overtighten the HDD screws, good point about the rubber dampener.

And the feet will come off from the outside, so I won't need to remove the PSU to get at them. :)

Although I did spend at least 5 minutes trying to install the PSU with the provided rubber dampener, wondering why the screws weren't long enough, before I realised the case has a built-in vibration dampener for the PSU. :o
 
preacher said:
The masking tape tip would have been useful earlier :D but I'll remember that for next time.

Also I won't overtighten the HDD screws, good point about the rubber dampener.

And the feet will come off from the outside, so I won't need to remove the PSU to get at them. :)

Although I did spend at least 5 minutes trying to install the PSU with the provided rubber dampener, wondering why the screws weren't long enough, before I realised the case has a built-in vibration dampener for the PSU. :o
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Just lil tricks of the trade ;) If you do something enough you learn lol I see videos where people try to stick those adhesive washers to the mobo (i hope you know what i mean). I do the back plate first, then put the "stickers" over the bolt and let them drop into place, making life easier.

Sounds like you are doing well. Any chance of some pics? Pretty please? :)
 
Well, I had to go out earlier this evening, so it kind of stalled a bit. I hadn't intended to work on it again till the morning, but I wasn't out for as long as I'd expected, so I've been fiddling with the cables for a bit. Will leave it now as I'm tired and that's not good in combination with building a PC. ;)

So there's still a lot to do with the cabling, but here are a couple of pics. I'm not sure what to do with the fan power cable; I can't think of a better route for it, but it's not as neat as I had wanted. Maybe tomorrow when I'm more awake. :)

Also, although the Fractal case is brilliant, the big rubber grommets on the cable management holes come off really easily. In fact I've already lost one of the small round ones from the back of the case. I'm sure it's here somewhere, I just hope it's not underneath the motherboard though! More likely it came off when I moved the PC and it'll probably turn up when I tidy up.

Just had a thought - please tell me that's the right side of the heatsink to put the fan! :D I assume it should blow air up across the heatsink, not pull air down, as that would warm the GPU?

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Yes the fan pushes air through the heatsink. You will need to remove the top vent sound dampening to use cooler the way you have it mounted. Most people mount coolers venting out back, but I have mine venting out top like you. I made a duct from cooler to top vent so no CPU heat escapes into case. ;)

Maybe wrap the fan cable around the fan, than up under cooler to cpu plug. The black fan cable is camouflaged by the black fan housing. Or just hide the cable under cooler ;)

Looking very nice!
 
doyll said:
Yes the fan pushes air through the heatsink. You will need to remove the top vent sound dampening to use cooler the way you have it mounted. Most people mount coolers venting out back, but I have mine venting out top like you. I made a duct from cooler to top vent so no CPU heat escapes into case. ;)

Maybe wrap the fan cable around the fan, than up under cooler to cpu plug. The black fan cable is camouflaged by the black fan housing. Or just hide the cable under cooler ;)

Looking very nice!
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Nice advice :)

Yes the heatsink is ok mounted that way as long as it can vent out of the ceiling of the case. I personally only uncoil just enough of the fan wire to reach the fan header. Then tuck the excess cable out of sight under the heatsink.
 
Doh! I forgot the top vents are closed off, will have a think about whether I want to open one or just turn the heatsink. I was just thinking it would pull air over the GPU as well, which might be advantageous, but I'm not sure I want to open that top vent, at least until I've tried with it closed.

Didn't think about just coiling the wire round the base of the cooler, but there's a lot of room down there. :)
 
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