Hi All Motherboard being used: GigaByte X58A-UD3R- (Revision 2) Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840 EDIT: PLEASE SEE LAST POST. So after installing all the components yesterday, and getting half the cabling done, I am hoping I can today finish off the cabling and start installing windows 7 ASAP A few questions: )I have put the questions/issues in bold to make it clear. I am trying to figure out how to enable the on board sound on this motherboard ? Is on board sound enabled by default, if not what do I have to do to enable it ? Secondly with the Cooler Master ATCS 840, CoolerMaster have provided 4 cables to connect to the : Power switch, Reset Switch, HDD Activity LED, and Power LED. I know where to connect these to as the Motherboard Manual is crystal clear. However my Issue is that how am I supposed to figure out which is the negative and positive (it splits into two connections to connect o the motherboard), for the Power and Reset switches ? On one connecter it says G, and S on the other one. If these cables (the front panel ones) are conneted in the wrong way, what is the worst that could happen, would it be a case of nothing happening as the cables are the wrong way around ? Next question, As there are 4 case fans in the ATCS 840 by default : 2 on the top, 1 at the front and 1 at the back, I have connectd the back case fan to the motherboard SYS FAN connection, and the other 3 fans have been connected to the 4 pin Molex cable. I have only used 1 4 pin Molex cable to connet to these 3 fans, my question am I connecting too many fans onto 1 4 pin Molex cable or not ? Another question regarding the 4 pin Molex cable which is connected to the three case fans, should I also not be connecting the the 4 pin conection(not the Molex connection) to the motherboard as I am guessing this would control the speed of the fans. A question about the Case Air Flow. According to my knowledge of this case, since the top two fans are exhaust(taking air out) fans, the front fan is an intake fan and the back fan is also an exhaust fan, would it be beneficial for me to add an intake fan at the bottom of the Case ? Only 3 more questions I have installed 2 hard drives both of which are Sata. Do i need to configure these to show which one is the master and which one is the slave one, I know we had to do this for IDE connections does the same apply to SATA, if not what do i have to do for this, if anything? North Bridge Fan - The Manual says that a north bridge fan cable should be connected to this header. I have not done this, as I dont have any any cables left to connect anything apart from Sata power cables, PCI-E 6 power cables and a few 4 pin Molex power cables. Is this needed ? Last question, regarding the PSU, how should the PSU be installed ?, curently I have the Corsair PSU installe so that its fan is on the bottom is that the right way or suggested way? I hope what I have typed makes sense and Sorry for the very long post. Thanks
ok, iv only build a couple of machines in the past but ill give this a shot first on board sound has always right off the bat for me, tho drivers (usually supplied) will improve their quality/customization second if they are the wrong way round, it wont work, simple as, take em out swap em round. the fans should be fine of 1 connector, fan voltages are about as low as they come. the more fans the merrier, an extra fan will always be beneficial its whether it beneficial enough to warrant the noise. i would guess if ya got 4 ya probably OK unless your going some overclocking. satas still need to know which is the master i think. not sure though. dunno bout the north bridge thing im not sure what you mean about the PSU fan, the fan should point out the back of the case, the secondary fan (intake) should point into the case. bit confused on this one too im afraid hope some of this helps, im not a pro, so if anyone disagrees, they're probably right
I'm not too experienced (so don't know the answers to all your questions), although I hope some of my answers will be helpful: You can specify the sound controller via the BIOS. Your mobo should have on-board sound enabled by default however (so in short, unless you have a dedicated sound card, don't worry ). Does it say in the manual for the motherboard or case? I know that for me, the case manual said that coloured cables are positive (+) and black *or* white cables are negative (-) Might be different for you though. Sometimes the fans will come with a little switch which can control their speed. But yeah, it's not necessary to connect the fans to the mobo. Just connecting it to the PSU should be fine, I believe. It depends how air flows through your case, although if you have 4 fans I'd imagine this should be enough.
Thanks for replying @ dave_c and tristanperry It seems I don't need to worry about the on board sound then as it should be on by default and yes I don't have a sound card I ended up not buying one. It also seems the way I have connected the System Case fans is also right. And I think I will wait until the system has been running for a week or so before deciding whther I wan to buy another intake fan to put on the bottom of the case. Reagrding the front panel switches, they are not listed in the Case Manual (It would have been helpful if they had listed which one was negative and positive ..). They are listed in the Motherboard Manual on how to connect them up, but I need to know which one is negative and then I can get on with it . On the PSU there are two fans on at the back and one on the bottom/top dependent on how it is installed i think. The fan on theback of the PSU is on the back lol!. I was asking whether the other fan should be facing inwards of the Case or outwards, atm it is facing outwards i.e facing the bottom(or the floor). Thanks for your replies guys. Now to find out which is the positive and negative on the front panel cabling, check all the cabling and connectors and then I can hopefully get to the POST Screen around lunch time or just after Edit: Update After some googling, it seems that Sata hard drives don't have jumpers to configure the master and slave settings, its aparently done through the BIOS. Hopefully one less thing to worry about to get to the POST Stage.
So having checked the cabling etc, I think I am now in a position to start the PC and see what happens, I have one question before I do this. I have currently taken off both the side panels in the case. Should I leave it like this during testing of POST etc or put the side panels on ? Thanks
Dont worry about having the side panels off, I always leave them off for testing and once I'm happy I'll tie all the wiring back neatly and then close it up. Bottom mounted fans are ok as intakes the only problem is that they tend to act like a hoover, if you're going to add them have them extracting air if you can. as for all the other stuff, it sounds like you've pretty much got it all under control.
Thanks for the reply I had planned on doing the wiring up neatly after testing everything was good. When you say the bottom intake fans atc act like a hoover, do you mean the sound or the fact they pick up everything including rubbish. This case has a dust filter at the exact position where I intend to place the bottom intake fan so I don't think that should be a worry, but thats not a priority for now though. Looks like I am on the right path which is great, considering this is my first build
If you've got filters that'll be a great help for bottom mounted fans if they're used as an intake. as for the HDD's , it wont matter if they are sata's. It doesn't matter which ports you connect then to either. Here's some thing to keep an eye on. When you install the OS, if you have more than 1 disc fitted it'll put the bootloader on the second disc, which is not problem, but if you want it all on 1 disc, just have the 1 that you installing the OS connected, then connect any other disc afterwards.
@bulldogjeff & murraynt - Thanks for replying. I had sort of guessed and realised that Sata hard drives didn't need jumpers/jump block as the old IDE hard drives used. I was just checking through my connections and conncetors and realised that the connector connect to the 5970 is not fitting in well and is not sitting flush. I have got 2 connections onthe 5970. First is the PCI-E which is the 6 pin/hole connection. This one fits in fine. The seond one is also a PCI-E one but this has a 8 pin/hole connection, this is the one that is not sitting flush. Both of these connections are coming direct fom the PSU. I am wondering If I should use another PCI-E 8 pin cable (lots have been provided with the Corsair PSU), but the issue with this would be that even though the connection would be from the PSU, it would not be direct (i.e. one of the five cables which are already attached to the PSU and which can not be dettached unless you cut them off lol) ? Reading the graphics card manual and looking at videos online, it seems I should be using the proper direct cable if that makes sense, only problem is it does not fit as well as it should do - So what do i do ?
Are you using the correct one? because there is an 8 pin for the mother board aswell which might have a different fit
Do you mean attaching 1 cable to another, like an extension? or splitting a single cable into 2 feeds?
Yay it works, albeit it comes up with a POST Error I think .. Display says: Verifying DMI Pool Data ..... Update Success DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER Does this mean that I have been successful, and now need to connect up the optical drives and put in a windows 7 DVD or not ?
An OS would cure this problem, thats what it means. I'm waiting for the post which says that you're on the new rig talking to us...lol
Ah OK I won't be able to connect to the net using the new system until I have ordered the new Wireless card, should be ordering it Monday or tuesday sometime. I think time to get the new keyboard and mouse out, as well as connct the optical drives and get ready to have some fun with Fear 2 or Dead Space
Ok So I have connected up the Keyboard and mouse, and navigated my way into the BIOS. It is reporting that the CPU temperature is 34 sometimes 35 Celsius. My CPU is an Intel i7 2.8 Ghz. Since I am not runing anything else, is 34 or 35 Celsisus a good or reasonable temperature for this CPU when at idle ?
