New Computer

General Discussion
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There are also the incredibly impressive technological leaps in lithography to consider. I think the first ATI graphics cards were built using 180nm processes. The new Alder Lake CPUs will be using 10nm. It really is incredible how much progress we’ve made.

I think once you’ve watercooled a system once or twice, you become a lot more confident. You can unplug the power from the motherboard so that just the waterpump is running and you can then check for leaks before powering everything up. All you need is a wire or one of the new-fangled jumpers that go on the 24 pin connector. There are also the bragging rights, which I’m not ashamed to admit I’m guilty of.

There’s also a LOT more help on youtube and forums than there used to be. And of course there’s all the new-fangled argb tech that comes with it.

I totally understand why most people are wary of it tho.

Sorry guys I’ve got to go. It’s been nice chatting and I’ll catch up with the thread later. It would be interesting to see what systems other people are running tho. I’ve yet to play NMS in ultrawide I don’t even know if it’s supported.

TTFN and hello Sheralmyst.

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22

Me too. My daughter went liquid with her new build. She is really cold-natured. While sitting at her desk last winter, she was freezing. I laughed and propped my feet up on my tower and warmed my toes…ok…I know this is useless info… :smirk:
Hello and goodbye for now @Thats_Gonna_Hurt . :smiley:

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23

The Parts Have Arrived

This morning a man with a van appeared at my door. On his trolley he had a parcel, into which you could have happily fitted a telephone kiosk. Had they mixed up my order? What could be in such a package? A Harley Davidson? Three washing machines?

Well the invoice said it was the computer parts I had ordered. And so it turned out to be, but cosily protected by more bubble wrap than I have ever seen. There must be 200 metres of the stuff. Nobody could accuse my supplier of skimping on safety.

It’s been a morning of small surprises. The box containing the power supply was enormously heavy, and worryingly large. I was concerned the thing might not fit into my case - but when I opened the box, it turned out that most of the weight and bulk was accounted for by a huge bag of cables. If you want to build a PC with 16 hard disks, 4 floppy drives, 6 DVDs , 8 fans, and what appears to be Pink Floyd’s light show, I’m your guy.

The box containing the graphics card was also worryingly large and heavy. In this case, however, it turned out to be because the graphics card is indeed very large, and very heavy. I’m a bit worried about all that weight hanging off not much more than the PCIE slot. I may make some sort of bracket to support the far end. It looks like I’ll have to remove some of the hard drive bays to fit it in the case.

The SSD, however, is the opposite. All the SSDs I’ve physically seen have been fairly low capacity, like 256 - 512 Gb. The new one is four terabytes, so I expected something fairly substantial. It turns out to be tiny. It’s about the length of a credit card, but only half as wide.

The cooler my dealer recommended turns out to be a DIY cooler kit you have to build from about a gazillion small parts. This is apparently because it’s so big it has to be tailor-fitted to the individual motherboard and case. Well I’ve built it, and fitted it. The radiator is so big it wouldn’t look out of place on a racing car.

The build progresses. It seems my knowledge of PC construction is seriously out of date. It’s going to be interesting. A real voyage of discovery.

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24

You can buy support brackets for the GPUs - some even have argb. Here’s an ebay search to show some examples…

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Brilliant! Thank you for that!

I could have searched forever, and never thought of “anti sag”!

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Understandable. It’s the kind of search you only ever do when you’re worried about bellies and boobs. :blush:

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27

Oh yeah the NVMe drives are crazy. Tech is moving so quickly. Good luck installing it - I hadn’t got a clue how to get it in right.
Some advice - I’m not sure if this will apply.
There’s normally two screws - one is a mounting screw which you put in first. Then you put the SSD on top of that, then screw the drive down with the other screw into the mounting screw. Oh and the screws are so tiny they’re really easy to lose, especially behind the motherboard where you’ll never be able to get it out.
Then there’s the heat dissipation stickers - I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get the sticker off the SSD once I’d applied it. Turns out there was no need to worry it’s not that sticky.

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Speaking of SSD stickers - the new SSD has paper stickers on both sides. The mounting and heat sink on the motherboard have heat conductive gel strips, which are supposed to compress onto the chips, and carry the heat away. But the SSD is covered in paper stickers - and paper, as we know, is a damned good insulator. That’s why homeless people wrap themselves in it at night.

I feel I should remove the stickers from the SSD - but it’s a static sensitive device, and covered in dire warnings to earth yourself before touching it. Nothing generates static like peeling off a sticker.

Catch 22.

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Erm, not sure. Mine didn’t have stickers. Just the SSD, the screws and the heat dissipation/gel strip. Or do you mean the sticker with the brand name on it?

Maybe a photo would help ? Either way I think you’re gonna have to make an educated guess or do the usual ‘Youtube help me’ thing. Here’s a video showing the SSD before and after installation - maybe that will help… Corsair MP400 Review - Up to 8TB of FAST SSD - TechteamGB - YouTube

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My daughter bought a case that mounts the motherboard on the bottom. No sag. However, I worry about dust… :grimacing: Not sure I would go that way. Seems to be working for her.

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31

You can buy dust filters for the fans too… 120mm fan filter: Search Result | eBay

Obviously it depends on the size of the fan. They’re not very sexy, especially if you have argb.

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Oh another option is to buy a riser and mount the GPU vertically. I’ve heard stories of them catching on fire though.

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How’s it going?

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34

I’ve been tied up with other stuff today, so no computer building. I’ll do some more tomorrow.

I’ve been waiting two years for this. I’m going to take my time over the job.

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35

Sensible. I took two weeks I was worried I was going to do something seriously wrong. There was so much of a learning curve it was daunting. I’d only ever done soft tubing for watercooling and had no idea how to bend and fit hard tubing. Trying to bend them in three dimensions and getting everything to fit exactly is not an easy task. I struggled with the power cables to the GPU, which needed one more than I had on my PSU. I had no idea which way round to fit the CPU - the manual was terrible. Then windows wouldn’t install on my NVMe drive and would only install on a regular hard drive - still haven’t worked that one out.
The hardest thing of all though was cutting the case with a dodgy angle grinder I bought off ebay - it was a hazard to human life and the disk ended up cutting the guard and then flying off. Thankfully in the other direction - it could have killed me.
It’ll be worth it in the end.

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Oh my. The more I read of your posts, the more I recognise a kindred spirit. Practical skills, and the willingness to use them, are fast disappearing in the modern world of disposable obsolescence.

I started building my own computers before the PC even existed, when the only way to afford the chips was to desolder them from redundant industrial control gear. It’s always absorbing, and often frustrating.

I have to say, though, that as a pastime, woodwork would have been a lot cheaper.

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I’ve worked in many trades. I was a taxi driver for 15 years and spent an inordinate amount of time fixing the cars I ran into the ground trying to earn a living. So I have a collection of tools that I’ve amassed over the years to handle almost any domestic non-industrial job. I’ll turn my hand to almost anything, if I think it’s already within my capabilities or if I think it’s something I can learn.
I had a mentor. A brother in law who pretty much taught me everything I know (up to a point) - he had a working knowledge of so many things and was never afraid to get his hands dirty. But this was his policy - he would never, ever do any work that I needed doing. He would tell me how to do something, give me all the knowledge I required, but never actually do any work. He would laugh his head off while I was slogging my guts out lifting and rebuilding engines or fitting boilers, slicing my hand on a sharp bit of metal when a spanner slipped. Peeing himself laughing when I was rewiring my bathroom lights and got an electric shock because my partner didn’t know what I was doing and turned the electric back on.
My first computer was a commodore PET. I spent stupid amounts of time teaching myself how to program games in basic. I’ve been hooked ever since.
Unless you’re building PCs for a living or you’re a youtuber influencer who does this every day, keeping up with the ever-changing technology is something we all have to work at if we want to build or maintain our own PCs. We need to share what knowledge we can. It’s not rocket science or hardcore physics, but it’s sufficiently difficult for someone to make mistakes and blow up expensive equipment.
Sorry for the wall of text. I tend to go on a bit :slight_smile:

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38

Todays build report.

The case I’m using is a Phanteks Enthoo, which is about 20% larger than a standard ATX tower case. The extra space means lots of drive bays, and a void behind the backplate, so most of the wiring can be run in a space behind the motherboard, rather than over the top.

It does have a couple of peculiarities, though -one being that the bay to house the power supply is at the bottom rear, rather than the top.

Today I have test fitted the motherboard, power supply, graphics card, hard drives, DVDs, and all the associated wiring. The good news is that almost everything fits. Almost.

The motherboard has three banks of power connectors. There’s the regular 24 pin one that all ATX’s have. Then there’s the auxiliary 12 volt supplies - on this board, these take the form of an 8 pin socket and a 4 pin socket, and they’re tucked away on the top edge of the board, above the I/O section.

If the power supply was in the usual position at the top of the case, the cable would easily reach the auxiliary power sockets. But the power supply is not at the top of the case, it’s at the bottom, and the auxiliary power connectors are as far away as they possibly could be while still being on the motherboard. So what do you know? The cable won’t reach. It’s about 150mm too short.

So I now have a few choices. I can see if the PSU manufacturer will provide a longer cable (best), I can see if someone else will provide a longer cable (not so good - you’ve no guarantee of quality or pin compatibility), or I can cut the cable, solder in some extra wire, and cover the joins with heat shrink tube (not great either - I don’t like joins in wiring, and it looks awful).

On the positive side, it seems the graphics card will fit without removing any drive bays. It’s tight, but it works. I still need to source some king of support bracket for it.

So I’m stalled for now, at least until I get the wiring sorted out.

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39

Rather than using a complete replacement, an extension for the power supply cables shouldn’t be an issue with regard to pinouts - whilst pinouts may differ with different PSU manufacturers at the PSU end (this is why it’s advisable not to swap cables from different PSUs) they should be the same at the end of the cable to ensure compatibility with standard motherboards. An extension should have the same pinouts at either end. The only issue you should need to consider is the gauge of the wiring. Afaik, all motherboards are made so that they’re compatible with PSUs from any manufacturer, as long as they’re like for like. I’ve used extensions for 8-pin connectors in the past - I’m guessing that the people who make these know they have to supply a specific maximum amount of wattage and make them thick enough. Of course it’s not quite as tidy as a complete replacement but if it’s hidden behind the motherboard it should be ok.
You can get the extensions in a variety of colours…

This is just my personal opinion - you might want to get that double checked by someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.
I’m assuming your PSU is modular or semi-modular. As you say, buying direct from the manufacturer would be the best option, especially if they’re fancy and have specific coloured sheathing. Either way you’re gonna have to wait for them to be delivered.

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Out of curiosity, today I weighed the graphics card. It’s 1.84 kilos, or 4 pounds 11 ounces. That’s an awful lot of weight to hang off an edge connector. I really must get a support bracket.

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