Handy things for people toknow in PC building

[Jonny M]

Some people have had to rewire the Coolermaster USB sockets

[BlackSheep]

Originally posted by Caged
What if you change board?

Just use black electrical tape wrapped around the whole assembly.

no, Cagey, he means the ones attached to the front of the case - separate to the mobo entirely that you have to arse around plugging in individually (for which you would need tiny, tiny hands - which most of us over 14 sadly lack) ... I had the same problem some time ago with a case that seems to do this alot *cough* Lian-Li *cough* so I did the exact same thing as it was the only way to plug them in to the mobo ...

... superglue the individual plugs together to form a block (i.e. what you would normally have on any additional USB ports you get with mobos these days). Then you will never have to worry about arsing around plugging them in ever again when you change mobos etc...

One word of caution here - make sure you get the individual plugs in the correct configuration first, otherwise basically you can forget using the front USB panels on that case for the rest of its life (unless you are very skilled with a stanley knife)

[jamin]

Jamins tip:

If you have taken your heatsink and fan apart for cleaning / lapping. Make sure you put the hold down spring back in the right way round. They are a lopsided "V" and if they go in the wrong way, the pressure will not be over the cpu die and you will blow your processor just like I did!!

Second tip:

Clean heatsinks and fans regularly, it may seem boring and mundane but the efficiency of fans is reduced by dust build up on the vanes. Use nail polish remover to get heatsink paste off!

[headbrace]

When you get your new Cm case, dont throw the packaging away in the heat of the moment before you build the machine- chances are the mobo standoffs may be hidint away in the box somewhere

[RoGuE|SaBeR]

Spares -

Keep a box of random spares. Any extra IDE, Floppy Cables, leads or generally anything should go in there. Fascias, an assorted bag of screws, old drives and anything else!

When building -

Get a BIG, OPEN SPACE! You want all the room and space you can get when putting things together. Before you start lay everything out on the table and plan what is going to go in first.

Complete n00b tip -

Mounting Screws. These are very easy to forget if you haven't put a PC together before. They go into the case BEFORE the motherboard and raise it a few mm above the case.

[Bindibadgi]

Another Tip:

Hoard stuff! you never know when you might need it for a ghetto mod or if something goes tits up and you need a replaement quick. For sale forums are good for random stuff u might need. I'll get a piccy when i get home of my hoards of stuff (got rid of most of it though cause its was getting silly)

[Flibb]

Flibb tips
1: Dont try and test the power supply without the mobo, it wont do a thing. Have herd of 2 people doing this, 1 RMA'd the PSU the other (yes me I admit it) luckily talked to his mate who called him an arse.
2: Dremels are ace, keep an eye open for cheap ones in Homebase (just got 1 myself for £40). especially good for removing the terrible fan guards that some cheap cases have.
3: Hot glue guns are 2nd only to dremels. Can be used for covering a variety of sins, especially securing on/off switches.

Have fun
Flibb

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by Flibb
Flibb tips
1: Dont try and test the power supply without the mobo, it wont do a thing. Have herd of 2 people doing this, 1 RMA'd the PSU the other (yes me I admit it) luckily talked to his mate who called him an arse.

Not necesserially true. You can short the green and any black pin on an ATX mobo connector to start the psu, the voltage is very minimal and wont shock you. Ive done this plenty of times before to test fans/cathodes etc
If you have to test a PSU/fan/cathode etc to see if it works its best todo it WITHOUT the mobo and cpu cause computers dont like being constantly turned on and off due to the eletrical surge that goes thru sensitive circuits after psu activation.

[th3 mol3]

Some pretty obvious tips, but:

If you have a side fan on ure case, have it blowing onto the motherboard rather than sucking air away from it. If you have decent airflow at the back/top of ure case, you should get some really nice system temps.

Don't try installing an AMD CPU HSF without some sort of screwdriver, it is so much easier than trying to push it over the clip with ure bare hands!

If you have a lot of case fans, get a fanbus and extend the fan cables using speaker wire (or whatever works). This means u can hide the cables more easily and they all meet in one place, keeps ure case more tidy

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by th3 mol3
Don't try installing an AMD CPU HSF without some sort of screwdriver, it is so much easier than trying to push it over the clip with ure bare hands.

P4 Cpus dont need a screwdriver cause they dont use clips but a retention bracket instead.

[th3 mol3]

My bad

I've never worked with a P4 CPU, AMD all the way

I've changed it now, thx

[Zak33]

these are all good tips......all excellent in fact.

Keep them coming and keep them concise and short

[eldren]

When installing AMD CPU coolers, place the HSF flat on the CPU's little foam feet, parallel to the core, and keep it like that while clipping the retention bracket onto the socket. (As in, don't tilt the entire HSF to clip the one end of the bracket on, push it down, clip the other end on.)

This method may seem obvious, but is recommended by AMD for a reason. Tilting the HSF on (As was shown in my Aeroflow's installation guide) can crack/chip the core, and, if I recall correctly, voids the CPU's warranty.