Help... Wtf am I doing? (Computer installation)

[DarkNessBear]

Well, I just started building my computer and realized I dont know what I am doing...

I've built a computer before, but these connections are all so different. All the PSU wires are different and the ports of my HDD and MOBO are different. Don't know what to do now...

Anyone willing to give some help?

I have the MSI P43 NEO3 mobo and the OCZ600sxs PSU. I installed the CPU and GPU and MOBO... but im stuck at the wiring.

I got the Centurion Coolmaster case.

Thanks :drool:

[ITDEFX]

show pics of the power supply cables and the links from newegg(if you got it from that place).

[DarkNessBear]

k thank u so much. links:
MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130185
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341010
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073

HDD has a different connector. I am not used to it.

[DarkNessBear]

k here are some pics:

HDD:Whys the bottom one so different? The connection is not at all the same...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v47/DarkNessLord/HPIM2222-1.jpg

Dont know where all these go (from case)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v47/DarkNessLord/HPIM2225-1.jpg

Power switch ect. I think I did it right:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v47/DarkNessLord/HPIM2224-1.jpg

Lots of different types of plugs:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v47/DarkNessLord/HPIM2223-1.jpg

full thing:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v47/DarkNessLord/HPIM2221.jpg

HELP! Im thinkin of calling geek squad...

[mav451]

Err, you don't know the diff between PATA or SATA? The bottom is SATA - now you know :D The right angles of both the power and data connectors are the give-aways. Mobos these days require 24pin (vs. 20pin before) and 8pin (vs. 4pin of old). I presume you got this part right...b/c I think they only go in one way.

For front panel and power connectors...those should be in the mobo manual. These are labeled on the mobo too, so shouldn't be a biggy either.

[DarkNessBear]

Crap. SO I got one IDE connection on my MoBO and I got 3 things that need it. My old HDD and my two Disc drives... what do I do? Im running into a problem of old tech meeting new tech.

[ITDEFX]

NO DO NOT CALL GEEK SQUAD UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR COMPUTER MORE FUCKED UP THAN BEFORE!!!

Anyways

Yea those are SATA cables

Looks like they are slowly transitioning from Molex to SATA power cables. Thank god anyways since Molex (those 4 pin ones) can be a pain and a bitch if they bend.

Those tiny plugs from the case to the MB can be a bitch as often they say plug it in one way and you have to do it the other way.

[DarkNessBear]

Could I plug my DVD Drive and HDD with the same IDE cable? Ill just throw away my CD drive

[mav451]

Yup. Be sure to set the HDD to slave.

[Vinny]

You can buy IDE to SATA adapters, just so you know, if you'd like to keep all your drives. They're basically plug and play, the IDE drive is recognized as a SATA drive. I think they're like $12.

[ITDEFX]

Yup. Be sure to set the HDD to slave.


why have the HDD as slave? I usually keep the burner on slave.

[DarkNessBear]

In my HDD picture. You know the ports on the HDD that you put the plastic thingy on to make it a slave or not. The SATA HDD has it to... Do I connect those to anything? Or they just there for setting a slave or not?

And I want my SATA to be the master. So I have the plastic thing on the IDE drive set to Slave, so I dont need a plastic thingy on my SATA driver that = master right?

[DarkNessBear]

Hey am I plugging in the connections the right way? How do you know what way they face? I'm talking about the connections like; Power Switch One, HDD LED, Reset Switch ect.

[DarkNessBear]

Where do I plug in my front USB connector? Into JUSB?

ALSO! DO I need to hook anything from my PSU into my GFX card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261027

It came with a plug... but not sure if I am suppose to connect it to anything.

It says "System Requirements 450 Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connector recommended Power Connector 6 Pin"

What does that mean?

[ITDEFX]

Where do I plug in my front USB connector? Into JUSB?

yes

[DarkNessBear]

Does it matter which one?

[ITDEFX]

well if it's labeled USB1 then I would stick it to USB1, other wise attach it to the last one.

[Vinny]

No offense (and not to be an ass)... but have you actually bothered to read the manuals that came with the non-OEM stuff you bought? Most of this stuff can be found fairly easily by checking those little books (or CDs, as more companies are doing these days).

In my HDD picture. You know the ports on the HDD that you put the plastic thingy on to make it a slave or not. The SATA HDD has it to... Do I connect those to anything? Or they just there for setting a slave or not?

And I want my SATA to be the master. So I have the plastic thing on the IDE drive set to Slave, so I dont need a plastic thingy on my SATA driver that = master right?

With SATA drives, there's no such thing as slave/master. Yes, it has the things there... but they're not needed.

Hey am I plugging in the connections the right way? How do you know what way they face? I'm talking about the connections like; Power Switch One, HDD LED, Reset Switch ect.

Doesn't matter, those just need to go on the right pins located on the mobo. Check your manual or see if the mobo has them labeled so you know what's what.

Where do I plug in my front USB connector? Into JUSB?

ALSO! DO I need to hook anything from my PSU into my GFX card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261027

It came with a plug... but not sure if I am suppose to connect it to anything.

It says "System Requirements 450 Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connector recommended Power Connector 6 Pin"

What does that mean?

You can use any JUSB on the mobo. You don't need to use USB1 first or anything. Make sure you get the grounding right- most USB connectors/ports are designed so you can't screw this up... just line up the pins/holes in the right order.

And yes, your graphics card needs it's own 6 pin power supply (the thing at the end of the GPU, the side opposite of the DVI ports). Don't worry about the 75 watts crap, most modern GPUs supply more than enough juice and have well over the recommended 26A on the +12V rail. Your PS should have a 6 pin connector (maybe 2 if it supports SLI) already, just plug it in.

[DarkNessBear]

Ya got all that. Thanks a ton. And yea, I am definitely a noob to all this new crap... Ive been reading the crap out of the manuals. They are sort of vague. I just wish I had the centurion case manual. I have like 10 connectors that I have no idea where they go. Maybe you guys can help me with a couple:

HD AUDIO (there is a slot for it, but its not the same size...)
AC'97 (branches out to like 10, 1 pron connectors with no label.. all the colors)
1394

*added. Ok so the 1394 cord is for the IEEE port on the front of my case. I never use that.. so screw it. And I believe the AC and HD AUDIO are for the front audio ports... I dont know why AC97 branches out in like 10 different cords... but I guess I dont need to hook these up*
**added. I figured out where the HD audio/AC97 goes. But im not gonna do it. They will clutter my case up to much. And I dont understand why HD AUDIOand AC97(with the 10 little cords) are all attached to the same thing... I always thought AC97 was the audio...
2 LAST QUESTIONS:
In JFP2 I do not have the POWER LED connected. But I have a (white green) POWER LED connected in JFP1... is JFP2 Power LED needed?
Is it safe to try booting up with no ram inside? (Not installing Vista, just going to the bios menu)

So I think Im done...O.o I just need my shaqfuing ram... I was suppose to get it at the same time as my other stuff but its been sitting in a warehouse for 2 days (thats what UPS tracking says) and I cant use my old ram, cause my mobo only supports DDR2. I guess ill ask a ram question: Does it matter which port I put it in? I have a Green and Orange ram port. I know I am suppose to stick with the same colors, but does the colors mean anything? I was looking at the Manual but it made no sense... .

[SOSTrooper]

I'll answer your last question: It doesn't matter which color you put your rams in, but be sure both pieces are inserted to the same slot color. For sake of simplicity, I recommend you to put your 2 pieces of ram into the 2 green slots. Placing them in the same color means they'll run in dual channel mode, which increases the speed over single channel mode.

why have the HDD as slave? I usually keep the burner on slave.

Because he should be using his SATA drive as the boot drive (with OS on it), and use the IDE drive as a secondary drive. So to make installation sequence painless and less confusing, the IDE hard drive can be a slave while the IDE DVD burner be a master. At the end it doesn't really matter because so many options are available to make the IDE drives work the way the user wanted. If you go into the BIOS and set the 1st boot as DVD burner and 2nd boot as SATA HDD, the IDE hard drive can be either master or slave.

Is it safe to try booting up with no ram inside? (Not installing Vista, just going to the bios menu)

You can turn it on just to see if all the fans and LEDs are working, but you will not get a screen to come up. Thus you will not be able to go into the BIOS.

In JFP2 I do not have the POWER LED connected. But I have a (white green) POWER LED connected in JFP1... is JFP2 Power LED needed?

Probably not. The motherboard was probably designed to support 2 power LEDs just in case some people need it. You probably just use one LED, so you can leave it open.

Hey am I plugging in the connections the right way? How do you know what way they face? I'm talking about the connections like; Power Switch One, HDD LED, Reset Switch ect.

The power button and reset switch don't matter in terms of which direction the color-coded wire should face. BUT the LEDs do matter. Usually the wire on the case has one wire colored and the other wire is white. The colored wire usually faces the direction of pin 1 (refer to the manual on whether the pin 1 is on the left or right side of the set of pins). So say if on your manual it indicates pin 1 is on the left side, then that means your POWER LED and HDD LED's colored wire should face the left side, and the white wire should face to the right side.

In my HDD picture. You know the ports on the HDD that you put the plastic thingy on to make it a slave or not. The SATA HDD has it to... Do I connect those to anything? Or they just there for setting a slave or not?

And I want my SATA to be the master. So I have the plastic thing on the IDE drive set to Slave, so I dont need a plastic thingy on my SATA driver that = master right?

Those plastic thingy you're referring to is called jumper. The way they work is when you have the jumper sitting on 2 pins, the 2 pins are then connected by metallic connectors inside the tiny jumper, thus shorting the pins. Shorting different pins on your IDE hard drive, like what you've done, tells the hard drive whether it should be a master or slave. Basic SATA drives don't have jumper settings as 1 SATA cable supports 1 SATA drive only. So there is no master or slave for SATA in your case. So even though you see some pins on your SATA drive, you do not need to do anything to them, just leave them the way it is.

And I dont understand why HD AUDIOand AC97(with the 10 little cords) are all attached to the same thing... I always thought AC97 was the audio...

They're both audio, AC97 being the old audio codec (lacks high quality sound support and multi-channels support), and HD Audio is the new audio codec that supports high def audio and multi-channels. HD Audio is not widely supported and you may need additional drivers to make it work. I couldn't get my Gigabyte motherboard to get sound to the headphone/speakers via HD Audio port, so I had to resort to the AC97 to make audio work. I'm not an audiophiles so I know almost nothing about difference in sound quality and compatibility.

[mav451]

I'm not really an audiophile either, but there is a noticeable improvement going from on-board to something like X-Fi (anything). Of course these days they now have PCI-e equivalents, so if you don't want to be relying on the old PCI standard, it's something to be considered.

[DarkNessBear]

Damn SOSTrooper... you rule. Make me feel more confident on my decisions inside my case.

So do I have to fool around with the bios before installing windows? I wanted to make sure my SATA HDD was the Master ect.

Also, why does UPS suck so much donkey wiener? IM stilling waiting on my damn ram... It was suppose to be 3 day shipping and its 4 days now. I ordered on the 1st, got all my hardware on the 3rd; every damn piece. And my ram is shipping seperate and its been stuck at friggen "ONTARIO CALIFORNIA!! MEW MEWW" for like 3 days now... I feel like they kicked it aside and forgot about it, I've called 10 times and noone answers.

Shipped from NJ > PA > CAOakland > CAOntario in not even 2 days... Yet its been sitting at Ontario since the 2nd of October. What the fuck is up?

[SOSTrooper]

So do I have to fool around with the bios before installing windows? I wanted to make sure my SATA HDD was the Master ect.


Probably just adjusting the time and date and the boot sequence. Make sure you set the boot sequence to DVD burner FIRST, then SATA HDD second.

[mav451]

To supplement SOSTrooper - might want to also set the SPD timings for your RAM manually. Some mobos are retarded with the auto setting (timings and voltage)...so just have those written down somewhere.

[DarkNessBear]

O.o?

[dragonsho]

O.o?
mav is saying to manually set the timings for your RAM in the bios. I'm assuming the timings are 4-4-4-12 (It should say on the package and on the site you got it from). You'd go into the bios and change the settings of ram timings from "auto" to whatever else there is so you can manually set it.

[SOSTrooper]

I believe he's got some Corsair 1.9V 5-5-5-18 RAMs, most motherboards will recognize the timings correctly since they're not 4-4-4-12. The voltage can be a bit tricky as some motherboards will default the voltage at 1.8V regardless of the RAM. If that's the case (and you can clearly check that in the BIOS), manually changing it to 1.9V shouldn't be a problem.

[DarkNessBear]

O.o?

[Lice]

Translation:

Plug the ram in the green slot and it will work.


The scariest part is turning it on and hoping nothing burns up... Make sure your cpu fan is on right... weee!

[DarkNessBear]

Here we goo... turning it on (got my ram =) )

[Lice]

(Insert small fireball on the horizon)

[SOSTrooper]

No post huh, so I'm guessing he's busy getting Windows to work.

[DarkNessBear]

Oh, sorry. I thought I posted but it didn't post.

I said, Woohoo! It works! Yay. It's so nice! Thanks for all the help everyone! Ah, nice and smooth.

Hope WAR will play better. Anyone know a good site for 1920x1200 Wallpapers? And any good Vista sidebar apps?

[SOSTrooper]

For sidebar gadgets I only have 2: CPU Usage with temperature and Network Meter from www.addgadget.com

For wallpapers I use these:

www.interfacelift.com
www.deviantart.com (http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/wallpaper/?order=9)

Enjoy the heck out of them.

[DarkNessBear]

Great thanks man, found an awesome wallpaper.

What should a normal GPU and CPU temperature should I be running? Just to make sure I am not exceeding anything.

[SOSTrooper]

They vary, for GPU its normal to see 50C idle and 70C on load, and for CPU its around 30C idle and 50C load. If you have a 3rd party CPU fan the temp can drop about 20% - 30%.

[DarkNessBear]

Ok great! Thanks. One more random question for anyone (sorry!);

Where can I download direct x 10? That's not on Microsofts site?

[ITDEFX]

Translation:

Plug the ram in the green slot and it will work.


The scariest part is turning it on and hoping nothing burns up... Make sure your cpu fan is on right... weee!


THIS!

Put enough Thermal Paste on that CPU or else THIS might happen!!

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n26/ITDEFX101/105_8559.jpg

[Oktoberfest]

Ok great! Thanks. One more random question for anyone (sorry!);

Where can I download direct x 10? That's not on Microsofts site?

DirectX 10 comes with Vista, I believe...

[distgfx]

DirectX 10 comes with Vista, I believe...

Bingo.

You also need a video card that supports it. Didn't see what video card you have so... I hope you have one that does.

[DarkNessBear]

DirectX 10 comes with Vista, I believe...
Oh, how can I tell if I am running it?

[typeRJ]

Oh, how can I tell if I am running it?

-Go to "Start" or the Windows Icon that replaced it
-In the Search field, type cmd
-Choose cmd.exe
-Type dxdiag and press enter
-Allow or disallow checking if your DX drivers are digitally signed...doesn't matter
-It should bring up a dialog box that says the version at the very bottom of the first tab labeled System

I know there's an easier way to navigate to this, but for the life of me I never found it.

[SOSTrooper]

If you have Windows XP, you won't have DX10, and you cannot download it and install it. DX10 is not designed/developed to run in XP. But if you have Vista, you are running DX10, since it comes with Vista.

[DarkNessBear]

Oh I do have it... weird. Thanks heh.