A noobish question.

[Kieli]

Uh, is this the right thread to be asking questions about the actual process of building a computer? I just ordered my parts, and I have a few nagging questions that I want to get ironed out before I jump into the actual construction.

[ZZLEE]

YouTube - PC Computer System Build Guide Featuring AMD Vision Black NCIX Tech Tips

Watch this

Ask and we eill help if we can

[Kieli]

Oh, thank you! However, I have already watched that video. : P

I still have several questions, though. I'll list as many as I can currently think of.

1) I bought an anti-static wristband. Can I attach it anywhere on the case, or on a metal part?

2) Linus said, in that video guide, that a good place to put your motherboard is on the top of the box that the motherboard came in. Is this such a good idea? Aren't there very delicate parts under the motherboard that will get damaged if you do this?

3) Someone, in an earlier thread of mine, told me to be careful when I'm applying thermal paste to the CPU. I bought a i5-760 and a CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ heatsink. I was planning to apply a pea-sized glob of Artic MX2 thermal paste to the CPU, and then spread it across using a gloved finger-tip/ziploc bag. However, Rison said, "There are fairly large grooves between the heatpipes on the CM212+, and you will want to put 4 thin lines of paste on the heat pipes themselves. If you do the small pea trick, it doesn't cover properly". Is Rison's way better than what I plan to do?

4) Correct me if I'm wrong, but the hard drive, power, reset, activity LEDs have small plugs with labels on them to differentiate them. For example, the power button cable will have the word "power" at the end of the cable where you plug it into the pins. When I am plugging in these small cables, should I have the labels facing the bottom.

If you're confused as to what I mean, please refer to this YouTube video and skip to 0:32.

5) What, exactly, is a partition? Does it basically split your hard drive into different portions? For example, when I click "My Computer", I see two hard drive images labeled C/ and D/. Are those partitions?

6) Um, I put my hard drive upright on the ground (on the front edge, or basically in a way that makes it as tall as possible) and it fell. Did that cause significant damage to my drive and should it be something to be worried about?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Those, so far, are all the questions I can think of off the top of my head. Some of you may remember me from my previous thread as that annoying kid who couldn't make up his mind. Well, I've just finished ordering my parts!

I bought:

From a local NCIX Branch (Hah! Take that to all those people who thought I didn't like NCIX! : P)

Intel Core i5-760
MSI P55A-G55 P55 Motherboard
Corsair HX650 Modular PSU
Some random LG DVD-drive
Western Digitial Black Caviar 1TB
G.Skill 4GB Ram
CoolerMaster Hyper 212+

From NewEgg:

Haf 922
GTX 460 768mb
Windows 7 64bit (oh god, I hope I ordered the 64 and not the 32 by accident)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, I'm basically waiting for the NewEgg stuff to arrive and I have no freaking clue why the font is blue...

[PriceMatch]

3.) http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...1&limitstart=5

This guide should help you out.

[sswilson]

Originally Posted by Kieli

Oh, thank you! However, I have already watched that video. : P

I still have several questions, though. I'll list as many as I can currently think of.

1) I bought an anti-static wristband. Can I attach it anywhere on the case, or on a metal part?

2) Linus said, in that video guide, that a good place to put your motherboard is on the top of the box that the motherboard came in. Is this such a good idea? Aren't there very delicate parts under the motherboard that will get damaged if you do this?

3) Someone, in an earlier thread of mine, told me to be careful when I'm applying thermal paste to the CPU. I bought a i5-760 and a CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ heatsink. I was planning to apply a pea-sized glob of Artic MX2 thermal paste to the CPU, and then spread it across using a gloved finger-tip/ziploc bag. However, Rison said, "There are fairly large grooves between the heatpipes on the CM212+, and you will want to put 4 thin lines of paste on the heat pipes themselves. If you do the small pea trick, it doesn't cover properly". Is Rison's way better than what I plan to do?

4) Correct me if I'm wrong, but the hard drive, power, reset, activity LEDs have small plugs with labels on them to differentiate them. For example, the power button cable will have the word "power" at the end of the cable where you plug it into the pins. When I am plugging in these small cables, should I have the labels facing the bottom.

If you're confused as to what I mean, please refer to this YouTube video and skip to 0:32.

5) What, exactly, is a partition? Does it basically split your hard drive into different portions? For example, when I click "My Computer", I see two hard drive images labeled C/ and D/. Are those partitions?

6) Um, I put my hard drive upright on the ground (on the front edge, or basically in a way that makes it as tall as possible) and it fell. Did that cause significant damage to my drive and should it be something to be worried about?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Those, so far, are all the questions I can think of off the top of my head. Some of you may remember me from my previous thread as that annoying kid who couldn't make up his mind. Well, I've just finished ordering my parts!

I bought:

From a local NCIX Branch (Hah! Take that to all those people who thought I didn't like NCIX! : P)

Intel Core i5-760
MSI P55A-G55 P55 Motherboard
Corsair HX650 Modular PSU
Some random LG DVD-drive
Western Digitial Black Caviar 1TB
G.Skill 4GB Ram
CoolerMaster Hyper 212+

From NewEgg:

Haf 922
GTX 460 768mb
Windows 7 64bit (oh god, I hope I ordered the 64 and not the 32 by accident)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, I'm basically waiting for the NewEgg stuff to arrive and I have no freaking clue why the font is blue...

1/ Yes it has to be an exposed metal part (painted won't do anything unless you scrape down to the bare metal).

2/ Nope, no problems (outside of external forces of nature like cats, kids, jumping carp, etc...) running everything on the motherboard box. Just make sure you put it directly on the box, and not have something between the box and the motherboard.

3/ Both ways will work, but Rison's method might get you a degree or two better performance. I personally don't bother and only use the pea method.

4/ Face them all the same way, and swap them around if they don't work. You won't hurt the LED by having it on backwards, but it will only light up one way.

5/ Partitions are a way to separate different types of data on a single drive. I personally create a small partition on rigs with single drives just so that I can keep my data if I need to format the OS drive. Chances are your C: / D: are a single HDD, and a DVD burner... if you were to create a partion on a single drive, you'll see C / D / and E: .

6/ More than likely not, but the only way to know for sure is to start it up. With a desktop drive I wouldn't want to be doing that while the platters are spinning, but that's not really much of a shock, and certainly not while it's sitting there unpowered.

Have fun with the build!!!!

[ZZLEE]

1) Tkink of a string running from your arm to the cold water intake fore your house this is what you wnt fore grounding made of metela rathre than string.

plug in a power supply and attach the gator clip to a screw or un painted part of the power supply like a metal fan grill.

2) The reason to put the bord on the box is that you build and even test the system outside of the case before installing it into a case. The box the board comes in does not coduct electricity. It is coushoned enuf dont worrry. Install coooler at this stage also.

3) Thin lines is better for direct touch heat pipe coolers/ on the tubes.

4)the coanectors are labled. refer to moutherbord manual fore propper locations

5) C: is uealy the primary drive with OS on it D: can be anouther drive or in most systems D: is your DVD drive. THe OS will Assighn other letters to other drives as they get plugged in to the Computer

6 ) It is unlikly that dammage was done. If you have bubble pack and the gray anti static bag the drive came in store them in this. Not good idea to shock/ bash about drives / IF there runniing rea No No

Only have One drive plugged in when you build your system DVD drive sourse and WD black ( no USB stick Or other drives when you install Windows )

Hope this helped

Used " Display windows side by side" LOL

edit: ^^ ninja'd

[Kieli]

Thanks guys, for the answers.

Regarding #6, it isn't in a bubble-wrap. When I bought it, it was only in the gray anti-static bag. I left it in the shopping bag (which is on the ground) and took out the motherboard box. When I looked in the bag again, it was on the ground. FYI, I didn't hear any impact from when the hard drive hit the ground. If you can't imagine how I put the hard drive on the ground, think of a square box with two opposite sides (not the one facing the ground or straight up) squished in until it's a rectangle. Like a book on a shelf.

I also have another very important question. When I made an account, I accidentally registered another person's e-mail. For example, if my e-mail was johnny_doe@yahoo.com, I wrote john_doe@yahoo.com (I'm currently slamming on my head unto my desk). I didn't find this out until today, and imagine my horror as I tried to quickly register john_doe@yahoo.com only to find that someone else already registered it.

Therefore, my question is this: Does NewEgg send any e-mail that gives out sensitive information such as your address and your credit card number? I could care less if john_doe@yahoo.com knew what I bought, but I'm nervous that he might know what my credit card number is.

NewEgg, themselves, state that "an e-mail will be sent to your account address with a tracking link (also available by clicking the Order Number above)". Does this tracking link give john_doe any sensitive information that I should be freaking out about (not that I'm not currently freaking out).

[Stock]

Haven't ordered from Newegg before, but isn't the tracking info of shipments to usually sent to whichever email was registered? I would call :S

and for question 4: follow the motherboard manual. It won't lead you astray.

[Kieli]

@Stock: Yikes. I think I should call NewEgg. I've already changed the account e-mail to the right e-mail this time, so I won't be making that mistake ever again...

Not to mention my dad put the heavy PSU box on top of the ram, which is stored some kind of clear-plastic packaging. I hope my RAM isn't broken now... God, I'm so freaking paranoid. >.>

[Kieli]

I just saw a video on YouTube showing how thermal compound spreads using different methods of application: YouTube - How Thermal Compound Spreads

Judging from the video, the method where you spread the thermal paste yourself is quite bad because it creates many air pockets that cannot be removed even through twisting.

On the other hand, quite a few people still say the pea-sized (metaphorically, as a pea-sized glob is too much) or uncooked rice grain-sized blob works the best. It spreads out when you apply firm pressure and covers the most important part of the CPU: the center. Correct me if I'm wrong (I have an i5-760), but the actual die, itself, is in the center of the CPU and that's really all you need to cool. Therefore, it's not actually all that important to cover the edges of the processor. I don't know what a die is, but I gather it's the heart of the processor that does all the actual calculations and generates the most heat.

I have a CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ heatsink and the Artic MX-2 thermal compound, so would the pea-sized method be adequate for me? Also, what temperatures should I be expecting? You can give me a range, because I know that household conditions will change the actual temps. I think my house is around 17 - 18 *C right now, but can balloon up to 31 - 34 in the summer.

As a side note, I know that Rison suggested I put four thin lines along the copper parts of my heatsink; however, I've never built a computer before and the step I am, by far, most worried about is the application of the thermal compound. Rison's method sounds a tad too complex for me, and I want something that is fairly simple and works. Perhaps in the future, I will try different methods. For now, though, I will definitely play it safe because I do not want to break/damage any components.