Sorry, been rather busy lately.
Yea, I leaped before I looked. I just went upstairs to install the DVD drive but decided to check out the controller card and the video card. 6 ports face outwards, not on the side. There are 2 more ports on the top. I believe that I can't use these ports for some reason that was mentioned in this thread. I'm going to look back thru the posts and see what was said about them. Tomorrow, the DVD drive and the hard drive for sure. (I procrastinate)
Question 1: I RMA'd the floppy drive. Will the system post without the floppy drive installed?
EDIT: I found this about the controller card:
The SATA cables actually come with the expansion cards, so you don't need any SATA cables. You also have the option to purchase a 8 port card that'll take 8 drives alone, instead of using two 4 port cards. The 8 port card will cost more, but I think you'd like it given that it has the option of setting up a JBOD array, should you go that route in the future. Additionally, it'll keep a PCIe slot open. Aside from that, there isn't any more benefits. I'll let you decide on what you want to do here. Two four port cards would cost you 240$, the eight port card will set you back 260$. Again, I want to make this very clear, if you ever plan on making a RAID array, don't trust you're data with these cards. For expansion cards, these will do just fine.
Question 2: So I can use all 8 ports?
A small cable with a few pins on each side came with the controller card. I read the manual and couldn't find if or where it's needed. The only mention of a small cable was in reference to connecting 2 controller cards.
Question 3: I only inserted the card into the port. Does the small cable need to be connected to the card and motherboard? I didn't see any ports on the motherboard for it either. I just want to make sure that it's not needed.
1. Yes you can POST the computer without a floppy drive installed.
2. Yes you should be able to use all 8 ports.
3. I'm not 100% sure, but it seems like exactly what you say, only to connect two of these same cards together. (Not to the motherboard).
I remember that I had 2 connections for my cpu and heat sink and fan when I built my present computer. There's one wire that I connected into the cpu fan connector on the motherboard but there aren't any other wires or a port for connection to the psu or anything else. Is this right?
For the CPU, you should have the heatsink/fan which has a power/sensor port in the motherboard nearby, this will be on the motherboard manual. You'll also need a 4-pin (or 8-pin) CPU power cord that comes from the PSU and plugs in near the processor. This provides power to the CPU.
Hi, I have another question.
The instructions say that the drives are to be held into place with sleeved screws. What do sleeved screws look like?
Sleeved screws should have come with the case. I have a couple of these, they look like this:
I just installed the DVD drive. The new fdd hasn't come in yet. I tried to connect the fans but the fans have 4 pin openings and the power fan and sysfan1 have 3 pins. I reinstalled the fan and the shield that I had to remove in order to install the mobo. I also tried to install the DVD bevel but the screw holes didn't line up. The instructions show 3 holes in the bevel bracket but it has only 2. The middle one is the one that I needed but it's the one not on the bracket.
I tried to install some drives, too, but I don't have a screwdriver that's as small in length as is needed to screw the drives into the bays.
With all these probs and questions that I have, I'm going to box everything up and take it to a pc repair place that's here in town and have them finish building it for me. The last thing I want to do is to ruin anything because I made an error.
Thanks for all your help in picking out the parts and giving me directions. It was all very much appreciated. I know that this will be the computer that I've wanted when it's finished. I'll take a picture of it when I get it back from the shop.
If the fans have different headers to what's on the motherboard, you should be able to find some adapters for purchase. Ask at you local computer shop what they have. If not to the fan headers on the motherboard, then at least directly to the PSU.
Hi,
I just noticed that the racks that hold the drives in place are removable, so that I can take them out of the case, put the drives in them and then screw the racks with the drives into the computer case.
I'd really like to finish this build myself, so I'm hoping someone will answer the questions that I asked in the past few posts.
Sounds like you're mostly onto it so far. Hopefully that's all your questions...
Troy