[Mr Incredible]

After some advice from the assembled masses in the motherboards, cpus cases and PSU forum about buying and building my first full PC (done many upgrades, but never a total build) I decided to give it a go.

After much machinations, hums and haws, and with a budget of about ±£600, I plumped on the following:-

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R, iP45 Express, S 775, PCI-E 2.0x16, DDR2 1066/667/800
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz Socket 775 1066MHz 8MB
650W Corsair
896MB XFX GTX260 XT, 2000MHz GDDR3
OCZ Gold Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5
Infinity-Pro edition PC Case
2 x Seagate ST3500418AS Barracuda 7200.12 500GB 16MB SATA II/300
120mm Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F Silent Case Fan 1600 RPM
Pioneer DVR-216DBK
Thermalright-Ultra-120-eXtreme-120mm
Thermalright Ultra Holder
1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive OEM

Slightly over budget at just under £700! But, I think most people experience budget creep.


The motherboard looked the part, and included an eSATA plate as well.
I wanted three full PCI slots for three cards that I wanted to use. I didn’t want the expense of buying new if I could get away with using them again.

The case was quite a bit larger than I had expected. But I wanted/needed to install extra case fans (5 x 120cm in total), so the size was incidental. The removable drive bays with fans on front we easy to clip in and out of the case.

The size of the case was equally matched by the size of the cooler and fan!


The fan just push-fitted into the holder and the holder pushed onto the heat sink.

Next was the fitting of the CPU in the MB. There was a little lever to lift up to release the cover and take out the protective plastic slot cover.

And the CPU’s protective cover was removed before placing in the MB. You can see the lever on the left of the socket.

Next up is the placement of the Heat Sink Back Plate through the MB from the back, shown with the four holes. And the COU gets a blob of MX-2 Thermal paste in readiness for the heat sink fitting.

Schoolboy error #1: to tighten the screws to the board I needed to remove the fan and holder. But it did afford me the opportunity to route the fan cable under the holder before attaching to the MB fan connector for the CPU. The sink was rotated slightly to spread the thermal paste evenly. The screws had to be pushed against the springs before engaging into the back plate holes. It was quite a force to exert! Caution!


The memory got installed as well.

Next up: 2 additional Silverstone 120cm fans in the top of the case (in addition to the two on the drive bays, and 1 rear fan).

The case comes with its own set of mounting rails for the drives. No screws are necessary. The drives are inserted from the rear of the drive bays. You can see the fan cable on the top left of the picture.

Then the blanking rear panel off the case needed replacing with the back plate supplied with the motherboard. And then the spacers were screwed into the case to mount the MB on to.

The case came with a diagram of the positions for the spacers for the different types of motherboard. Schoolboy error #2: I missed out the middle one and had to unscrew the MB and fit again. Quite a fiddly job. Schoolboy error #3: it was fiddly to screw in the screws which were close to the case. After struggling to get all the screws in I noticed that the back plate could have been removed to fix the MB. Oh well. Next time.



Motherboard fixed followed by Power Supply, drives and graphics card.

With hindsight, the graphics card would have been best left to last as it was so big as to make the connecting of the front panel connections rather awkward. Note the blue FDD floppy cable at the right hand side. The case proved so big that this would not reach my floppy drive. Hence my Wanted ad in the forums for a long FDD cable!

Three PCI cards installed and the eSATA backplate. The cables for the eSATA were a bit short with the long graphics card in place. So I had to use the Giga-Sata connections (purple) to hook this up

In the end I also bought a 1TB Samsung drive as well.

This puppy has been over clocked and stable at 3.6GHz! It passed 20 runs of the Intel Burn Test on Max settings.

All in all great fun!


I have a new found respect for authors of installation manuals! My attempt above I now believe is not as thorough as I thought it was going to be! But hey, someone may find it useful!

[Alan CD]

Hi

Very good post - thanks for that. Useful info on a new build....and the pitfalls!

Now it's up and running successfully, is the noise level OK?

With the fans and HDs mounted, any vibration noises or hums from the case?

Alan

[Mr Incredible]

It's a lot quieter than my old P4 which had a silent CPU cooler and 2 80mm fans. It was the Northbridge fan that sounded like a small jet engine when wound up!

Of course there is noise, but compared to what I had this is a luxury. The 5 case fans and CPU fan are very quiet, so other than HDD noise, it is quiet, although not silent!

[Alan CD]

Hi

I'm a little concerned about the number of fans in the system and how they are working.

Installed are:

2 x 120cm fans in the top of the case
2 x 120cm on the drive bays
1 x 120cm rear fan

1 x PSU fan
1 x CPU fan
1 x GPU fan

Correct me if I'm wrong:

2 drive bay fans suck air into the case.
2 top fans, 1 rear fan and the PSU fan blow air out of the case.

If the above is correct then the air flow is not balanced.

Would it be more efficient to remove both fans on the top of the case and both fans on the drive bays.

That ensures the air is sucked in naturally from the front, through the case and the CPU & GPU fans and blown out the back by the rear fan and the PSU fan.

If a fan is blowing air out of a case there is no need to have a fan sucking air into the case. It will be sucked in naturally if you see what I mean.

Sorry about the above, but I cannot see the need for so many fans to be fitted. I need enlightening!

All the best
Alan

[Mr Incredible]

I know what you mean. I wasn't entirely convinced about the best way to set this up!

Then I disappeared up my own backside after reading this..
Icrontic » PC airflow and heat - a cooling guide

Consensus was in at front out at top. One needs a rear exhaust for the CPU so one is not circulating hot air through the case to get out at the top.

All I can say is that on air, with an overclock 2.66 > 3.6 , idle temps are less than 40C, and Prime maxes out at 72-75C which is within spec.

Even in the intake volume is in less than the out-take volume, the case is not a sealed unit, so any make up volume will creep in as needed. There is an option for another 120mm fan in the top bay at the front, but TBH I haven't had a problem (touch wood!).

[Alan CD]

OK mate - understood.

If you fit another fan at the top the beastie will end up on the ceiling!

[Singh400]

Nice Hopefully you had as much fun as I did when trying to install/fit the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme Very fiddly, not to much cliping the fans on!