Building my computer

[Dutchsemigamer]

Hello, I'm a quite fresh member and I am very close to building my first PC. I have read the sticky about building pc's, but I have also read some other guides. I still have some questions though.

First of all, the static electricity. Will wearing shoes with rubber soles help from getting static load on yourself? Almost our entire house is filled with a carpet-floor cover, I assume this is quite a big problem. Would putting everything on a wooden table, touching a metal grounded surface and not touching any carpet do the trick?
Also, something that kind of bothered me, is that I couldn't find the assemblage of casefans in any of the guides. It might not be a surprise, but I don't know anything about this either. Will having a sane mind fix this? Also, if so, at which step should I assemble these?

Something else that *scared* me, was this section of MechBgon's guide.
The picture below shows a special Fan-Only cable, which is a feature of Antec's TruePower models, and perhaps other brands of power supplies such as Corsair and Seasonic. On these plugs, the 12-volt wire gets a variable voltage depending on the temperature that the power supply itself is experiencing. The idea is that it will reduce the speed, and therefore the noise level, of the case fans when the system is running cool. Do not power anything but fans from the Fan-Only line, do not put self-regulating or manually-adjustable fans on the Fan-Only line (because two layers of voltage regulation may stall your fan), and do not make the Fan-Only connectors power more than three fans total.
How do I know if the fan is self regulating or manually adjustable?

1 last thing. I've checked out the Intel LGA775 pinless Pentium4, Pentium D and Celeron D installation on youtube, which was linked to in Mech's guide. What I noticed was that they didn't use any thermal paste. How come? Also, does thermal paste come with the CPU/CPU cooler, or should I buy it separately? I am not planning on assembling an army of computers, so buying a whole new tube would be a waste, I guess.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: Dutchsemigamer

• First of all, the static electricity. Will wearing shoes with rubber soles help from getting static load on yourself?

• Would putting everything on a wooden table, touching a metal grounded surface and not touching any carpet do the trick?

• Also, something that kind of bothered me, is that I couldn't find the assemblage of casefans in any of the guides. It might not be a surprise, but I don't know anything about this either. Will having a sane mind fix this? Also, if so, at which step should I assemble these?

• How do I know if the fan is self regulating or manually adjustable?

• What I noticed was that they didn't use any thermal paste. How come? Also, does thermal paste come with the CPU/CPU cooler, or should I buy it separately?

1: No, your clothes will pick it up anyway.

2: Just roll up your sleeves, touch the case, unplug the PSU from the wall and keep it all on a clean surface.

3: Case fans are pretty much just put-screws-in-surround-screw-into-case-holes jobs.

4: Manually adjustable fan will have 4 wires (IIRC) and will be connected to a small dial usually. Automatic will have 4 wires and plug into the motherboard's CPU_FAN header usually. If you mean case fans, if they don't have a dial they'll usually just run at max.

5: The generic heatsink comes with a thermal pad, that's why. Most heatsinks come with some thermal paste applied anyway. Unless you're overclocking really far whatever comes on it is grand.

 

[DSF]

If you are using the retail box cooler that comes with your CPU, don't put any thermal material on the CPU. Thermal material has already been applied to the base of the cooler. Just pop it on and you're good to go.

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking about case fans. If you mean when they should be installed, I find it helps to do it first before the motherboard, video card, CPU cooler, etc. are in the way.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: Dutchsemigamer
... in Mech's guide. What I noticed was that they didn't use any thermal paste.

Just so there's no confusion, the thermal insulation material (TIM) goes between the CPU cooler and the CPU, not between the CPU and it's mounting base.

 

[Dutchsemigamer]

Great, thanks a lot everyone! The case doesn't have a removable Mobo bracket, which means that it will be some extra fuss. Nothing I can't handle, I hope!