Gadgetory

so in our last episode of this now two-part series we tackled a handful of common problems that new computer builders face and even some things that those of you with experience would do well to remember you can check that out right there but obviously there was no way we were going to be able to cover everything that could go wrong in just one five-minute video so what are some other things that you should be looking out for let's start small and talk about those annoying little front panel connectors unlike most of the connections inside your PC the front panel header isn't keyed in any way so it's possible to plug things in in the wrong orientation and considering how many pins there are on the header it can be one of the most frustrating parts of any build to make this as painless as possible look at the diagram on your motherboard near the front panel header or in your motherboard manual you'll usually see plus and minus signs to indicate which way to plug in your leads but sometimes this isn't clearly indicated on the leads themselves very frustrating if this is the case the colored wire is usually positive and failing that you can look for a little tiny embossed arrow which indicates the positive side but you shouldn't worry about it too much anyway if you plug something in backwards and it doesn't work you won't damage anything just turn it around and try again and the orientation for the pins for your power and reset switches doesn't matter anyway since all those do is complete a circuit by shorting the pins when you press the button but now let's go from talking about small stuff to something big namely that tower style CPU air cooler that's beefier than a porterhouse steak if you're going with one of these pay close attention to your K specs a lot of people assume that if your CPU socket is listed on the box as one that fits the cooler will sit but how bulky some higher-end coolers are and the fact that even standard ATX cases aren't a uniform width you could end up not being able to fit ram into your slots or your side panel on if you aren't careful fortunately memory manufacturers list the height of their modules and many case manufacturers give a max cooler clearance spec that takes into account the height of the motherboard itself so have a look at that if you don't plan to use a water cooler and speaking of huge CPU coolers you probably have one because you're trying to overclock your processor right and if it's an Intel well you've made sure to buy an unlocked K or X series right you should be ready to go not so fast aside from needing an unlocked processor your motherboard chipset also needs to support overclocking an easy way to make sure it does before you buy is just to look at the letter in the chipset name if it contains a Z or an X such as Z 270 or X 99 then you're all set to overclock but if it's something else like an H B or Q you'll probably find that unless your motherboard manufacturer has an experimental bios available which is quite uncommon you can't change your CPU multiplier ouch okay then so you've got the right motherboard cooler in case and you're ready to put it all together but wait there are two things you really do not want to forget the first is the i/o shield at the back of the case which I would strongly recommend putting in before doing anything else countless builders even very experienced ones have installed all their components without realizing until they were nearly done that they forgot the i/o shield forcing them to take everything out and put it all back in unless they want to live with an awkward gaping hole in their case or even worse they might have missed one of the little tabs that you have to bend up sometimes ending up with it stuck in a port shorting it out and killing it the second one not to forget is when it is time to install that CPU cooler don't forget to peel the protective film off the bottom of the heatsink since you don't actually look at that part of the heatsink the part that actually contacts the CPU very often it's easy to mount the cooler without removing this plastic if you do that not only will you experience abnormally high CPU temperatures but the plastic can melt leaving an ugly mess for you to deal with later as well as wasted thermal compound and time speaking of avoiding messes what are some of your top tips for preventing issues with your shiny new build let us know in the comments and you might see your ideas in a future tech quickie episode also let us know if you'd like to see more avoiding PC building traps videos just like this one but if you were thinking to yourself gee I just avoided all these PC building traps and I've got this great PC but I can't get on frickin websites because their country blocked then I have a solution for you tunnel bear it's easy to use and lets you tunnel your internet connection to one of 20 different countries whether you're using iOS Android PC Mac they also have a Chrome 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