My first attempt at building a PC : Some Questions

[kieranmaine]

Hi,

Today is my first attempt at building a PC from scratch. I'm almost (after my first PSU shot sparks out the back and stopped working) there but have some questions and would be very appreciative if anyone could help.

I'm basically confused as to what power cables I should use. I have a
Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4 mobo, E8500 3.16ghz cpu, Radeon HD 4870 512 MB, 2 HDD and a DVD drive. The PSU is a coolmaster Real Power M620.

After plugging in the 24 pin power cable, should I use the 8pin +12v or the 4pin +12v power cable?

Also the 4870 has power sockets for 2 6pin PCI-E cables. Do I use 1 or 2 cables with it?

Thanks

[staffsMike]

I assume you will need the full 8pin with that motherboard.

And use both 6pin's for the graphics card.

[TAKTAK]

as mike says, if the mobo will take an 8pin (i.e. 4 of the pins don't have a rubber bung in) then use the 8pin, otherwise use the 4 pin, and you need to connect both 6pins to the gfx card

if you don't connect both 6pins then it will either scream at you, or not work properly

[kieranmaine]

excellent. thanks very much for the fast response. After the first PSU (Enermax Modu82+) died I just wanted to be really sure.

Previously I'd plugged the 4pin in but i'm not sure why that might blow the PSU.

Thanks again for the help