NZXT Phantom 410 - First Build

[Xenus]

Hi guys, this is my first build so be kind xD got all the components just waiting on a fan controller to arrive tomorrow. Will probably start tonight so will post regular updates on my progress. Here is what everything looks like so far

95% or so was bought from overclockers and I would firstly like to say what a great experience it has been shopping with them. I have probably sent a few webnotes to the guys about changes to my orders as i have been learning about my build so a big thank you for the excellent customer service and delivery times. Also big thank you to the guys on the forums who have given my advice and help along the way, your support has been much appreciated! I hope I don't get too troubled while building but if I am I know the guys here can help xD

NZXT Phantom 410
NZXT Hale Power 90+ 650W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply
x5 BitFenix Spectre PRO 120mm Fan Red LED - Black
x2 BitFenix Spectre PRO 140mm Red LED - Black
LG BH10LS38 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (Retail)
Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM
Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SATA 2.5" 6Gb/s Solid State Drive
"Spectre Z77 Ruby" Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40GHz @ 4.40GHz DDR3 OVerclocked Bundle - Quad Core
BitFenix Recon Internet-Connected Fan Controller
Zotac Geforce GTX 660ti AMP! Edition
Benq XL2411T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red
Cooler Master Mechanical Keyboard
Razer Naga Molten Special Edition
Belkin n52te
Windows 8 OEM

 

[Xenus]

Cheers Something Else, I am dedicated to have a nice clean interior with lots of air flow so cable management will be important to me. Don't think I could look at a messy case xD

Here is todays update, only fitted the fans, PSU and optical drive. Had a rough day at work so pretty tired, plus fan controller arriving tomorrow so will wait to hook all that up before moving on to mounting the SSD and HD.

Here are some pics.

As I mentioned, this is my first build so if anyone notices that I have done something wrong in the pics or if you have any advice on improving something please say so =]

I am getting the fan controller tomorrow (BitFenix Recon Internet-Connected Fan Controller) what are your recommendations on what fans to connect to it? I currently have 2 intake, 3 exhaust and 2 on the CPU cooler. The stock fan controller can manage up to 7 I believe so if I decide to add more fans later I can either get another controller or attach them to that. Also, the GPU is quite short so may actually be able to get some benefit out of the adjustable fan that mounts on the side of the drive bays

Thanks guys

 

[Xenus]

what I have noticed is by mounting the top 140mm exhaust fans on the inside of the case is that it doesn't leave much clearance for the mobo or top ATX cable. It may be a tight squeeze. There is the option to mount the fans on the other side (as the top grill has enough space to allow for that) just makes it difficult to replace a dead fan as the mobo would need to be removed to get at the screws.

 

[Xenus]

Cheers for the comments guys, got my latest images ready, sorry for the quality and didn't manage to take a massive amount of pics but here they are. Yeah Simon, I am hoping this set up will be great for a nice cool system. I did toy with the idea of just using a combo of stock and bitfenix 120mm fans and mounting the stock 140mm at the front. Decided against it and went with all Bitfenix Spectres with x2 140mm as the top exhausts. They look boss and performed well on a fog test so hopefully will have enough pull to keep things at a decent temp.

@BecomingPizza, I watched a couple of vids on builds and some of the larger cases have enough clearance to thread it through after mobo has been mounted but it was a tight fit with just the top fans installed. It is quite surprising how small the case keeps looking as more cables are being added. Its great that it can fit all the big stuff like full ATX mobos and mid-large sized coolers but things do seem to get quite tight and fiddly. It would be excellent size for a Micro ATX and I am glad I went for quite a short GPU now.

Mounted the HD and SSD into the brackets. SSD was a quick and easy install. Had to screw the HD in as the mounting pins were too large to clip into the side mounting points. Initially placed in the bottom two slots but have moved them to the top two so daisy chaining SATA power cables up to the optical drive could be done with one cable. Not too sure why there is a bit of a kink in the removable cage but hasn't caused any issues other than being a bit ugly.

Unboxing the mobo. Really love the look of this one and read some positive reviews online. CPU and RAM already installed with the bundle which I got in a weekly offer. As a first time builder I thought an overclocked bundle would be a great starting point and managed to get it at a reasonable price. It is worth noting though that the board is a bit thinner than a normal ATX and doesn't use the far right row of ATX standoffs. When inserting cables I will make sure to support the board a bit more at the weaker points. Also donuts are a necessity to keep up morale.

 

[Xenus]

May give it another go. Seems ok with the screws at the moment. I tired removing the HD and inserting the pins outside of the bracket and still wouldn't push in with moderate force. Tried pins from the other brackets also and same with all of them

 

[Xenus]

Here are some more pics

mounted the mobo. Fairly tight with PSU in the way but made easier by removing the HD cage

dropped in CPU cooler which I then had to remove as the heatsink that hangs over the RAM was blocking the mobo power cable. Removed and re-applied thermal paste and attached again. Quite an easy install, instructions could have been clearer though.

Attached the cooler fans and connected to mobo

connected up sata cables and installed GPU. I really do like the size of this card for this case.

 

[Xenus]

It POSTs. Insert Windows 8 DVD and start installation

Will have some better pics of the build once I get everything sorted. Have already encountered my first problem...

I have downloaded all the drivers for the mobo, graphics card and windows. I did windows updates first with no issues. Somewhere between the mobo and graphics card updates I found that the system is freezing for no apparent reason. First time it froze I was simply bringing up the corner menu bar and the second time was when I was accessing task manager via alt+ctrl+delete. I heard a little beep then lost all mouse and keyboard control. I am then forced to reboot and it sometimes freezes on the loading screen and has asked me to repair the OS. Not sure what is going on here. I have now used the Windows 8 refresh option in case it was something that was downloaded, and when I was accessing the Nvidia folder within SSD I found it froze again. When it does lock up, if there isnt any progress bars etc on screen I have tried different usb slots for both keyboard and the mouse. Also mobo + CPU temps are at 25C so don't think that would be the issue.

I am now completing the windows updates over last 15 mins and so far it hasn't locked up at all, it only seems to do so when I try to multitask or something. Any ideas?

 

[Xenus]

How would I check that? I am a complete noob to this. Been monitoring CPU and Memory usage, all at acceptable levels. Just doing a sfc /scannow in cmd. Incase of corrupted files. As I mentioned temps are normal in idle. AVG does seem to be taking up a lot of the CPU allocation. Any other ideas for a more lightweight free security?

It just happens randomly really, never doing much to tax the computer. Ran WoW fine with no issues or freezes, could switch easily between desktop and game quickly. Just when I go to do simple things like download a driver or access files

Update: Comepled sfc /scannow. No corrupted files. Only update left will be for the Blue ray multimedia. Had one freeze this morning since the system restore when I was trying to download driver from chrome. Also just updated .Net framework. but still having same issue. freezing on boot.

Also I have now noticed if I leave it for a few minutes once it has frozen the system switches itself off. Error message is now Windows Could not load correctly, please restore. I have already done this and encountered the same issue. Im guessing next step is reinstalling windows?

 

[Xenus]

@T345 Yeah man, I have like 30+ of them just sitting around so thought I would make good use out of them xD if my system ever decides to stop freezing

 

[Xenus]

Installed the OS to the SSD. Just re-formated and deleted data from the SSD, reinstalled okay, just performing windows updates again and see how it goes. Any other ideas what could be causing the issue that could be hardware related?

First install was with HD unplugged. So just picking up the SSD. This install was with the HD plugged in. If issue continues should I try putting the OS on the HD instead? I heard could be firmware issue with the SSD no options for an update on corsair website and checked update through device manager and says best update already installed