I don't really know what I'm doing!! Play along!!

[Chris [BEANS]]

So, I'm putting together a new PC and updating my whole setup...

Going from this:



It was put together christ knows how many years ago. Bullet points are that it's an i5 3570K, a second hand GTX 970, 16 Gb of slow second hand RAM, all wrapped up in a huge and ugly case, with a 24 inc 60Hz screen...

It's also loud, I mean, LOUD.

It's served me really well for donkeys years, but it's time to upgrade.



Now, I've built and upgraded all my computers for the last 15 years, so I'm not completely uselss here, but that's a sum total of three or four computers and as you can tell the last one was probably six or even seven years ago!


So, I'm going to post updates and pics as I go, and any tips and advice people can throw my way would be very gratefully accepted.

Physically assembling it will hopefully be OK, but then setting it up properly, making sure I have the right BIOS settings etc is defineitely something I'll need pointers on.


I think it's going to be a long night!!

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

First off, let's have a butchers inside the old girl...



Feels bad!! (and yes, that's a CPU fan hanging off because the rubber attachment has aged and fallen apart!!)

So, got rid of everything, and increased the desk space first...



Good start, but I'm starving. Thankfully, the fish and chip van just arrived \o/

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

Ha!! Living the dream!!

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

What you get fish and chips delivered, what is this world coming too

It's amazing. I don't get them delivered as such, it's like an ice cream van but they have fryers in the back. By awesome fortune, they literally stop outside my gaff!!

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

Right, case first??

I'm going case first...

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

Ok, immediately love the case!!

Much smaller and much more subtle than the old one...



Attention to detail is awesome. The case cables are so nicely managed quite literally out of the box.



(don't worry, I won't be too gratuitous with the rest of the pics, but I'm genuinely impressed with the case already...)

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

OK, first stupid question... I can't find the information elsewhere...

Two M.2 slots on here. I've got a 500 Gb drive for the OS, and a 1Tb drive that will effectively be a Steam/game drive.

Is there any specific slot that the OS drive should be used in?



Ta

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

Manual?? That would be admitting defeat before the battle commences!

Exactly!! You guys are my manual!!!

I've slung the 'game' drive under the heat spreader as I expect that'll get the hottest... Right??


Just getting to the point where I'll be installing the worlds biggest cooler.

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

I’m having a mare!!!

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

So...

Contraversial, I know, but I went with the 'use a gloved finger to spread the kryonaut' method on the CPU...



Then I remembered that no matter which way I'd done it, someone would tell me I'm an idiot and i shoud have done an 'X', or a pea sized blob, or that you should sling loads on, or as little as possible... The E-anxiety brought on one or two of these.



Finally, the board was slung together enough to bung into the case.



After having a complete ball ache getting the motherboard to line up with the case, it's in...



My issue now, is that I have two case fans, and zero clue where to plug the buggers in?!?

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

I dunno weather to laugh or cry at the cost of that hardware and you pull out two cans of red stripe

The cpu fan goes to the cpu fan header and the case fan will go to the case fan header. This is why you read the manual. If you have more than one case fan then you got 2 choices. Disconnect one or get a fan controller kit that allows multiple fans attached.

That cpu paste should have been spread out with a card IMO not a blob personally. I just use a debit card (the non chip side) then wash it after works fine. Or something else with a nice edge.

A bit ‘studenty’ I know, but I genuinely like it!!

as for the fans, I have two ‘sys fan’ sets of pins. However, they’re both four pin, and my case fans are three pin...

told you all I have no idea what I’m doing!!

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

I can’t say I’ve ever tasted red stripe.

You will be fine you can plug the 3 pin fans into the 4 pin headers. Align up the little slot on the sides that’s all you need to do.

It's good! Get involved!!

Fans plugged in... well, everything plugged in! Next comes a victory dance, or a small fire... I'm scared...

looking good @Chris [BEANS]

Missed me? x

List of items and cost would be good. I know you have pics of them.

Definitely will do dude. As soon as I'm happy it's alive and well.

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

always. where you been hiding?

The urge for a mum joke was almost overwhelming!!

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

Right, I'm in, posting from the new computer...

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

Now... I've no real idea what I'm doing, nor how to double check what's working and what's not!!

I'll start with a graphics driver and go from there...

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

Ryzen is a peculiar beast. There’s not much of anything to be gained from fiddling (ohhh err missus) with the cpu but decent gains with ram tweaking.

Whelp, new build (obviously!) and a fresh install of windows...

Literally all I've done so far is install the latest graphics drivers, enabled g-sync, and OC'd the monitor to 95Hz (100 doesn't work, flickers).

What should I be doing next??

Anything in the bios? Update chipset drivers etc??

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

I’m on it boys, cheers. I’ll post back in a bit.

my windows key is duff Google insisted Kinguin was not illegal, and was reliable. Several sources!

Never mind...

before I fork out £100 odd, are there any other legal but less pricey ways to activate windows?

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

Actually concerned that getting a cheap Windows key was quite an error!!

Firstly, Nivida will only install 'DCH' drivers (whatever they are) and not the nones I'm used to downloading.

Secondly, and inexplicably, the date and time keeps changing to about 8 hours head?!?!?

If I buy a key from here, will I get it straight away, and will it sort all this nonsense out??

 

[Chris [BEANS]]

Windows 10 keys are usually delivered automatically within 5 minutes of purchase on the bay.

Windows 10 keys are not bound to time zones or different countries so I can't see why it would effect the time moving 8 hours ahead.

I can only think that you have the wrong time zone on the windows settings.

Just checked. Windows is set to the right time zone, and is set to update automatically.

I just manually adjusted the time (by 7 hours) and restarted, and again it's telling me that it's lust sfter half past six in the evening?!

Edit: Setting the 'system time' in the bios has fixed it!!