I don't know. I'm totally new at this building thing and have just been going off the advice thru this thread. I really don't know what the heck I'm doing. What's your advice?
You don't NEED to replace all your case fans. They should be fine for the most part. Everything should come with the parts. You should invest in some better Thermal Paste though. Something like OCZ Freezer, Arctic Silver 5, or Arctic Cooling MX-2. Oh and for my latest build I went with Vista 64bit. It offers over 40% performance gains over 32bit with apps that are coded for it, and with 32bit apps it offers the same performance as a 32bit OS.
thermal paste? see, this show's you how much i know. I know how to make a jelly sandwich. what is the thermal paste for and where do you put it on?
lol You put it between the CPU and heatsink. It's needed to have good thermal conductivity. The Thermalright comes with some, but I'm not sure how good it is...
lol, i was literally on the same boat as you like 1 or 2 weeks ago. i did ALOT of wiki and googling because its like an important process and such for cpu cooling. heres a general process on how to apply them. http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm and for the fans, personally, i would keep the stock case fans, run everything and THEN if you need more cooling, get replacement fans. BTW, does anybody know if PCI slot fans are any good??
Thermal compound is included with the stock cooler for a processor, and often with other coolers like the Freezer 7 Pro, but it's recommended in most cases to use Arctic Silver V instead (though the stuff that comes with the freezer 7 now is supposed to be very good) - point to note though, the stock cooler, for example, already has the stuff applied, so you will need to remove that first. Dragnandy: Avoid PCI slot fans, they don't do anywhere near as much as normal fans, and sit there wasting a slot and making noise. They work on graphics cards because the heat is isolated to within the airflow chamber, but on their own in a case they don't have much of a functional purpose. ffonlly: Typically stock case fans are perfectly adequate, you just add aftermarket ones if you want a bit more cooling power, or a bit more silence, depending. Leave them be for now, and if you're concerned about heat, change them afterwards.
Right, you have to bear with me, so many people are making builds these days. That's fine, just don't use the stuff it comes with, and slap the Arctic silver V on the CPU in the manner indicated as per their website - it's what I did and it works fine.
ok. so when the parts arrive, do they come with instructions on how to put it all together or do I need to find a tutorial somewhere? My compressor and nail gun are ready...
Sorry what? Nail gun? Compressor? hehe As for the assembly, the stuff mostly comes with manuals to help you out, don't forget obvious stuff though, like using standoffs for the motherboard screws.
holy cow! I finally got all my parts and i've been working on putting it together for the last 2 hours. where do you plug in all the frikin fans (even the ram came with a frickin fan!). I've got most of the hardware all put together, i just don't know where to plug everything in. what's all this sata, ide stuff? Is there a certain way this should be set up? my parts for this system are on page 1. any help appreciated.
ok i got everything hooked up and working. while i'm loading up vista after awhile i get this error " IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" what the heck is this?
