Hello!
I upgraded my gaming rig a month ago and I did some clear mistakes, but its something I will learn from and do better till next upgrade! Ill explain every mistake only for others to follow my example how not to think if you are going to upgrade the build. I lost about $130 because of these mistakes, not much some may think but its alot of money for a student.
My fails were: falling for a beautiful case, forgetting rgb software, check how many internal USB ports you are going ot be using, double check H110i backplate fitting to motherboard, checking where the cables are going on the motherboad and buying too many fans.
First off "falling for a beautiful case", well back in january when I planned my upgrades the new Trident Z RGB was released and I just had to get my hands on them, which means I needed to change case from the R4 to something with a window. I looked through every case I could find, design/size/cable management/filtering, I went through them all and my choice? Fractal design S, why? Its a lot of space which is good for my Strix 1080, it had a window, it had good dust protection and was renowed for its silence. I made up a list of every item i would purchase. I worked all summer about 8-9 weeks to raise money for this cause, when I had the money I headed off and bought everything I wanted. BUT, when I came home I didnt have the time to build the computer because I had to leave for gamescom, at the same time Fractal design just released their new case, meshify C. When I got home all I wanted was that meshify, I thought I had bought a C model which I didnt, so I traded the previous case in for the meshify. I knew its was going to be tight, and it was, too tight. The graphics card didnt fit, so I slept and went off and bought fractal design R5, the case I tried to avoid. I tried to avoid it because it didnt have cool features like fractal design S or C. Im happy with my buy now but I fell like a idiot not taking the exact size into consideration.
So be careful of what case you buy, look up the total size, look at others building and do the math about how big things are before you go ahead buying without thinking it through.
I bought the Trident Z RGB, and they work with AURA, but some of the fans I bought(2) are from a NZXT hub kit. This means these fans work with another rgb program.
So look up what programs the fans are using and try having one program instead of having 3...
Well I messed up with the motherboard aswell. I bought the cool MAXIMUS IX Code, because it looks good in a RGB build, it has cool m.2 support thingy and it supports aura rgb. What I didnt think of was how many internal USB ports I was going to use, it didnt cross my mind, so now I ordered a extra hub and have to wait a month before I can install the NZXT hue+.
So think about what needs internal USB support and check off with the motherboard you are looking at buying. Having 3 things that needs USB support, make sure to have 3+ USB males ready to go.
I realised I needed a better watercooler, and after checking some reviews I made up my mind about H110i. It was going to the front of the case and id change the fans to noctuas industrial fans for them to be more quiet and faster if needed to be. Though that was never the problem, the problem was that when I took out the cpu backplate and what the cooler sits on the backplate didnt work with 1151-socket. So I had to take the old backplate from my previous watercooler. I was lucky to have a spare backplate, otherwise Id have to wait on that too and those arent easy to find.
So, im not really sure, it says the backplate should fit on but it dont? Could be manufacturing fail but just to get it out there, it happends.
Well this one is kinda hard to know about before hand if you havnt done it before. But something I noticed with both meshify and R5 was that the top part of the middle cable management hole on the front dosnt really like the power cables, from motherboard to the PSU. Maybe I had too fat of cables but I had to cut off a bit rubber on the top to make the cable fit. Feels bad to modify a completly new case and screw it up, since the meshify didnt work for my build, I cut the rubber for no reason. I think I have this problem because of how high up on the motherboard the power cable female input are but I could just be a fail on Fractal designs design.
So, be awere of this.
I had 5 fan spots on my case, 2 are ocupied by the cooler and the other 2 are on the top. I put my HDD on the bottom of my case since I didnt have room for the harddrive brackets, so no fan there, and the fan is too big for placement on the back. So I bought one too many fans, not that big of a deal but still, it could have been avoided.
So, double check the spacing you are giving your fans, you want to buy the precise amount and not having a spare fan laying around.
Message of this?
Well these are some mistakes I have done, and Im not so proud of them. Its kinda on a beginners level and it feels like Im past that, but maybe life had to prove me wrong. Humans are built on mistakes, we wouldnt be where we are today without them. The human factor, mistakes are bound to happend.
I have no clue where to post this, and build log just seemed fitting since its about a previous build, but please move it if theres a better place of the thread.
What kind of mistakes have you made? Which ones are you not so proud of doing? please share them, we all could learn from each others mistakes.