Author Topic: BB Guns Build your own PC manual  (Read 320 times)

Offline ZXMAW

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BB Guns Build your own PC manual
« on: September 03, 2003, 01:20:29 AM »
BB wrote this to help others and posted it on his WB BB and later posted it on our own AH bb. I thought it was a very good piece and hope he doesn't mind me pasting it here where maybe more people in need of the info might be able to find it.

I myself could have really used it before I tried building my own but ran into a problem that maybe one of you may be able to help me with. I will post it after leaving these easy to follow instructions he wrote for us.



The case (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewprodu...tion=11-150-017) has rolled edges for 90% of the exposed edges. The only sharp places are at the drive cutouts at the front of the case and at the backplane cutouts where the motherboard perihperal connectors go through.

1) put motherboard in removable motherboard tray - it has 6 standoffs that are in the correct spots for standard ATX Mobo, and has additional support clips to fit under other locations if you need them.

2) install processor and heatsink (flip up lever on ZIF socket - match CPU pattern to socket patter, drop in, flip ZIF lever down. Clip heatsink into retention clip, then flip the latches to lock it down - try to do both latches at once to avoid asymmetrical loading on the processor) Plug fan power into motherboard fan header near the CPU socket.

3) install RAM - open up the levers, push the stick into the slot, click into place such that the levers snap shut. The RAM is keyed so it can only go in one way. Be sure you have it right, then push firmly.

4) connect case connectors (LED's, switches, etc) to motherboard - do NOT use the slip of paper that comes with the case to make the connections. Follow the Motherboard manual. Note that the little black cylinder with a red wire and a black wire coming from it is the case speaker (for BIOS beeps, etc).

5) Connect front connect USB cable to motherboard USB header - the case connector labels do not exactly match what the motherboard calls them, but it can be figured out. Sort the "1" connectors from the "2" connectors. power to power. "+ to "+" "-" to "-" and ground to ground. (it will be clearer if you're looking at the connectors and the port header diagram while reading this)

7) swap out motherboard passthrough panel for the one that comes in the case. 50/50 they don't match. If they do, you can leave the one that came with the case in the case.

6) insert assembled motherboard tray into the case. Plug in power - primary motherboard power (biggest connector) and PIV power (small four pin connector)

7) install fans into case. (6/7 can be swapped - depending on where you are putting fans and access you want.)

8) install video card into AGP slot. (8/9 can be swapped - depending on room in case. For the Maxtop, there's enough room to do it either way.

9) install drives into drive bays. Be sure that all cabling reaches from the motherboard to the drives before you screw them down. Drives nowadays usually come set to "cable select" ("CS") using jumpers on the back of the drive. I typically override them to force master or slave as appropriate. If HD and CD are sharing an IDE cable, HD is master (MA), CD is slave (SL). If CD and CDRW are sharing an IDE cable, I don't think it matters - just make sure one is master and one is slave.

10) install drive cabling. Everything nowadays is keyed to make it difficult if not impossible to install the cable the wrong way. Also if you have 3-pin fans, attach as many as you can to the fan headers on the motherboard (typically Motherboards have 1 or two additional fan headers for case fans) ANy remaining fans, attach using adapters (if necessary) to 4 pin 12 volt Molex connectors (the biggish ones that connect to drives). Also, hook up the CD sound cable to the CD-in on the motherboard, and if the motherboard has an aux-in jack, plug the CD-RW sound cable into that one

11) double check drive cabling and power leads. connect monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers to the motherboard.

12) start system - it should go directly to BIOS to confirm your processor speed. In BIOS - set BOOT order to CD-ROM first, HD- second. Leave everything else at default, for now. Put WINXP in CD tray, Save and Exit BIOS, which will reboot system.

13) When system boots, it will ask to boot from HD or CD, boot from CD, then if given the choice (i.e. if it doesn't do it automagically), start WinXP setup and install WinXP - when asked, do not use FAT32 - use NTFS file system.

14) after windows installs itself, install motherboard drivers (shipset, sound, LAN) from CD - reboot after each individual install - don't do all three at once. Then install Video Card drivers. There may be an AGP driver for the motherboard - typically you install the AGP driver after you install the video driver. Why, I dunno, but thats the way the last 3 different motherboards I installed did it (SiS based systems).

15) Go online and grab windows updates and DirectX9. Shut case.

16) Install software and controllers and play WB.

Should take just under 4 hours, since this is your first build.

Good luck!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



So, its really not that complicated.

As for price - it depends on what you put in it. YOu can build a competent gaming rig for about 700-800 bucks. And you can build a screaming HOT one for about 1300.

BB


__________________
WBIII interloper
352nd Fightergroup


Last edited by BB Gun on 09-01-2003 at 02:03 AM
« Last Edit: September 03, 2003, 01:34:05 AM by ZXMAW »

Offline ZXMAW

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BB Guns Build your own PC manual
« Reply #1 on: September 03, 2003, 01:27:16 AM »
Quote
12) start system - it should go directly to BIOS to confirm your processor speed. In BIOS - set BOOT order to CD-ROM first, HD- second. Leave everything else at default, for now. Put WINXP in CD tray, Save and Exit BIOS, which will reboot system.



Wonderfully writen BBGUN, very simple to read but this is where I got stuck :(

I read your post on the WB BB the day after I put mine together so it took me like 6 hours without any extra instructions besides what came with the MB. If I only would have known about that MAXTOP case from NewEgg ahead of time I would have bought it.
Instead i got a

DreamStar case with a 400 PSU for 48 delivered
 
A MSI k7n2g with onboard video for 80 on Ebay to save some bucks

and used all my old componants from My Emachine
CDR  DVD Floppy and 80 gig HD,,, tossed the old 250PSU but bought only a 300 watt Enermax which may have been a mistake since the case has so many lights on it.

I ran into 2 probs

#1) Case had raised bumps in it to place the MB on that match MB holes and only 3 of those brass spacers were included, I used 2of them. I was not sure what I could do if I needed to keep the MB off those spacers so I just set her down on them and continued to build. I screwed only the 2 spacers in and seems solid enough not to move at all.

CDR DVD share a rounded IDE and the HD is on a duel ribbon that I used the top connector to plug in in with thinking that was the primary.
CDR DVD share a power strand from the PSU and the HD has it's own which may have been labled extra on the plug or maybe not (away from that machine right now , can't remember but it's on it's own strand.


#2)  HERE"S THE MAJ. Prob

SYSTEM won't boot.

I get a blue screen that says something like
If this is your first time seeing this error mesg then retart your computer.....if not run a check scan disk or something  remove any newly replaced hardware or harddisk controlers, check for viruses and blah blah blah

Then I get a black screen asking me what i want to do.
Boot normal...  does not work
Boot safe... does not work
Boot last systen configuration that worked... have not tried.


I used my old HD since the MB had fried and was going to send it back to Emachines to be refitted with one but for some reason totally unknown to me......My cat pissed in the open case before i packed it.   The cat has never pissed in the house  er  on the house I should say.

Well anyway I figured Emachine would void the warranty so I didn't even waste my time and bought some new parts.

Yes the puter was plugged in at tthe time but not on. From what I could see he got 2 old PCI cards and the wires in front of the the Cpu  heatsink and fan.  The fan was untouched as far as I could tell.

Telling the story makes me want to remove 2 more of the lives the cat has left but I am a little closer to telling it with a cracked smile on my face if I can just make the new set up work.

Does using the OLD HD have anything to do with it and should I use the old configuration?  BTW I'm running XP on the 80 gig HD but maybe later might add my OLD HD loaded with 98 and have 2 HD's
... can I do that?


Well, I hope you can Help... I'm really in need of some good advice at this point.

Thanks,
ZX

Offline ZXMAW

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BB Guns Build your own PC manual
« Reply #2 on: September 03, 2003, 02:17:32 AM »
I should have added what the new board has.
 • K7N2G-L (IGP+MCP, Onboard 10/100 Lan)


CPU  
  • Supports Socket A @FSB 100/133/166
• Supports 600MHz up to Athlon™ XP 2700+ processor or higher  
Chipset  
  • nVIDIA® nForce2 IGP Chipset
- Integrated TV encoder
- Supports DDR266/333 with internal graphic core,
   DDR266/333/400 with external add-on card
- AGP 3.0 8x interface at 533MHz

• nVIDIA® nForce2 MCP2
- AC97 Interface supporting up to two concurrent codecs
- Ultra ATA133 for the fastest hard disk throughput
- USB 2.0 EHCI/1.1 OHCI controller
 
• An IDE controller on the MCP2/MCP2-T chipset provides IDE
   HDD/CDROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133/100/66
   operation modes
• Can connect up to four IDE devices
 
In-Chip TV-out    
 
  • Integrated TV-out encoder, through external bracket

 
 Audio  
 
  • Realtek ALC650 6-channel audio

 
 
  On-Board Peripherals include:
- One floppy port that supports two FDD with 360KB, 720KB,
   1.44MB and 2.88MB
- 1 serial port and 1 VGA port
- 1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode
- 3 audio ports in vertical
- 6 USB ports (Rear * 4/ Front * 2)
- 1 RJ-45 jack  
BIOS  
  • The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects
   the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the board
   automatically.
• The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface
   (DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications.
 

+i WAS ABLE TO FIND SOME ANSWERS TO MY QUESTIONS HERE

http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=94177&highlight=motherboard

i AM USING 2 STICKS OF Samsung ( I think)PC2100 256 EACH IN DUAL MODE AND MY CPU IS A 2000+
« Last Edit: September 03, 2003, 08:08:13 AM by ZXMAW »

Offline DAVENRINO

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BB Guns Build your own PC manual
« Reply #3 on: September 03, 2003, 03:21:12 AM »
You did't say what brand of RAM.  Nforce boards don't like cheap RAM.  You should also check to see if mobo is grounded to case somewhere-possibly remove it and try to boot outside case.  I would definitely reformat the HD, install XP, SP1, Nforce 21.03 drivers, then all Win Critical updates.  IMPORTANT- SP1 must be installed before mobo drivers.  You can use the ones that came on the CD for starters.  I am using the 21.45's with no problem but some have gone back to the 21.03's till the new Nforce drivers are released, hopefully soon.
DJ229 - AIR MAFIA
« Last Edit: September 03, 2003, 03:32:11 AM by DAVENRINO »
DAVE aka DJ229-AIR MAFIA
CH USB HOTAS/ONKYO 705 7.2 SURROUND SOUND/ 60" SONY A3000 SXRD  TV

Offline DAVENRINO

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BB Guns Build your own PC manual
« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2003, 01:24:42 PM »
I believe Samsung is on the compatible list; if it really is Samsung.  The easiest thing to try is reseating the RAM and maybe trying one stick at a time in Slot 1.  Maybe plug the cat into another slot. :)  Are there any beeps when you turn it on?

Have you tried booting from your XP CD?  The error you got on blue screen sounds like it could be mobo driver conflict.  if it were mine , i would definitely reformat.

DJ229 - AIR MAFIA
DAVE aka DJ229-AIR MAFIA
CH USB HOTAS/ONKYO 705 7.2 SURROUND SOUND/ 60" SONY A3000 SXRD  TV

Offline Roscoroo(work)

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BB Guns Build your own PC manual
« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2003, 02:01:03 PM »
one of the wierd problems ive seen while installing various MB's has to do with grounding to the case . the standup screw  posts/nuts can be missaligned also.

some times ive had to pull all the screws out and float the mb just to get the 1st boot out of it  even with plastic washers glued to the underside. also the rear panel can sometimes cause this too.

remember to just seat the screws lightly don't over tighten them.

another trick is to just install 1 or 2 screws then boot the system.

the power cable supplys the ground to the board so floating the board is ok.

ive even tested boards totally out of a case and on a table befor.

if you plan to mess with/build several pc's  its a good idea to have a small hard drive laying around 2-6 gig  that  has just the OS on it . I ve had three different OS's on my 2 gig just for this,

mine currentally has win 98 with a driver file and a anti virus program that i update  as  nessesary, this set up works better then with XP. also i can  hook it up and add various drivers to it for the board im testing/troubleshooting at the time.