Connect all the components??

[chuwawa]

I wasn't forseeing such a badly written manual. What's the use of writing one in 10 languages if its crap to begin with??

Anyway, I have no idea what to connect with what? Mechbgons guide is awesome but it doesn't specifically mentions where and what gets plugged in.

I need to know how many cables are supposed to come out of each component and where do they go? mobo? ps.

There's 3 possible connections to be made on my sata drive...1 I found the spot for on the mobo...and the 2nd longer strippy thing is supposebly the power but what's the third??

Also, there's like a gazillion lines coming out of the front...where the usb ports and stuff are.. Where do these go?

please help, thanks =(

 

[Paratus]

It would help if we knew what type of components you have.

For example my WD HD has three connectors A small SATA data connector, a larger SATA power connector, and a four pin legacy molex power connector. I only needed to connect the data connector and one and only one of the power connectors.

 

[mechBgon]

Sorry, I didn't have a SATA drive available to take pictures of. I wish you'd picked a regular PATA drive instead, because if plugging in the cables is giving you trouble, just wait 'til you get to Windows Setup and making the board boot from the drive. Granted, on some motherboards it's not too convoluted, but on others... holy cow. What mobo did you get?

 

[chuwawa]

It's a seagate 200gb sata HD, A liteon basic cd-rom, a generic floopy drive and a radeon9800pro.

The lines coming from the front of the usb ports have labels on them such as USB, 1934, audio...The only one I knew where to connect is the usb because there's 2 spots on the motherboard (chaintech vnf-250).

Edit: mechbgon, I don't think even a PATA would help out because I'm not entirely sure if I'm connecting the cd rom correctly either. I may be...but I'm not sure since I've never done it. So I need some sort of 'checklist' or something. =)

Basically, I connected one of the cables coming out of the hardrive (its ~1cm long) into the mobo (that was easy). The 2nd one (according to the sticker is the power cable...~2cm long) is the power cable...so I just connect that to any of the lines coming out of the powersupply? Is that all or must I use the third connecting part...on the hardrive or is that optional for something else?

 

[IanE]

Well without knowing exactly what you have.... connect everything to the 4 pin molex connectors, connect the cable for your HDD that says system to the motherboard, and master to the main HDD. Connect the big 20 pin connector from the PSU to the motherboard, make sure the holes line up. Plug in the 4 pin PSU connector to the motherboard, connect the heatsink to the SYS_FAN or something labeled along those lines with the little 3 socket connector.

The case buttons are easy... somewhere, most likely the bottom right, of your motherboard there are a lot of little pins that have multiple colors and stuff like HDD_LED PWR_SWT RST_SWT PWR_LED like that written. Connect the wires from the case to the respective pins.

That should be it... be sure to have everything plugged in and correct. EVERYTHING needs power.

It would help if you could make a detailed list of what components you have, but that should generally cover it, I hope it helps.

Ian

If you know the motherboard specs, you should be able to download a detailed .pdf of the layout of the board, that should make it waaay easy to install.

PLUG ALL HDD, AND DISK DRIVES TO IDE PLUGS!

The floppy drive will have its OWN connector. It should connect to FDD_1 or something like that on the motherboard, most likely it'lll be near IDE1 and IDE2, or IDEPrimary and IDESecondary, you get it.

On most IDE devices there's a 4 pin connector usually on the right, the big scuzzy strip in the middle, and a smaller connector on the left.

I have no experience with SATA or any raid configurations, but for your cd players and stuff you should just plug one of the 4 pin molex connetors from the PSU to the right 4 pins on the IDE device, and then attached the scuzzy, make sure you align the pins and holes cus theres one that is filled in on the cable and that could damage the single pin it comes into contact with.

As for all the USB cords in the front, consider this. How many USB plugs are in the back, and do you REALLY need to plug the front USB and speaker/mic wires in? If you have speakers you can just run the earphones into those and plug a mic into the motherboard I/O panel if you need to. My motherboard has 4 USB 2.0 ports on the back, so I didn't bother plugging all that crap in.

I'll post more when I think of it.. Doom3 has left me paranoid and mentally exhausted.

 

[mechBgon]

The CD-ROM drive needs a data cable and a power cable. The data cable is keyed at both ends so it can only fit one way into the drive. In fact, of all the cables and plugs in the computer, the only one that I can think of that you could get plugged in where it doesn't belong is the round keyboard & mouse plugs, which it matters which hole they go in (see the visual glossary page). Don't plug two power plugs into your SATA drive either, pick either the flat SATA-style one or the conventional four-pin one, but not both at the same time.

Look again at my page showing the data and power cables, and later there is a page that does show all of it getting plugged in. Since the stuff mostly fits only one way (the right way), I didn't bother with macro shots of it. Worst-case scenario, you might get your floppy cable upside down at one end and have to flip it over to get the floppy to work right.

I don't think your Chaintech will be too hard to get to boot from the hard drive, thankfully You'll probably need to go into the motherboard's BIOS (press the DEL key on the keyboard when you see the POST stuff on the screen at startup), then go into the Advanced BIOS Settings menu, and set the second boot device to SATA (first one can be CD-ROM so you can set up Windows from CD).

 

[chuwawa]

Ok, so this is what I've done.

Floppy
-the huge cable goes into the mobo marked 'fd1'
-the power (the weird looking one is connected to one of the lines on the PS)

CD-rom
-huge cable connected to IDE1 on mobo
-power connected (with the 4 pings) to one of the lines on the PS

SATA HD
- 1cm weird looking line connectes to mobo marked 'sata1'
-2cm weird looking line connects to a line from the power supply with the 4 wide pins (is this what you call the molex connector?)

VGA
-just plugged into a line from the pS with the 4 pins

HS fan
-connected on the mobo that says 'cpu fan'

REAR fan
-connected to a line from the ps

I'm only wondering what this 1934 line thingy from the front of the case should be connected to? I couldn't find a hole for it

ok am I set?

 

[mechBgon]

So far so good, you've earned a snack break

The 1394 cable is for the case's front Firewire port. Your motherboard doesn't have a Firewire controller, so just coil that one up and put it someplace out of the way.

 

[someone16]

I assume you plugged in Power and Reset switch? Otherwise, should be ready

 

[EULA]

IEEE 1394 is firewire. If you don't know what it is, you probably don't need it in the front anyway. It will be fine to leave it.

 

[chuwawa]

Thank you all!! It worked...well it turned on and stuff at least! =)

I got up to an error though concerning the realtek ethernet controller
"it said media test failure, check cable"

What am I missing?

 

[chuwawa]

I'm either blind or the seagate sites doesn't carry the hardrive drivers for the floppy. =/

 

[mechBgon]

Seagate doesn't make the hard-drive controller or I'm sure they'd have drivers for it Try with no drivers at all. Just throw in your Windows CD and have the computer boot from it, press the Enter key when it says "Press any key to boot from CD..." and begin Windows Setup. You have WinXP, I'm guessing?

Also make sure your network cable remains unplugged continuously until you have a firewall in place to protect the "raw" Windows installation from worm attacks. See the Resources page of my guide if you need a refresher on why and how.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: chuwawa
Thank you all!! It worked...well it turned on and stuff at least! =)

I got up to an error though concerning the realtek ethernet controller
"it said media test failure, check cable"

What am I missing?

Nothing's the matter, it's just that the motherboard didn't find any bootable devices on that go-around, and tried to boot from the network as a last option.

By the way, I'm about to knock off for the night so here is a little more advice on the order in which you should do things:

• Install Windows first (duh) and make sure your network cable is unplugged so you're not at risk of worm attacks from your broadband connection.
• Go to Control Panel > User Accounts and set a strong password on your user accounts
• Install service packs for Windows second. SP2 for WinXP includes DirectX 9.0C, or otherwise you would...
• ...install DirectX 9.0C third
• Install the nVidia motherboard driver package from here fourth, note that this comes before the video-card drivers.
• Install the other drivers you might need (video, audio, whatever)
• Either arm the WinXP SP2 firewall or install another firewall such as free basic ZoneAlarm
• Install your antivirus software
• Plug in your network cable and update your antivirus software, then go to Windows Update and update Windows
• Enable Automatic Updates for Windows, and enable Data Execution Prevention for all programs (see Ongoing prevention on my Resources page)
• Set up a Limited-class user account for yourself to use as your daily-driver account, so that if your system gets compromised or spyware tries to install, it doesn't have Administrator-class power over the system. If you run WinXP Home then this is not possible, unfortunately

Steady as she goes, good luck

 

[IanE]

Sounds like your system is well on it's way to kicking ass!

Congratulations and good luck!

 

[chuwawa]

Thanks for all your help mech and everyone else too..Winxp is installing right now!

good nite