Build a Modern PC 2008 - Part 3
In which Ian Waugh completes the construction
Fit plugs and connectors?
The next tasks are to fit the motherboard inside the case and then hook up the cables and connectors. It may often be easier to fit some plugs and connections to the motherboard before you fit the motherboard inside the case. With our system, for example, it would have been easier to plug the SATA cables into the board.
However, it would be rare to be in a situation where you couldn't fit all the connectors after fitting the motherboard but it may be fiddly. Look at your set-up and make an executive decision.
With our build we decided to fit the motherboard into the case at this stage.
Align the motherboard's I/O connectors with the I/O backplane and site the motherboard's screw holes over the stand-offs. Make sure all the holes are covered. Make sure the board is flat and fits easily.
Insert the screws but only tighten a couple of turns until all the screws are in place. The Blu-tack tip came in very useful here! When all the screws are in place, tighten, but not too much. You don't need a lot of pressure.
Modern motherboards have two power connector sockets. The Asus M3A32-MVP has a 24-pin EATXPWR and an 8-pin ATX12V connector. You need to connect both.
The cables for these from the PSU are quite thick and chunky and you need to manoeuvre them around the board so they are out of the way and don't obstruct the air flow in the middle of the board.
We originally tried putting the 24-pin cable behind the motherboard but it was a tight fit and we worried that it might cause a short on the board or do some other damage so we ended up simply routing it over the top of the board and behind the top right corner.
Connect other cabling
Next we connected the other bits of cabling such as the power, reset and hard disk LEDs, and the front panel connections such as USB and Firewire. Details will vary from system to system but usually the cables and connections are clearly labelled on both the chassis and the motherboard.
The Asus M3A32 has a Q-Connector which is a single large connector into which you plug all the LED leads, The Q-Connector then plugs into a single socket on the motherboard. This makes it easy to connect and disconnect all the plugs at once - and we did a lot of that during this project!
Most modern systems do not include an internal speaker. They usually have an audio output on the back panel and you can simply plug an external speaker into that.
However, when testing your new PC for the first time, it's useful to be able to hear any beeps it makes during the POST (Power On Self Test) process, just in case something isn't working properly. Different numbers of beeps indicate different problems so it's a useful diagnostic.
You can pick up small a speaker for a couple of pounds or dollars from eBay. It will likely have a 4-pin connector (although only two wires) that simply plugs onto the motherboard. In our case it plugged into the Q-Connector's Speaker connection.
The next stage is to add ancillary hardware. We fitted the graphics card next. If your motherboard has built-in graphics, you may want to use that to test the machine and install the graphics card later. It's one less thing to consider if the system doesn't start as expected.
The M3A32 has no on-board graphics so we installed the Radeon HD 3870 into a PCI Express slot of which the Asus M3A32 has four!
We have heard that it's best to install the card in the top-most slot where possible. With some motherboards and cards, the card may obscure one of the other slots so you also need to think about what other cards you might want to plug into the motherboard.
With the card in the top PCI Express slot of the M3A32, the PCI slot directly below was effectively blocked but that was fine for our purpose.
To fit the card, it's necessary to remove one of the blank backplane covers. With the card firmly seated in the slot, use the screw from the cover to hold the card in place on the backplane.
The 3870 requires a dedicated power connection from the PSU, and the NeoPower 550's modular supply makes this easy. The cable is fairly thick and we routed it along the top of the motherboard and down the right-hand side, and stuffed the extra into a spare drive bay at the top of the case.
If you don't have a modular PSU or your PSU does not have a dedicated power connector for the card, there will probably be a molex adapter in the box so you can connect the card to a spare molex socket.
Although the current move is towards SATA connections, many motherboards still support IDE drives. Unless you're upgrading an existing system and want to retain your IDE drives, you will probably want to use SATA drives.
SATA makes the connection and setting up simpler, and the thinner SATA cables make it much easier to keep the inside of the case tidy. This is, perhaps, more important with modern systems than it was with older ones as modern components tend to run hotter and require more cooling so it's important not to obstruct the air flow.
Hard drives fit into a 5.25" drive bay, usually at the front of the case. Different cases may have different types of fitting such as pull-out caddies while with others you simply slide the drive into the bay and secure with screws.
The Antec Sonata Plus 550 offers two types of hard drive fitting. The front of the case can be completely removed so fitting is easy.
Standard fitting involves screwing the drives into a removable tray and sliding it into a drive bay. The tray has silicon grommets to minimise drive noise and vibration. You can fit four drives into the case this way.
The case also has three suspension mounts which consist of two sets of elasticated material, one at the front of the bay and one at the rear. You twist the front set of suspenders, push the drive in, twist the rear set and guide the drive through those.
As the drive is not directly touching any solid part of the case there should be absolutely no vibration from it at all. You need to be aware that your drive is suspension mounted and NOT carry the case with it in or the drive could slip through the mounts.
Once fitted, you connect the drive to the motherboard and PSU. The SATA cables are easily fitted although, with hindsight, they would have been easier fitted to the motherboard before the board was fitted to the case! But not a major problem.
But do read the motherboard manual to find out which SATA ports you need for Master and Slave drives. On the M3A32, SATA 1/3 are the Master and 2/4 the Slave. Unlike IDE drives, you don't have to set a Master/Slave jumper.
Connect a molex power from the PSU. Try to route the cables around the motherboard in a tidy fashion. We'll tidy later but it does no harm to be neat as you go.
Adding a Floppy Drive
We didn't bother with a floppy drive but they only cost a few quid and may be useful to some people in some circumstances. They can be useful for troubleshooting, for example. Most cases have a 3.5" drive bay for a Floppy Disk Drive (FDD).
Most motherboards have a FDD connector for a ribbon cable, like an IDE cable but narrower. The connector should have a pin removed so the cable cannot be fitted the wrong way. The cable should also have a red line down one edge which is aligned to one side of the connector to further ensure correct connection.
The FDD itself has a power connector smaller than a molex and there should be one with the drive, motherboard or PSU. The Antec NeoPower 550 comes with a plethora of cables including two suitable for FDDs.
Fitting a DVD optical drive is much like fitting a hard disk except it will probably go in a bay near the top of the case and it needs access to the front of the case so the tray an slide out. To do this you need to pop out one of the front blanking panels.
Fitting can vary between cases. With some, as with a hard drive, the DVD drive may simply slot into a bay. The Antec Sonata Plus 550 includes rails which you screw to the sides of the drive and then slot into the bay.
The major thing here is to ensure that the front of the drive sits flush with the front of the case when the front panel is fitted. You may need to adjust the drive's position a little to get this right.
Again, we're using a SATA DVD drive. These are now very cheap. We fitted the SATA cable to the drive and to one of the SATA 2/4 sockets on the motherboard. A short run of a molex connector from the PSU completed the job.
Fan connections
The Antec Sonata Plus 550 comes with a large 120mm TriCool fan mounted at the rear to draw air out of the case.
It's powered by a long lead that fits into a molex connector. It also has a separate pair of wires terminating in a three-position speed control switch. You can experiment with the optimum setting for this but Medium is a good place to start.
When all the devices are in place, you might want to consider adding additional cooling. With a meaty CPU, GPU and a hard disk or two, the inside of the case can get pretty warm. If you're building a high-end system, additional cooling is certainly recommended.
The Sonata Plus has room on the front panel for two additional 92mm fans in front of the hard drive bays. These are easily fitted but you must make sure that they blow air INTO the case.
The case features a removable air filter on the front of the cage which is obviously helpful in keeping the inside clean.
We fitted the Antec TriCool fans which also have a speed control which we set to Medium. Your motherboard will have additional connections for fans so check the manual.
In the fourth and final part we start it up and see if it runs!
