Gadgetory

hey everybody welcome to the harbor connects guide on how to build your very own custom PC now whether you're building from the ground up or you just want to do a few hardware upgrades this episode hopefully should help you do that now we've split it up into a whole bunch of very simple to follow steps so you can either select any one of those in the next frame or you can watch the video in its entirety and soon you'll be turning this into well hopefully one of these hope you enjoy the tutorial now before we get started there's a few tools that you may want to have handy you will need a Phillips head screwdriver if you want to keep your cabling clean some cable ties aren't a bad idea and also an anti-static wrist strap or anti-static glove probably isn't a bad move or just be smart and make sure that you ground yourself on a piece of metal before handling any electronics and you probably don't want to do this on carpet first we're going to go over one of the more delicate operations of building your PC and that is installing the CPU on to the motherboard now I generally recommend to do this outside of the case because you have more of to work with and it also makes it much easier to install the heatsink now to actually install our CPU will be undoing the lever on the side opening up the metal retention bracket and then be very careful to remove the plastic cover over the CPU pins do not touch those as they can very easily be damaged now if you take a close look at the CPU what you'll notice is two notches up on one end of the CPU as well as a triangle in one of the bottom corners now if you move over to the CPU socket you'll notice that there's two posts that correlate to the same area as the notches on the CPU as well as in one of the corners there'll be a little dot or an arrow that matches up with the arrow on the CPU just so long as you make sure that the arrows and the notches match up you're installing your CPU correctly now we'll put our retention bracket back down and take our lever there will be a bit of resistance but provided you installed your CPU correctly there may be any damage push this down and underneath the clip for part two or installing the heatsink and fan which if you're lucky already has thermal paste on the bottom however if it doesn't you're going to need to bring some of your own and we just want to put a little drop a little smaller than a pea-sized on the top of the CPU depending if you're using a larger CPU or not that is all you need and then just make sure that the tabs are situated to the back and clamps go into the four holes all around the CPU socket make sure that it's secure on the bottom and just press these tabs down and that's all there is to it so that's how you do an intel system but what if you're doing an AMD build just like Intel AMD has an arrow on one of the bottom four corners of the CPU this will match up with an arrow on the CPU socket and the CPU should drop right in without any force the heatsink will fit on only one of two ways just make sure that your heatsink clamps fit up with the notches on the CPU retention bracket and then push down the lever so while we have the motherboard out of the case let's go on to how to install your memory what you'll notice is at the bottom of the memory stick there is a notch that's slightly off-center and this corresponds to a separator on the memory slots on the motherboard this is so that it's impossible to install the memory backwards you load us on the motherboard that the memory slots are color-coded make sure that you fill all of the ones in one set before moving on to the next so to actually install our Ram undo the retention clips on the DIMM slots you want to populate usually they'll be ones on both sides of the slot grab your RAM make sure that you match up the notch with the divider on the DIMM slot make sure you put it in evenly now there will be a little bit of force required push down evenly on both sides of the RAM stick you'll notice a little clip as the stick fits in again second one we're putting into slot number three match it up slide it in evenly and push down evenly until you hear the clip of the retention bracket going back into place and that's all there is to it in general there's no strict order for the components to be installed into the system I typically choose to go with the power supply first because it's the one component that all of the others are definitely going to use and it also allows for much easier cable routing now how hard this setup is largely depends on the case that you go with and the power supply that you choose if you go with a mid-sized Tower or even a full-sized Tower like this 800 d you have a lot more room to work with inside also we've gone with a muskan modular power supply which allows us to add in cables only as we need them this reduces our cable clutter improves our air flow and cuts down on the installation hassle by a lot depending on your case you'll either have a top mounted or bottom mounted power supply the one thing to keep in mind is that your power supply fan always needs to have a source of air whether it's from inside the case or like in this scenario we have venting at the bottom so we can install our power supply seemingly upside down with you're installing the power supply upside down or right side up installation is the same match up these four holes with the holes in the power supply put your screws in and it's on to the rest let's move on to installing the motherboard now you want to make sure that you've installed all of the standoffs on to the motherboard tray already and make sure that where you place them corresponds to the size of motherboard that you have whether it's ATX em ATX or EA TX in fact there should be little H markings on the motherboard tray stating exactly where you should put each standoff you don't want to have any extra ones in places they're not supposed to go because it can cause serious headaches later on down the road I usually find it easier to install the motherboard with the case laying on its side now the first thing I want to do is install your i/o shield which even for experienced builders this process can be a bit of a pain in the now for the actual motherboard installation we'll put it in very gently so that the rear i/o connections match up with the space and the shield and most importantly so that the space is in the motherboard match up with the motherboard standoffs now very rarely will you find these align perfectly so you'll generally have to hold the board in place while you install the first few screws I usually suggest to go with the diagonal three first and the rather six will fall into place for a build we're using a solid-state drive which actually fits perfectly onto the drive caddy for the hot swappable 8 under D now for those who don't have a caddy or a system that fits a solid state drive naturally you may be able to use a three and a half inch to two and a half inch drive adapter alongside our hard drive we'll also be installing the optical drive which if you're lucky your case will support a tooless system otherwise we'll be using the good ole fashioned screw and screw driver just make sure you consult your manual to find out precisely how to install all of your drives finally we have probably the most important piece of just about any enthusiast system and that is the graphics card you'll want to install the graphics card in the topmost PCI Express slot as well make sure that you take out the appropriate rear expansion card brackets you want to make sure that the graphics card connectors fit completely inside of the expansion card slot and that you can get your retention screws in without a lot of force if you're going to be removing your graphics card watch out for the retention clip at the back of the PCI Express slot when you're taking the card out make sure you either unclip or hold this piece up while you take the card out otherwise you may just break it off and void your motherboard warranty or worse break the card now all of our components are installed into our system but that's not the most tedious part of building a computer that is getting all these into there let's move on to cabling to start we're going to get all of the connections from the power supply hooked up to their respective components for starters we have the 24 pin or possibly 20 pin power connection which hooks up to the motherboard usually you'll find the socket for this somewhere along the right side of the board in the middle make sure for all of the connections that a little clamp on the side of the power connection matches up with the knotch on the board connection now all of these will probably require a little bit of force to get in but once they're in they should be fairly snug the next connector you're likely to run into is a 4 pin or a 4 & 4 pin connector for the motherboard this fits up in the top left hand corner of the motherboard and you want to make sure you don't get this connector confused with an 8 pin PCI Express power connector which is usually defined by a PCIe on the back of the actual connection next come the 6 pin PCI Express power connections for graphics cards now for certain high-end cards you may find that it requires 8 pins which you can often find is an extra 2 pin attachment on the side of the cable these plug straight in to the graphics card either on the side or at the back you'll also be working with serial ata connections for your hard drives or optical drives you'll notice they have a bit of an L shape to them so they fit into the device only one way and of course we can't forget molex connections which are usually used for older devices or most likely fans you'll have both a male and female connection which when paired together fit in rather snugly you want to make sure to install all of the serial ata data cables which again have that little L shape from the device onto the appropriate space of the motherboard after the device is installed in the computer of course the final piece is getting all of the front panel connections such as your power reset USB and fan connections hooked up to the proper place on the motherboard make sure that you consult your motherboard manual to find out exactly where the proper headers are so ends our brief tutorial on the basics of how to build or upgrade your PC one thing to keep in mind is that the installation procedures for some of the components may be a little different than what we've depicted in the video so always make sure to read over any manuals that come with the hardware in the event that you're still having a little trouble feel free to hop over to the hardware canucks forums and ask away if you have any tips tricks or questions about PC building leave them in the youtube comments and as always thanks for watching we hope you found this video informative and we'll see you next time