Building My first computer

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liquidfire

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This is the first time I am building a computer or even opening up a case for that matter. So far I have put the motherboard on the tray, the tray in the case, pushed the tray back so the I/O ports are correct... screwed the video and sound cards to the back with 1 screw, hooked up the front led lights and power button pin cord things which brings us to the point of my problems.

I got the X-Super Alien computer (http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/cas-121.html) which came with a 500 watt power supply and 6 installed fans. Coming out of the power supply is a 2 clusters of cords seperated with ties. Each cluster has 3 - 4 pin connectors (i'm guessing for the fans), and 1 connector that I believe plugs into the system fan or auxilary fan 1 or 2 on the motherboard. And of course this leads to more problems...

I got an Abit USA mother board (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...talog=280&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1&section=2) which has a 3 pin fan connector (male piece) and my powersupply has a 4 pin female piece. Because of the spacing design... the only fan i can plug in is the Aux Fan 2. What should I do? Can I re tip the cords with a 3 pin?... but there's 4 cords. <--Help

Also... my computer came with a dual temp. and fan controller on the front pannel... i believe i have identified the wires and i believe they plug into my 1394 pins on the motherboard... am i correct?

Each one of my fans comes with a 4 pin male and female connector... can someone explain why?

In the name of TECHNOLOGY... HELP ME!
 
The plug that goes into the motherboard is pretty obvious as its the only one of its kind (ATX). The fans on the case can be powered by the 4 pin connectors from the PSU. The reason the fans have male and female sides because you could route the power through that connection and use it for something else (like another fan, for example. Of course using the proper extension cables) since fans don't necessarily take up that much power.

As for the motherboard 3pin connections, those are usually for fan RPM detection for your BIOS and system monitoring.

For your front panel temp and fan connections, I don't think it would plug in the 1394 connections on your motherboard. That's for firewire. Only reason I could think of why it would connect there is if you have ports being transferred to your front panel as well. You may want to check your manual.
 
Fans

Let me make sure I did the correct thing... I hooked my top blowhole to the 2 exhaust fans on the back of my case and then connected the blowhole to the cord that runs to the powersupply via a 4 pin connector. I hooked the dvd drive and the cd burner drive to the other 2 4 pin connectors (each cluster coming from the power supply had 3 - 4 pin connectors and a motherboard aux fan connector [still dunno what this does]).

The 2 front intake fans were already linked so i linked those 2 fans to the 4 pin connector that runs power to my temperature controller. Now 1 of the front fans connects to the other front fan which connects to the temperature controller which connects to the power cord via the 4 pin connector...

With remaining 2 4 pin connectors coming from the powersupply I connect both my hard drives.

Is it ok to link the 2 front intake fans and the temperature controller on the same power loop?
Is it ok for 2 exhaust fans and 1 intake fan to be on the same loop?
What are the Aux Fan 1 and 2 pin clusters on the motherboard for?
 
Nevermind...

I got the fans linked up the way they are supposed to be.

Now for the fan controller. There are two temperature sensitive probes... one for the HDD and one for the CPU... how do i attatch it?

There is a cable that comes out as well... it has a bunch of little female 1 pin black connectors with little abreviations as follows:
TPB-
TPB+
TPA-
TPA+
VP
VG

Could someone tell me where on my motherboard those go?
(I assume it's the motherboard)

And I'm still confused about the Aux Fan connection... Why does the power supply have 1 on each 1 of the 3 - 4 pin power supply clusters.

.... Thanks... i'm almost there.
 
Man I wish I could see what you're talking about. Its hard visualizing everything and trying to explain. It'd be so much easier to just point here and there and voila, youre done. :p
 
Re: Nevermind...

Originally posted by liquidfire
Now for the fan controller. There are two temperature sensitive probes... one for the HDD and one for the CPU... how do i attatch it?
Depends on what it looks like. If they are just flat, small, plastic insulated I think you can just put them to wherever you want. I've put my thermistor to measure graphics card's core temperature.
There is a cable that comes out as well... it has a bunch of little female 1 pin black connectors with little abreviations as follows:
TPB-
TPB+
TPA-
TPA+
VP
VG

Could someone tell me where on my motherboard those go?
(I assume it's the motherboard)
I don't, sounds like they're IEEE1394 connectors, ie. Sony i-Link, ie. FireWire.
 
Ok... I got my computer up and running thanks to you guys... I never plugged in the TBA +/- or the TPB +/- or VP or VG... but my display and sensors and fan controller work just fine... I have no clue what these wires are for... If I try an attach it to my IEEE1394 port could i ruin my computer?

Second... My old hard drive is from my ex-hewlett packard... When I set it as a slave (because I got a bigger hard drive as my master) I can't access "my documents" on that hard drive. This pisses me off because I got all my music and pictures in there.

Thanks...
 
Are you using different operating systems or diff format of drive (NTFS/ FAT/FAT32)? Is your profile pass protected on your old HD? Can you access anything else on that drive other than the My Docs folder?
 
Both are NTFS formatted. But my new hard drive is the XP Pro version. The other hard drive is XP (normal) but a friend installed it. Does this matter?

I can access my programs and the likes... its just that my documents folder was located on my desktop... which is not the same anymore... I also don't have my icons that were on my desktop.

Is there a way to dive deep into the hard drive and move those folders to a location available for me to use?

Do I make my current slave (old hard drive) a master drive... move all my files and then slave it again? <--- a lot of effort. I'll do it if I have to though. Thanks.
 
Your "My Documents" folder is located under

(slave drive):\Documents and Settings\(profile name)\...

All the stuff that used to be on your desktop, etc will be here.
 
I did that and it said... the access is denied... is there something i need to unlock?

In regards to those little wires that connected to the front port that i thought had to do with temperature controller... i believe they are for something else like you said... its in the shape of a usb but more like a stretched 5 sided home plate... would that go to the IEEE1394 port then?

In regards to the power supply... the 2 clusters of cords each had 3 - 4 pin connectors (power connectors) and at the end what I previously thought was a funky connection to the auxfan 1 and auxfan 2 on the mother board because of the 3 pins on the motherboard and the 4 pin holes coming from the power supply ended up being the power supply to my A: drive. :\

I'm having a little video trouble with my Unreal Tournament but thats another story another day.

Unlocking "My Documents" is still my only problem.
 
Probably because your old installation was password protected and has security settings blocking other profiles from accessing your files. I'm not sure if you could "Login As..." to that folder, but if there's a way, maybe someone will share it with you.
 
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