*I can't over emphasis how important the 2011 You Tube Video Newegg TV: How to Build a Computer Part 1], Part 2, and Part 3] were to my confidence to able to successfully accomplish this task.
*Initial build Outside the Case- Motherboard, CPU, Cpu Cooler, Video Card (temp), Initial Power Supply hookup (temp) was conducted outside the case to determine if the motherboard would power up prior to having everything connected inside the case. Consider this an initial temporary build, because both the video card and power supply will be disconnected from the motherboard prior to installing the motherboard inside the case. The memory and cpu cooler will remain connected to the motherboard.
*Caution- Observe static charge cautions when assembling a computer. You don't want to discharge static electricity from yourself to the computer. I bought an inexpensive wrist static strap and used it during assembly connecting it to a partially installed power supply bolt.
3A Motherboard
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| Images are Clickable |
*Gigabyte GA-Z87MX- D3H
*Initial Assembly Outside the Case- some components temporarily installed.
*With a clean table surface to work on, removed it from packaging and placed it onto of the box it came in for the initial assembly.
*Included manual: sucked. Downloaded manual: much better. For this example, I found the manual for this motherboard online at Gigabyte.com.
*The NewEgg Video does an excellent job of pointing out parts of a typical motherboard.
*Note: Points of interest marked on picture. Notice that the CPU mounting bracket is raised in expectation of placing the CPU.
3B Intel CPU
*Intel i5 4670K- Intel Haswell processor.
*Difficulty: Easy.
*No Pins! No pins to fit into the motherboard, nice! AMD processors have pins. Followed the video, aligned the cpu, latched it in to motherboard.
3C CPU Cooler
*Corsair H55- Water cooled with Radiator. It has thermal paste pre-applied.
*Difficulty: Slight Challenge, Determining what orientation the cooler should be mounted. Securing the heat sink under the bracket. Determining which plugs should be used for electrical connections.
*Determine Mounting Orientation- This water cooled CPU connector included two tubes connected to a fan radiator. Since the cooler is circular and can be mounted in any orientation under the bracket, I examined the case to determine the best orientation. I decided to relocate the rear fan from back of the case to the top of the case (mounting spot on case) and would mount the CPU cooler fan/radiator on the back of the case (for clarification: inside the case.)
*Fan Direction- Point of interest. Fans either blow into the case or out of the case. The instructions for the cooler said that cool air should be pulled from outside the case over the radiator, into the case. Since 3 of the fans blow into the case, I decided I would orient the top fan to pull air out of the case.
*Caution- keep in mind that the heat sink has thermal paste on it which should not touch anything other the the top of the CPU.
*Mounting CPU- My understanding is that most 3rd party CPU coolers have a bracket placed on the backside of the motherboard along with a front bracket that holds the cooler's heatsink. So did this H55. Cooler came with fittings for both Intel and AMD motherboards. The heat sink is circular. The front bracket has slots. The the heat sink has slots. The idea is that after the front and back brackets are loosly connected, the heat sink slides into the front bracket and is turned so the slots on it, interconnect with slots on the front bracket. Followed the instructions, but the problem I encountered was while the front and back brackets were connected that even while lifting up on the front bracket, I could not get enough clearance to rotate the heat sink to fit under the bracket's slots. So I ended up unscrewing the brackets and placing the heat sink under the front bracket and then connecting the back bracket through the holes.
*Electrical Connections- The CPU cooler also had two leads/ 3 pin connectors for electrical, one for the fan, one for the pump. For this I would use the CPU, and Opt CPU connectors marked on the motherboard in close proximity to the CPU. This is a situation where 3 pin leads fit into 4 pin plugs on the motherboard. Note there is a small notch on the side of the connectors along with the shape of the pins, to make sure it is plugged into the correct 3 pins of the 4 pin connector.
*This Tom's Hardware thread sheds some light onto the situation. Quote: The 3 pin fans allow the motherboard to monitor the speed of the fan. The fourth line on a 4 pin fan allows the motherboard to control the fan.
The connectors of both are keyed so that you cannot plug a 3 pin fan into a 4 pin motherboard connector wrong.
3D Memory
*Corsair CML8GX3M2A1600C9, 2x4GB: $83.
*Difficulty: Easy.
*This Motherboard (all ATX motherboards?) has/have two channel memory, so two sticks of RAM should be purchased and for example, they are sold as 2X4GB. For 8GB of RAM, I got 2, 4GB sticks.
*On the Motherboard, RAM slots were marked as DDR3_1, DDR3_2, DDR3_3, and DDR3_4 and they alternated, representing different channels and each linked pair of slots had different colors. For two sticks of memory, they would fit into the slots marked DDR3_1 and DDR3_2.
*A notch in the connector side of the memory stick prevents it from being installed backwards. If you install memory in the wrong channel slots, nothing dire will happen, the computer either won't start up or will not run optimally.
3E Video Card
*Asus GTX670-DC2-2GD5
*Temporary Install.
*Difficulty: Slight Challenge- Figure out what Power Supply connector to use.
*Placed in the PCI 16x slot marked on the Motherboard. A notch will keep the card oriented correctly. The cable connection end of the card should face the edge of the motherboard.
*Caution: The video card is not secured properly in this step, to the case as it will be later. The motherboard should not have to be moved with the card installed, but if you do, be gentle.
*8 pin PCIE (PCI Express) Connector- This card has an 8 pin PCIE connector for auxiliary power and uses a 6+2 PCIE 8 pin connector from the power supply. The 6+2 is a 6 pin connector with an addition 2 pin connector that offers the flexibility of a 6 pin or 8 pin connector. Slid together they function as a single 8 pin connection. And when slide together, a small edge on the back of the 6 pin connector holds the 2 pin connector in place beside it. Not all cards need 8 pins. See more about this in the "What I Learned Section".
3F Power Supply
*Corsair CX600M 600 Watt ATX Modular
*Difficulty: Easy.
*Temporary Hookup.
*Choose a "modular" power supply. Plug in just the leads you need. Turns out I needed all of the leads, but it made assembly much easier than a giant bundle of wires.
*For this stage, I set the Power Supply on the table next to the motherboard and made 3 electrical hookups- main motherboard power, auxiliary mother board power, and the Video card 6+2 PCIE (PCI Express) connection. Watch the video. It does an excellent job of illustrating the motherboard connections. The motherboard connections are one of a kind plugs, can't connect them in the wrong place. I had to figure out the 6+2 deal (see Video card).
3G Test Boot
*In the NewEgg video, for the initial power up, the host had a small speaker he hooked to the motherboard. The purpose was to hear a self test beep when the unit was powered up. I did not have one and was not compelled to go find one.
*After all the previously described connections were made, I connected the graphic card to my TV via a HDMI cable, turned on the tv, making sure it was set to the HDMI input. The HDMI was just a convenient choice as the TV was located right next to my assembly table. The other obvious choice would be to connect it to a monitor. I then plugged in the Power Supply and turned it on. As described in the video, normally the motherboard/computer is turned on by means of a case mounted "start" switch. Since this is not hooked up, a small screwdriver is used to make a connection on the two "power" pins, (that the case switch would plug into later).
*Making the screw driver connection, the graphic card fan started up and I got a Gigabyte splash screen on the TV followed by a "failure" to boot type of message. This is normal, because there are no hard drives containing an Operating System to boot from. This confirmed the motherboard was not dead. Although I heard no "beep" for lack of a speaker, I felt confident enough to continue.
---End of Part 3---
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