Microcenter Mayhem

[KeltonDSMer]

Hey LTT. Here is a follow up from a thread I made on Saturday: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/176825-microcenter-crazynessoverwhelmed-looking-for-advice/
 
I ended up building the AMD system, an 8320 on the MA99FX Pro R2.0. I am currently transferring a bunch of music and such to the new setup so I figure this is a good time to write a quick log of how my morning went while things are going on in the background here on the new rig.
 
I bought all the parts Saturday, but got caught up reading the damn mobo manual last night so I didn't start the build until yesterday morning. Honestly the manual makes everything seem so freaking complicated, but little things were pretty helpful to read before jumping into it. For example, I had to use a specific sata port for the Optical drive, and set it to IDE mode in bios in order to boot off the DVD (random stuff).

 

Other parts:

NZXT Source 210

CM 212

2x8 GB Crucial 1600mhz/cl9

Windforce R9 270

Coolmax ZX600 (please don't hate lol)

Crucial M500 240GB

WD Blue 1TB 7200rpm

Optical drive

8.1

This was my first build, and the first box i opened had a nice surprise:

 

 

I thought it was not solid at first and was a blown capacitor or something, but I poked it with a zip-tie and it feels like silicone caulk, nothing to worry about. Just some crappy assembly.

 

Moving on, pins sure look fine and good on the 8320!

 

 

The CM HE 212 is a little rougher on the surface than I would have imagined, I wish I had the time to fix that, but I figure I'll see what temps look like and won't worry about it until it is an issue. This cooler, by the way, kinda sucks to install by yourself. It took me a good 5 minutes to get it mounted mostly because of how careful I was not to move the thermal paste around (I used AS ceramique 2 instead of the stuff in the 212 box). The factory mount for the cooler had a bad thread so i chased the back-plate with a tap in case i need it for something later.

 

 

 

I was terrified looking through the RAM compatibility list in the mobo manual, there were hundreds of listings even brands I had never heard of that were validated for this board. My choice of memory was not on that massive list...how was Crucial Ballistix 1600mhz/cl9/1.5V 8GB dims not validated yet "Transcend" brand 2400mhz 1.65v 2GB sticks are lol! Whatever, the board has some really cool RAM compatibility and troubleshooting features so I gave it a go.

 

 

Whew, POST and xmp profile even auto set the 2x8 crucials at 1600mhz/9-9-9-24. Sweet!

 

 

It was creepy, the board showed the correct date when it fired up...it has a September 2013 build date . 39C CPU temp in bios seemed fine considering heat cycles are needed to properly set in the paste (or so it says on the package). The power supply sounds fine with only fan noise, and no whine or smell from the junk the assembler got all over that coil. I went ahead and installed everything into the Source 210.

 

 

I very much like the subtle look of the case, and the fact it was just over $30 made it even more appealing. What I didn't expect were the many little issues I ran into with damage that was not from transport. The top PCIE bracket has the screw cross-threaded into the case, and the top left of the mobo tray by the IO was bent upwards. I threaded the standoffs down an the one on the bent section was visibly off at an angle. I placed in the mobo carefully just to see what the bent section would do to the alignment...it was way off. No problem, i just grabbed a paper towel and a crescent wrench and bent it back into place (paper to keep it from scratching). I chased the bad threads on the PCIE bracket with a tap and blew the case out with compressed air to make sure there was no chance of a small metal flake shorting something later.

 

 

 

 

 

The mobo then lined up nicely with the IO shield and the standoff now was now angled correctly; the screw in the troublesome corner went in straight. The rest of the parts went in without much hassle, though I was slowed down in a few spots. Like a dummy I put the HDD in the slot right in front of the top PCIE slot (i was thinking about spacing on the 3 SATA connectors I needed to use just one cable from the non-modular PSU). I also didn't read any reviews on the 210 so I had no idea it lacked any sort of SSD or even 2.5" HDD accommodations. No biggie, the bottom of the 5.25" bays is pretty flat and I had a little square of 2-3mm thick double sided tape and gave the M500 a cushy little mount.

 

 

 

I got everything installed and started to tidy up the wiring a little bit. Please understand that I care very little about appearance of these parts, it is a very understated case with no window after all. My RAM is full on green PCB with no heat spreader to cover it up on a blue board.The Yellow and orange wires everywhere are, however, hideous, so I did at least  a little something about that. I grabbed some old wire loom I had left over from helping friends install sub woofers in their cars in high school back in the mid 2000's. I think it looks better than what I first thought, it has that sort of cheapo AIO "bumpy" hose look to it.......way better than what are seriously the worst wire colors I have ever seen. Hey, like Linus mentioned when he was talking power supplies with that guy, the less desirable colors of wires are cheaper to use because of their overstock in China. I was not about to buy a power suppy that costs as much as the GPU just to get cables that detach and black wires for a build like this. I stuffed the remaining colored monstrosities in a black sock and tucked them behind the drive bay.

 

 

 

 

All done! Take note the 212 BARELY fits in this case, it for sure touches the side panel but the panel slides on just as it is should without obstruction. Windows install was super fast from Optical onto the SSD, must have only taken 10-15minutes because it was done before I was finished making lunch. Overall, the build took about 3-3 1/2 hours from when I started opening boxes to closing the case. The connector Asus put in the mobo box for the front panel connectors saved me from a huge PITA, that was nice. It took me longest after the thing was in Windows to get all my settings the way I like it and programs installed. I should have loaded a USB stick with all the installers and stuff for the basics, but I just went one by one with my crummy 7mb/s connection (really it is 5-6).

 

After all said and done, I feel pretty content with the build. I need to add some fans in the intake spots that come emtpy, thankfully the Windforce is open air and not a blower, that would have made even more negative pressure. Cooling seems okay, I left HW monitor open all day while just doing normal tasks and package temp maxed out at 48C and the CPU maxed at 54C. Ambient temps in here today were up to 30C, it was really toasty outside and I have no evaporative cooler or AC. The factory settings on this mobo seem to run this chip all over the place. Everywhere from 1.1V at 1.4Ghz while typing to just over 4Ghz at a max of 1.4V. It seems to only be running 1.2-1.3V at around 3.7Ghz when installing stuff and moving files which seems reasonable. It has stabilized at about 45C doing light work and idles 4-6 degrees below that.

 

Once a few games have downloaded in the morning I will go more manual with the bios settings and CCC and see what this thing can do with one case fan lol.

 

Thanks for reading!

[Bagmup]

The silicone goop in your psu is to stop coil whine, all psu's have it.

[KeltonDSMer]

The silicone goop in your psu is to stop coil whine, all psu's have it.

 

Oh wow, I had no idea that was put on there purposefully! Thanks for the info, I had assumed the employee at that stage in the assembly line was falling asleep or something

 

I've seen the inside of plenty of AC/DC power supplies, car battery chargers for example are very similar to most of what makes a PC PSU and haven't seen the "insulator coil whine redction goop technique" before. Some of them whine a lot and could use this for sure, but I guess quiet opperation on those things is not a major concern for that type of equipment. Thanks again, really cool to know what that was all about!

[aom]

Another Source 210 Owner! (I have the Elite Version)

And for the negligible price difference, why didn't you go with a Source 210 Elite, not that big of a deal but an extra fan and USB 3.0 is a nice addition. 

[Monti]

almost the same build. How did you like working with/in the case because I had a hard time with cable management with my Tempest 210.

[KeltonDSMer]

Another Source 210 Owner! (I have the Elite Version)

And for the negligible price difference, why didn't you go with a Source 210 Elite, not that big of a deal but an extra fan and USB 3.0 is a nice addition. 

 

This whole thing was kind of on the fly as you can see in the post mentioned at the top of the page. I went into microcenter because of a deal they had posted for the unlocked pentium + z97 MSI mobo for $99. It quickly got out of hand (not in a bad way though ). I had never built a computer or even installed a card of any sort before this last weekend.

 

I didn't really know anything about the case before I went into Microcenter. They had a huge stack of them on sale for $35 and I loved the black simple style and the heftyness of the case itself. They didn't have more than maybe 15 cases in there and the 210 was an easy choice for me. Solid build quality and clean appearance. I only have one USB3 device (eHDD that can't even take near full advantage of 3.0) and there is plenty of USB 3.0 on this board's IO. An extra fan would have been really nice but honestlly I didn't even check first so there is nothing to be dissapointed about. I do feel like dust will be a major issue with my current airflow arrangement but I have a big air compressor 20 ft away from me in the garage so I don't mind having to blow it out on occasion. I really like the 210 and feel like there is nothing to get "bored" of.

 

 

almost the same build. How did you like working with/in the case because I had a hard time with cable management with my Tempest 210.

 

Holy crap that is pretty much the same build! Really the main reason I am running 16GB ram is because I wanted to buy enough in case I decided to build something with that $99 G3258/z97 combo I grabbed while I was there. I might as well run two sticks for dual channel until that happens. I was so close to getting just enough for the 2nd system, yet all I have left is the $99 combo. I could have used one of the ram sticks in this rig, a 430W EVGA power supply that was on sale for $20, one of the drives in this rig or another 1TB WD blue for $49, a super cheap case and had another system for very little extra. For now, I am stoked with the build and don't feel bad about the G3258/z97 sitting there because it was such a good deal and will be a lot of fun to screw around with.

 

I have nothing to compare this build to, but it seemed pretty straight forward to get the cables maged behind the mobo tray. I was able to run the HDD, SSD, and Optical SATA power off of just one cable from the non-modular PSU so that was awesome. At first the HDD was in the 2nd slot for better airflow and more natural bend for power and data, but I had to move it to the top slot because the GPU was too long (duh I can't believe I didn't notice that lol). It was still fairly cozy on the power wires for the HDD in the top slot to the 270, but not having to use another spider web of power cables and not having one hangin loose on the string being used really helped keep a bunch of crap out of the way.

 

I first pulled all the cables away from eachother in the case as well as the wires coming from the PSU; I then made sure to try to cross any cables in as few places as possible. There seemed to be loops and things everywhere to tie wires to, and the space where the the bottom intake fan goes is where I put the ramining two molex and SATA power strings from the PSU in the black sock. The 24pin Power is pretty tight in the back, but keeping it bent gradually and not crossing it with another set of wires behind the tray made all the difference for sure. If I add an intake fan, I'll put in in the top spot for better flow to all the componnents. If I feel I want that bottom slot for a 2nd fan, I'll just put the sock in the bottom of the HDD tray or tie the wires up in the back not in the sock.