The Official PC building thread!

Cool...only one thing- dont uderstand the price? I live in the states [Tacoma, Washington]thanks for the info-

 

Interesting, that's a UK only model. Newegg and TigerDirect only offer Plextors.

 

man thats to bad! I need another drive, maybe two but they need to be sata- WELLLLLLLLL the hunt is on...I wanted it to be BENQ so far I am happy with the two I have just put in and the prices are very reasonable.

 

Well, as I say I can only find Plextors in the US atm, and I'm sorry I can't bring myself to recommend Benq stuff after the raw deal I had with them in the past. Whether or not they've changed is irrelevant really.

 

well I will look into the Plextors I've heard nothing but good about them... thanks for the effert!

 

Well, except for the price lol. I have heard of a couple of bad cases, but only from newegg reviews, so take that with half a dozen sachets of salt.

 

you bet... I was thinking about the PX 712S what do you think?

 

Well, proper priced Plextors like that one are genuine stuff, so I don't see any reason why not.

 

samsung do a sata dvd drive. the writemaster sh-w163 you can get them for about £30, they dont do dvd ram but the plextors dont either. you could get both for the price of one plextor px-755sa. it writes 1 layer +/-s faster but the plextor is faster @ ripping and burning dual layers.

 

Couldn't find one in the US.

 

Can't find that Samsung any where, to bad... would really like to check that one out!

 

http://www.custompc.co.uk/custompc/labs/91047/samsung-writemaster-shw163.html
Thats where i read about it

 

herrick , the PX-712A isnt being made anymore . if your going to get one go with the PX-716SA sata drive

 

Yeah that's the problem though marsey, we can find it in the UK but herrick is a US user, and I can't seem to find any trace of the Samsung drive over there. Do you get on with UKOnline alright? I use it too and have the exact same IP address.... somehow.

 

Anyone know of a good online guide to build a PC?...Especially one using an Antec P180B case.

Here are my specs.


Core 2 Duo E6600: CPU
Antec P180B: Case
Asus P5B Deluxe Wi/Fi: M/B
2 GB DDR2 667 MhZ SDRAM: Memory
WD 1500ADFD : Primary HD
Seagate 320GB: Secondary HD
ATI AIW X1900: Video Card
Corsair HX Series 520W: PSU
CL SoundBlaster Audigy 2: Soundcard
Lite On DVD-RW (2): Optical Drives

 

Holy crap, that's a jawdropping system you got there! Any particular questions or just a guide on how to do it all?

 

Ya think?...When I decided to take the plunge and build a PC for the first time, I wanted to do it right and at least have something I can grow into.

I've accomplished a few things today...I installed the PSU into the P180B cage, mounted the CPU onto the motherboard and the motherboard into the case...Mounted the 2 HDs, the optical Drives and sound card...Connected a few of the front panel wiring to the motherboard (USB, Firewire, Audio, Reset, etc.).

What I haven't done yet is connect the power cables from the modular PSU to each item within the PC, mount the Video Card, connect all the fans to PSU and flash BIOs or load OS.

Left the harder stuff for later =)...Been googling guides of the Antec P180 and getting some decent visuals but heading into very unfamiliar territory with the rest.

Suggestions?...Friend who is in CS (Busy at the moment, unfortunately) suggested not connecting HDs, Optical drives etc. and just booting to setup and going through Bios first...I skipped that and just tried to install everything I could.

Made sure I had plenty of cable length to traverse the case as well.

One question I already had was not knowing how to differentiate the 2 HDs from Slave and Master...I didn't see any jumpers/pins to demarcate which is which...The M/B seems to 'suggest' it's numbered as in SATA1, SATA2 guessing that SATA1 indicated Master and so on??

Apart from that, visual guides would be great!...These direction booklets with the PSU, M/B and Case are all conveniently low on the pictures.

Thanks for any help

 

No worries about the hard drives, you say they are SATA and they arent bound by the same slave/master laws as the older drives. Simply plug your main drive in SATA 1 and storage drive in SATA 2.

 

The harder stuff? You've done all the hard bits already!
For the video card installation, hold the card by the ends as is kinda shown here
and then simply plug the card in that way round into the top PCI express 16x slot on the board.

The blue one is where you want the video board to go.
Fans aren't all plugged into the PSU:
This one is


But this one isn't. These three-pin connectors go into your motherboard fan header.

Your motherboard will probably only have one or two of those, if you have more than 2 fans with those type of connector (you may have 3 connectors but bear in mind your CPU fan will use one) then you may need to get one of these
to power all the fans.
If you have legit windows XP, it's easy as pie. Turn the system on, open the cd drive, put the CD in, close it, and away you go, you'll be in the installatin process. XP doesn't need drives pre-formatting or anything like that any more.