I'm serious to the extent that I am building a rig and I basically don't know squat about the electrical details of what I am doing. I built one before this and I lucked out and it worked.

What major kinds of things does one have to NOT do when you are assembling one.
One obvious thing is wear a wrist strap to prevent static electricity from screwing up the electronics. There are probably dozens of ways you could fry the MB but what I am trying to say is: What are the major things one should look out for? I am especially interested in using a modular psu.

I suppose I had better say that jokes here are also admissible.

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

One thing to be careful about is shorting the MB to the case. You can do this if you are not careful about the mounting points (studs) in the MB tray (or drop a screw behind the MB). THAT will kill one quickly.

Just to make sure that the MB is OK, I usually assemble the MB, CPU, HSF and graphics card on a piece of Styrofoam or cardboard on my desk ("breadboarding") to make sure all is OK before I put them in the case. Can save a lot of heartache if you are sure your parts work OK before you put them in the case.

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Thanks jravin,
I had no idea that a screw behind the MB would be a problem. I will have to watch out for that. On the other one I already have the MB and memory screwed down in the case and some connections to the mother board like the 24 and 8 pin power connections and a few connections from the case accessories.

As soon as I get my cpu and HSF installed I'll power up and see if it passes muster. The cpu includes a graphics function.

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

I've heard that using the graphic on the onboard chip will slow down your processing other work units. Just something to think about.

After I get my amd 280X, what should I do, disable the one on the cpu? Can you do that?

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

After I get my amd 280X, what should I do, disable the one on the cpu? Can you do that?

You can disable the iGPU in the bios or leave it enabled. Just because it is enabled doesn't mean you have to crunch with it.

I found in testing with my Haswell CPUs that if I used the iGPU with the CPU it nearly doubled the CPU processing times. I have not yet tested to see if using the iGPU with a PCIe GPU slows anything down.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
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thanks Hal,
nice tip.

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

I have not seen anybody talk about this. Thermal Paste. Besides getting a good bond between the cpu and cooler. If you put too much on the cpu and it oozes out and makes contact with the contact leads going to the cpu. The metal stuff in the thermal paste can cause a short.

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Thanks Admiral,
I didn't know that. I suppose the contact leads are those etched wires on the MB leading to the cpu. I was actually thinking about putting a little bit extra this time.

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

I have not seen anybody talk about this. Thermal Paste. Besides getting a good bond between the cpu and cooler. If you put too much on the cpu and it oozes out and makes contact with the contact leads going to the cpu. The metal stuff in the thermal paste can cause a short.

To prevent that from happening, I always put just the right amount, evenly spread on the heastsink instead.

Thanks Sirius B

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

I have not seen anybody talk about this. Thermal Paste. Besides getting a good bond between the cpu and cooler. If you put too much on the cpu and it oozes out and makes contact with the contact leads going to the cpu. The metal stuff in the thermal paste can cause a short.

To prevent that from happening, I always put just the right amount, evenly spread on the heastsink instead.

Just put a bead of thermal paste the size of a large grain of rice in the centre of the CPU and then clamp the heatsink down, no spreading is required as the pressure applied by the heatsink will do that. This has been the recommended way of doing it for very many years. ;-)

Cheers.

I've done it both ways but I wasn't aware of the danger of using too much paste.
Some people I've heard make vertical and horizontal lines of it. :-)

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

I've done it both ways but I wasn't aware of the danger of using too much paste.
Some people I've heard make vertical and horizontal lines of it. :-)

Anything which might trap air bubbles is definitely not a sensible way to go.

                                                                   Joe

I have not seen anybody talk about this. Thermal Paste. Besides getting a good bond between the cpu and cooler. If you put too much on the cpu and it oozes out and makes contact with the contact leads going to the cpu. The metal stuff in the thermal paste can cause a short.

To prevent that from happening, I always put just the right amount, evenly spread on the heastsink instead.

Just put a bead of thermal paste the size of a large grain of rice in the centre of the CPU and then clamp the heatsink down, no spreading is required as the pressure applied by the heatsink will do that. This has been the recommended way of doing it for very many years. ;-)

Cheers.

I often see the "large grain of rice" recommendation & to be honest I have never really seen a "large" grain of rice. I normally end up using about a half pea size amount of compound. Which may be the same amount of the "large grain of rice".

Discussions on applying thermal compound can be long and spur whole threads of debates. Probably practice is really the only way to get it down. The heatsink you order will mostly likely come with a syringe good for several applications. So after your initial install if you think the CPU is running to hot you should be able to try a few more times.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

One obvious thing is wear a wrist strap to prevent static electricity from screwing up the electronics.

I just wear cotton, walk on socks and touch the wall and computer case before reaching to the computer insides.
Also in hot weather sweat from my face may drop on the electronics ;)

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- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 

I often see the "large grain of rice" recommendation & to be honest I have never really seen a "large" grain of rice. I normally end up using about a half pea size amount of compound. Which may be the same amount of the "large grain of rice".

Just grab a bag of long grain rice and look for the biggest 1's, easy. That would make it less than a quarter of a pea (unless you have smaller peas over there than we do here). ;-)

Cheers.

BilBg, tell me more about the sweat because that has happened to me. Is it dangerous?

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

Of course we have bigger peas over here. :-)

I often see the "large grain of rice" recommendation & to be honest I have never really seen a "large" grain of rice. I normally end up using about a half pea size amount of compound. Which may be the same amount of the "large grain of rice".

Just grab a bag of long grain rice and look for the biggest 1's, easy. That would make it less than a quarter of a pea (unless you have smaller peas over there than we do here). ;-)

Cheers.

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merle - vote yes for freedom of speech

Salt + water = electrolyte = conductive
You have to find and dry it (e.g. by cotton-on-stick (is it the right word?))

If you can't find the drop - wait it to dry before switching ON
To test the dry time - make another drop outside the computer ;)

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- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)