Help with building a PC

[Vitnir]

I got my new motherboard yesterday and there is one thing I am unsure about. In the manual it says explicitly that in addition to the 20-pin ATX power connector you also have to plug in the 4-pin power connector and this is what the trouble is. I can't find a place to plug in the 4-pin connector! In the manual there is only a picture of the 20-pin socket and there is no 4-pin socket to be found on the board itself.
I know what the socket looks like because there is one on my old motherboard, the one I fried since my old power supply didnt have a 4-pin power connector and I thought "oh thats probably not that important anyway".
So are there new motherboard that doesnt use the 4-pin connector and its the manual that is wrong or am I too ignorant to figure this out?
I'm trying to link to a picture of the motherboard down below, if I get it to work that is.
http://se.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7v880/a7v880_l.jpg

[Skeptical Greg]

You may have a generic manual that covers several motherboards

I do not see the four pin connector either..

Here is a pic with the four pin connector clearly visible next to the main power connector..


What is the make/model of your mainboard ?




http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/13-139-148-02.JPG

[Vitnir]

Its an ASUS A7V880, I'm leaning towards an error in the manual unless they mean me to use some adaptor in order to fit both connectors into that socket.

[Frinkiak7]

I would tend to agree with Diogenes, in that the manual may cover several different makes of motherboards. Only P4-rated power supplies are going to have that extra 4-pin power cable, and not all AMD motherboards are going to accept it. My advice is to not worry about it. If your board doesn't have a socket for the supplemental 4-pin power connector, it won't require the additional current provided. The only reason you might need an adaptor would be for the opposite problem: the additional connector on the board, but no cable from the power supply.

[richardm]

Have you checked your motherboard's manual carefully - they often have a numbered diagram of the board showing you where everything is. Having said that, I'm joining the list of people who can't find one either, and suggest it is a either a generic manual or something incorrectly cut-and-pasted by a technical writer ;)

[richardm]

Okay, I just checked the latest manual over at the Asus website, and it appears that the 4-pin power connector is no longer mentioned. So I suppose they shipped an out-of-date manual by mistake. It might be an idea to download your own copy of the new manual in case there are other discrepancies.

[Vitnir]

The manual is specified for the A7V880 model but I suppose it is quite possible that whoever edited the manual left some generic text in that didnt apply.

[Soapy Sam]

This may be a dumb question, but hey, it won't be my first.

Why build a PC anyway?

I have found even adding a peripheral like a printer leads to incompatibilities , with both manufacturers blaming the other.

The combinatorial problems involved in getting MOB, memory, power supply, drives etc to cooperate scares me witless.

Is the financial saving so big? Or do you just torture yourself like this for fun?

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
This may be a dumb question, but hey, it won't be my first.

Why build a PC anyway?

I have found even adding a peripheral like a printer leads to incompatibilities , with both manufacturers blaming the other.

The combinatorial problems involved in getting MOB, memory, power supply, drives etc to cooperate scares me witless.

Is the financial saving so big? Or do you just torture yourself like this for fun? If you don't know, you wouldn't understand.

Some people might ask " Why do anything yourself? "; build furniture, cook, garden.. It's something some people enjoy..


There is a multimillion dollar industry that caters to PC builders..

Here is a popular retailer that has no less than 526 different mother boards for sale..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=Category&Category=20


A big sub-set of this, is what are called ' overclockers '.. People who strive to run their computers way past the factory specs, in search of the fastest machine to calculate Pi to 32 million places..

How fast is your computer?

Super Pi (http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=36)



These guy do stuff like cool their CPU's with liquid nitrogen..

Chilly1 Dry Ice/Liquid Nitrogen Container Review (http://www.xtremesystems.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=9)

[Frinkiak7]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
This may be a dumb question, but hey, it won't be my first.

Why build a PC anyway?

I have found even adding a peripheral like a printer leads to incompatibilities , with both manufacturers blaming the other.

The combinatorial problems involved in getting MOB, memory, power supply, drives etc to cooperate scares me witless.

Is the financial saving so big? Or do you just torture yourself like this for fun?

Reliabilty, customization, price, and personal satisfaction. Plus, you get the opportunity to do fun things just to see if they'll work.

[a_unique_person]

IIRC, the A7xxx refers to an AMD CPU mobo, which doesn't use the extra power connector, which is just for PIV type mother boards.

Ignore the reference, and curse me when black smoke billows from the mobo when you power on.

[Phillybee]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
This may be a dumb question, but hey, it won't be my first.

Why build a PC anyway?

I have found even adding a peripheral like a printer leads to incompatibilities , with both manufacturers blaming the other.

The combinatorial problems involved in getting MOB, memory, power supply, drives etc to cooperate scares me witless.

Is the financial saving so big? Or do you just torture yourself like this for fun?

You are far more likely to have compatability issues when you buy a full system from a company like Dell, HP, or Gateway, especially if there is proprietary hardware involved.

Once you build your first PC, you'll never look back.

[Rat]

Another vote here for building your own PC. I didn't, as such, build this one. But nothing other than the case and the occasionally-connected FDD is original. Soon after I got it, I replaced the mobo, cpu, and memory. Shortly after that, the psu. Then I swapped the 20GiB HDD for an 80 (now 0.6 TB total). Then the optical drives. And so on.

The advantage is that when I have the money to upgrade, I can replace the weakest link in the chain. PCs are inherently modular. Rather than buy a new PC and start from scratch every 2 or 3 years, I'd prefer the computer to evolve (develop would be a better word, I guess). Once I've swapped the HDDs out (I really need 1TB), it'll be time to do the whole mobo/cpu/memory thing again.

Cheers,
Rat.

[DangerousBeliefs]

I'd have to add my voice to all the builders... not only is it fun... it teaches you how computers and electronics work... and it's a lot less expensive then buying new.

I just upgrade my motherboard/MPU/RAM every other year... my video card is upgraded on the even years. Why go through the expense of new case/power/HDs/CD/DVDs?

I love DIYing.

[Vitnir]

Building a PC is all about customization and price. If I buy a package from big and cheap retailer I get to choose between the cheapest package which is ok for surfing the web etc or I can buy a gaming computer. My own build can be as cheap as the lowest you can find and still be ok for gaming and you dont have to pay all the extra cash.
On this occasion however it would have saved me some headache. My computer problems started a few months ago now and I couldnt figure out what caused reboots and errors in programs. It got narrowed down to either motherboard or CPU and I replaced the motherboard, lo and behold my frustration when it still acted up. Then I did what I probably should have done months ago since I have an identical setup for my wifes computer. The only item left to look at was the CPU, an Athlon 2500+ and I switched them around and both computers worked now! The only magic thing I did was I took the back-side of a spoon and smoothed the heattransfer paste on the cooling whatever-thingy, maybe the only problem all along was that the CPU was running hot but that it didnt show on the program that monitored temperatures? I have no idea.

[Soapy Sam]

I perceive I have fallen amongst phanatix...

I used to know a guy who built and maintained his own cars. He spent every weekend tinkering. But I noticed he rarely actually drove anywhere and he always seemed to be asking me for a lift...

Seriously- A friend showed me his homebuilt system about a month ago. He has been working on it since April. It's an impressive beast, but has a spec. damn near identical to a machine currently available by mail order from Tiny (UK outfit).
The difference is that Tiny sells it for £999 , whereas it has cost him (by his own estimate) £1100 in parts plus the value of his time. Economies of scale and competition are pushing pc prices down all the time.

Yes, his PC has a 64 bit AMD you can use as a space heater and the graphics are indeed impressive, as is the thermoregulation setup, which looks like the bridge of a starship by itself.

And OK, a hobby is a hobby and requires no further justification- but what I want to know (and I'm asking about the UK specifically here) is can it actually be cheaper and what recourse have you if two components simply don't work together?

[Frinkiak7]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
*snip*

And OK, a hobby is a hobby and requires no further justification- but what I want to know (and I'm asking about the UK specifically here) is can it actually be cheaper and what recourse have you if two components simply don't work together?

I'm not familiar with suppliers in the UK, but it can definitely be cheaper here in the US. Not only can I control every part that goes into my PC, but I can shop around at different suppliers to get better prices on single components. Quite a few suppliers here sell barebones systems as a starting point, and with that in hand, you can build on as you see fit. Personally, I like building from the ground up and then upgrading as needed. Admittedly, I don't upgrade often, and as such I'm not really on the bleeding edge. However, my current main system has been running for well over 4 years without a single serious problem.

As an added benefit, I can recycle non-upgraded parts (such as floppy drive, etc) between systems if and when I need to build a whole new system.

Simple answer to your second point. If something doesn't work, take it back to the store. Most places around here are very good about returns and exchanges. God help you if you shopped at Fry's though.

[Darat]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam


...snip...

And OK, a hobby is a hobby and requires no further justification- but what I want to know (and I'm asking about the UK specifically here) is can it actually be cheaper and what recourse have you if two components simply don't work together?

Depends on what spec you want to build, a mid to high end PC and I would say you can still build your own for less then an equivalent spec ready built PC in the UK. (But the margin on PCs is very low so I would suspect you aren’t; looking at major savings perhaps £50-150 on a thousand pound system).

For a low end PC I bet you'd find it pretty hard to beat some of the ready built PCs on offers - especially when you add in the software bundle.

I've built most of my PCs, sometimes just for fun but mainly because I wanted particular spec and mix of components that wasn’t available off-the-shelf, and I would say that is still the most "rational" ;) reason to build your own today. Want a particular graphics card, with a particular raid set-up, with a certain DVD-burner - well you'll pretty much have to build your own.

As for incompatibility problems. I would say that “plug and play� eventually saw an end to the major problems with adding hardware inside the case and USB ports as standard did the same for stuff you connect on the outside. (And as someone else mentioned a lot of the big manufacturers do turn out PCs with specific problems from time to time because they'll use a weird combination of say their own customised BIOS and hardware.)

[Wudang]

Yep, some places like cclcomputers.co.uk will put togther a pc of your spec for a reasonable charge. ebuyer.co.uk is hard to beat overall for prices even if you'll often find individual items priced cheaper elsewhere. I built my latest one because I wanted a case from www.quietpc.co.uk

On the other hand I couldn't get my latest PC with to run XP reliably. Thread stuck in device driver -> BSOD. It's happy running SUSE though.

[The Blind Painter]

If I may supply another answer to the "Why DIY" question: If you are going to run Linux, then you'll want to make sure that your components are Linux-friendly. Anyone who has wrestled with a Win-modem under Linux can attest to that. ;)

[Mongrel]

Seriously- A friend showed me his homebuilt system about a month ago. He has been working on it since April. It's an impressive beast, but has a spec. damn near identical to a machine currently available by mail order from Tiny (UK outfit).
The difference is that Tiny sells it for £999 , whereas it has cost him (by his own estimate) £1100 in parts plus the value of his time. Economies of scale and competition are pushing pc prices down all the time.


I used to work Tech Support for Tiny, before they went into liquidation and Time brought the name. Trust me the extra £200 is money well spent.
Most big name manufacturers are looking to cut their production cost as much as possible and since they buy such large quantities they can specify exactly what soes and doesn't get put on them, we used to call it the "Ker-Plunk" manufacturing process.
Start off with a perfectly good, basic motherboard (they used to use MSI), now start taking components off that are only there for redundancy, take off anything else that is deemed unnecessary until the board won't work - put back the last component and voila, £3 saved.
Then use good chipset but no-name manufacturer for things like graphics cards, stuff it in an unwieldy and awkward case that has terrible cooling and advertise it as "The latest 3d graphics" and then ship it to you with no OS disc, just a hidden partition on your hard drive.
The big manufacturers (Dell, HP etc.) will often go a step further and use proprietary connections, PSUs for instance are a nightmare for out of warranty Dells.

Building your own PC means that you can put in brands that you have found to be trustworthy - even though they may cost a little more, you'll have a better understanding of your machine and you can build exactly the right machine for you and yes, sometimes it just does come down to colour

I'll keep on saying "You get what you pay for"

[egslim]

Seriously- A friend showed me his homebuilt system about a month ago. He has been working on it since April. It's an impressive beast, but has a spec. damn near identical to a machine currently available by mail order from Tiny (UK outfit).
The difference is that Tiny sells it for £999 , whereas it has cost him (by his own estimate) £1100 in parts plus the value of his time. Economies of scale and competition are pushing pc prices down all the time.

Yes, his PC has a 64 bit AMD you can use as a space heater and the graphics are indeed impressive, as is the thermoregulation setup, which looks like the bridge of a starship by itself.

I don't know what he did, but building a pc from scratch shouldn't take more than two or three hours. And that's fairly generous. After that it takes about one day to install all software - though you can do this on an as needed basis, of course.

OEMs like Dell and HP will generally install lots of junk software. It's like moving into a new house where the walls and such are covered with advertisments. Not to mention spyware. It slows the machine down and is annoying. Doing a complete reïnstall solves this, and makes you more familiar and comfortable with your pc.

From a hardware perspective, OEMs rarely offer the best configuration for your needs. They have a different "general" config for every price segment. This means that in order to get a decent graphicscard you'll have to pay for a load of other, unnecessary stuff as well.

I have found even adding a peripheral like a printer leads to incompatibilities , with both manufacturers blaming the other.
Was this by any chance with an OEM pc?

[FreeChile]

Some of the economic benefits may come as new things come out. Other than that, it is actually more expensive to build--depending on what you are building. You could probably build a state-of-the-art machine for less than 1,500 dollars whereas you would have to pay over 2,000 for the same thing. But as new stuff comes out and you wait for that to drop in price, it is cheaper to adapt it to your system than to buy a new system. Here, knowing the internals of the system saves you time and morney. Both in selecting what you need and in not having to give someone money to install it for you. For example, when DVD writers drop in price, I intend to buy one and install it myself. I did the same when CAM corders dropped in price.

[Soapy Sam]

egslim- Waiting on parts- and returning a faulty graphics card- were the big delays. He buys stuff in the U.S, (much cheaper than the UK) and has it mailed.
My PC was a Brother A15. We are talking 1995-6. Win 3.1.
HP inkjet.
Both devices worked, just not with each other. Changed drivers, cables, plugs, nada. Finally swapped printers with a friend- a very basic Epson. Worked like a charm. But that cost me days of wasted time and frustration. I've had similar problems over the years with a USB2 port and an 8X AGP card which should have run (albeit at 4X rates) in my motherboard. NVIDIA. It didn't. Hey- I learned about beep codes though!:D

I've thought about upgrading my motherboard recently, but that means new memory, and drivers and reinstalling 3 years of XP upgrades and on and on... I think I'll buy something about six months behind the cutting edge. Proven,
old technology. Vacuum tubes. Brass handles. Something with style...

[Darat]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam


...snip...

I've thought about upgrading my motherboard recently, but that means new memory, and drivers and reinstalling 3 years of XP upgrades and on and on... I think I'll buy something about six months behind the cutting edge. Proven,
old technology. Vacuum tubes. Brass handles. Something with style...

Even though I love the latest technology (I mean why do marketing people need to do anything more then put "new" on the advert?") at the moment I would never recommend a casual user to go for the very latest and fastest version of technology "X".

New versions of technology are very rarely significantly faster, an extra say 5fps in Doom III at a “higher then makes any difference resolution� is not significant when the previous "latest" technology was managing 50fps.

One step down from the latest will net you a huge saving compared to the latest stuff. (And I bet with a PC that is configured as most people home PCs are i.e. not optimally you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference in performance.)

What about one of these?

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on-line/babbage/images/smallde1.jpg

[JR "BOB" Dobbs]

Do you have a difference engine? That would be most impressive.

Back on topic, the extra four connectors for the motherboard (speaking from an Intel perspective) is typically for the processor, and will be located near where your processor is located (although I didn't see it in the picture of your motherboard). Some motherboards have a place for four extra pins in the main power plug that will run power to a spare molex connector in another location on the motherboard (typically for modified cases that have accent lights and where wire management is paramount). If you don't see a plug. If there isn't a spare plug for the extra pins, I wouldn't sweat it. As was mentioned, it's probably a generic manual.

[voidx]

Just a small comment to add on custom built PC's. The price point is not always a large difference to be honest. However, performance is. A custom built PC with hardware that fully complements each other will often result in much better performance and stability for the same price as a manufactured PC. Of course this assumes a certain amount of knowledge. But as mentioned a PC should be put together within a couple hours. Many manufacturers get lower prices by sometimes using slightly more generic namebrand components, or using namebrand components, but using them in a wide variant of of different setups. Using just a little knowledge to make sure you've got the best RAM, CPU, PS, HDD and everything else for the motherboard you're operating on makes a noticable difference in performance for the same price.

As for compatibility...the arguement is easily...if you know what you doing, hence building a PC in the first place, you'll have researched compatibility before buying. At least in Canada, if the part doesn't work or isn't compatible, you simply return or exchange it.

Basic overclocking yields more performance, but at a little extra cost, more case fans, better heat sinks, but usually is not too cost prohibitive. Extreme overclocking such as water cooling scenarios are not cost effective. While you can drastically over-clock a CPU, as my brother has done, he'll be the first to admit that it'd be far cheaper too, simply buy the latest generation chip. In that instance, its purely for the hobby of it, and I must admit, his setup is very impressive. He even has quick-connect hoses, like you use on garden hoses, to easily and quickly disconnect his water hoses when he needs to work on the PC.

So in summary, with knowledge, for basic PC's, custom built can yield more performance and likely more stability than a manufactured PC for the same price. But the knowledge is key.

[egslim]

My PC was a Brother A15. We are talking 1995-6. Win 3.1.
HP inkjet.
Now that was a little before my time. :) But it seems in those days OEM pc's had a lot of propietary tech built in, more than they do now. So I think that is where the problem came from.