Some aid required on building

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12 Sep 2006
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Ok, finally got all my pc parts today, woop. Began the process of putting it together, first time to ever build a pc and to be honest, up to now it's proving more complex than I first imagined.

The heatsink/fan, an Arctic 7 Freezer Pro decided to play silly beggars,finally managing to click all 4 feet onto the motherboard i realised i had put it on backwards, much more fiddly than I had imagined.

Then came tha part of fitting all the wires, geesh, the only parts which are confusing me at the moment is the ATX power cable and the fans. So to my questions,

Mobo - Gigabyte DS3
PSU - OCZ Modstream 450w ATX2.2 Power Supply
Case - Lian-Li PC-60 Plus

1) My mobo manual states I should connect both the 24 pin ATX cable..and then the ATX_12v also into the mobo. Now, my PSU manual states on an ATX board I should slide out the 4 pin connector from the 24 pin connector and just use 20, then also attach the ATX_12v. So I'm assuming the 12v_ATX connector should definately be connected, but I'm not sure on the 20/24 ATX pin part.

2) Now my case comes with 4 fans, I'm assuming It'll literally take flight when I turn it on, but I don't see any connectors on my mobo or in the manual stating where these go, there is a SYS_FAN slot which I can connect 1 fan to (if take off the adapter end). Now I'm guessing i have to connect them all up using the cables I got with the PSU then connect them all to that single one somehow?

It'll be a miracle if the pc actually works when I (hopefully) finish it, assumingI haven't killed it with static or being too rough :(

So yes, any help would be so awesome, got a X1900xt here waiting to have a shot at Oblivion, just... sitting there. :mad:
 
You should use the full 24-pin connector and a 12v connector, as stated in the mobo manual. The PSU manual is referring to old ATX boards that only have a 20 pin socket. ATX2.0 boards have a 24 pin socket.

Only connect 1 fan per mobo header. If there's only one header on that mobo (SYS_FAN) then you'll have to connect the other fans directly to the PSU via a molex connector, or get a fan controller which will let you control the speed of each fan individually.

EDIT\
I just checked, and that mobo has only one fan header, so you'll have to connect the other fans to the PSU.
 
Last edited:
Holliday said:
assuming I haven't killed it with static or being too rough :(

I've not thought about static with PC's for a long time, and I've had no components die on me (yet). perhaps I'm lucky? Obviously, I use common sense, holding components at edges etc, but I don't bother earthing myself to the case or anything. I'm not a very 'staticy' person though, so that could be part of the reason, heh.

Building a conroe rig as your first build, nice! My first real build from scratch was Socket A (had rig's with older chips, but not from scratch, got off mates etc), and fitting the cooler was a chore! It's much easier to install cpu coolers these days, thankfully!
 
Cheers for the speedy reply. Sorry if the questions seem simple and all, guess theres a huge difference between being fairly computer literate actually on a computer than to what makes the computer :)

Again, thanks for your for your help, but I can't see this being the end of my problems ;)
 
Aye i went with the Gsata and it booted to bios last night, wooho. No help from the PSU seeing as it came with a power lead with a US mains plug on it :rolleyes: Used my other pc's one which seemed to work fine though.

Only problem now being the only keyboard I have is a wireless one, thus without having windows on the computer my pc doesn't recognize it as an actual keyboard, so I have to go out today to get a cheap wired keyboard.

So tonight I'll install windows and fingers crossed everything should work.
 
Wireless keyboards should be usable by the pc, even during post, and in the bios etc. The USB base just pretends its a keyboard (and mouse), and the keyboard (and mouse) just tell it what to do :)

I'm aware there were some Bluetooth keyboards made by Microsoft which didn't work until you were in windows. I have a Bluetooth Logitech KB+Mouse, and they work right from bootup, to installing windows etc etc.

Make sure, that if your getting a wired keyboard, get a PS/2 one, always comes in handy for when you unplug your usb cables, and plug them back into different ports. When you power the PC back up, the keyboard and mouse won't work unless they were plugged into the same ports they were in before you shut down to unplug them (you don't need to shut down to fiddle with USB ports, its just a point I'm making :D)
 
Well finally got it up and running yesterday night, seems pretty funky. Took some time to get things installed and didn't feel like my pc until I installed windows blinds ;) Going to bench it later to see how well it really performs, did d/l F.E.A.R Extraction Point demo and runs like a charm. Oblivion deicded to corrupt a few textures when I patched it then decided to crash 2 minutes into the game after a re-install, so that's back in the box for now.

Fiddled a bit with bios, setting the memory settings to 4-4-4-12, increased CPU so it's running at 2.1ghz (e6300) now with a 1:1sdram ratio (which from what i read has the best performance?) And it has yet to explode so all seems great.

Only thing which is annoying the hell out of me is the PSU fan, rapidly makes a slight clicking sound as it goes around, I figured it was hitting a wire or something but it's not from what I can see. So I really want to sort that out, any ideas?

But other than that, cheers to the chaps who took time to answer my questions on this thread.
 
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