Build is finally finished! Took me two days, it was my first build so I spent most of the time building with an iPad in the other hand watching videos and reading guides on how to do it. There were some times while I was building where I thought "I should have just got NCIX to build it", but now that it's all done it's an immensely satisfying feeling. I've been planning this since February and to finally have it all done and built is awesome. So without further ado, here's my build log.
All the parts finally arrived. List here:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Noob616/saved/1rBY
Picture of the case with a pop can for scale.
Motherboard installed in the case.
Hyper 212+ and CPU installed. Omitted between this and the last picture was the 2 hour process of attaching the backplate to the motherboard, and then fiddling with the absurdly confusing mounting process. If I could capture a hundred swear words and frustrated sighs here, it would represent how this part of the build went. Not to mention how I thought I'd get cute and do a push pull set up on the 212+, the fan barely fit without touching the case fan, and it was quite the ordeal to install the fan.
So, remember where I said at one point I wished I had just paid the $50 for NCIX to do it? This was that point. Tried to just check if the GPU would conflict with the cooler, and of course the cooler (that I spent probably 2 hours mounting and another 45 minutes carefully mounting a fan to) was too big to work with the GPU. Hooray for stock heatsinks!
Decided to continue and get the RAM installed (this was the only thing that actually just went smoothly the way I planned
), PSU mounted, and a couple cables routed.
Into the home stretch now, got home from work today eager to finish the build. I connected all the cables and mounted the GPU. I did my best at cable management, but it's still quite a mess. I'm going to probably open the case and route the cables better this weekend. It's not too bad though, keep in mind that the GPU and PSU exhaust right out of the case, and that there's two fans in the middle of the front of the case pulling air, as well as a fan pushing air out the back. The middle of the case is most important to keep clear.
And after a few tense moments where I plugged in the PC and nothing happened (I dislodged the 24pin power connector while velcroing some cables together), I got everything booted up and installing Windows from a flash drive. Had a bit of an issue with the installation stuck at the screen you see here, but setting the onboard video as the default fixed the problem. After installing Windows I didn't have any trouble with the 670 (once drivers were installed of course).
(What I anticipate to be)
FAQ's (relatively speaking)
"Was it hard to build the computer in a small case like that?"
- Yes, if you make a mistake you have to take out whatever part you're working on. Minor issues become a huge ordeal, and good luck finding a screw if you drop one.
"Is that Windows Vista installing in the last picture?"
-Yes. I had a Vista install with a valid serial around so I'm installing Vista on the computer for now and I'll be upgrading to Windows 8 very soon.
