Finally building my PC, am I missing cables?

[FX-Overclocking]

I have all the cards, hard drives and CPU plugged in to the motherboard. Now I come across the task of connecting them all to power. Problem is that even after reading my motherboard's guide several times I am still confused about the process. I also think that since my hard drives and DVD drive OEM that I may be missing a few cables. Could somebody who has been through this entire process a few times explain to me exactly what cables are needed for a build like mine and then I can see what I'm missing. All I have is what came with the PSU, and motherboard. Thanks.

PSU: Antec 1000w supply (retail)

Case: Antec Nine Hundred in Black

Motherboard: Asus P6T Palm Edition

CPU: Intel i7 920 (Retail)

HDD1: Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10K RPM (OEM)

HDD2: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB (OEM)

Videocard: MSI Nvidia 260 GTX OC 896MB PCI-e

Sound Card: Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Professional PCI-Express Edition

DVD Drive: LG 22x SATA DVD-R/W burner (OEM)

[caveman-jim]

you may want to do case connections before you screw the mobo down, just for ease of access, but first connect up the power, reset switches, power and hd led's, case speaker, usb headers, firewire if applicable. Look at pics in manual to get orientation correct.
Connect 24pin power cable to mobo
Connect 8pin EPS 12v connector to mobo
connector sata power connector to hd's
connect 6pin and 8pin PCIe connectors to graphics card (dont confuse these with EPS12v connector; they should be keyed differently such that they won't fit in the wrong sockets, though)
connect sata cables from motherboard to optical drive, and hd
connect heatsink fan to motherboard fan header for cpu (see manual for specific location, look for matching writing on mobo near header to confirm)
Check X-fi manual for case front panel audio header connections, if available.

Basically all you should need is two sata data cables (likely came with the motherboard), the PSU should have all the other power connectors. use twist ties/velcro ties to keep things tidy as you go along, see where you need connections etc.
Read the manual for your motherboard and powersupply, should keep you out of trouble for the major connections. Remember don't force anything, it should all slip together quite easily.

[FX-Overclocking]

OK, so you think I probably have everything I need?

I have to be honest with you...... I never thought hooking all that stuff up would be so troublesome. The Asus guide is not very helpful at all, as it refers to the connection ports by technical terms without saying exactly what should go where. And there wasn't a quick start map as I expected either.

[caveman-jim]

Oh yeah, you have everything you need, I'm pretty sure.

And yeah, half the battle is deciphering what they're calling what part, etc. Look here for pics and descriptions of the different power supply connectors so you can identify which ones are which on your psu, and match it up to the manual's descriptions.

Also have a read of this, see if it is helpful.

[FX-Overclocking]

So I don't have to plug anything into that 4-pin slot on my SATA hard drives drives then? The one with the 4-little-pin-holes just to the right of the big wide slot in the hard drive. Why is it there... ?

I also noticed that my Nvidia 260 has two power slots, do I plug into both of them and feed it double power? I checked the manual and it doesn't say. So I just have the first one plugged in now.

And theres numerous SATA plugs on the motherboard, does it matter which I use for my HDDs and DVD drive.

Heres a schematic of my P6T board.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/zoom_pic.php?id=12337

http://www.pugetsystems.com/zoom_pic.php?id=12250

[caveman-jim]

The 4-pin holes is a jumper bank, for setting compatibility modes for old motherboards or factory diagnostics. Don't worry about it, except to check on the Seagate drive if you need to remove the small jumper to enable SATA-300 speeds. It should be printed on the drive label or you can find the info on the Seagate Website for your drive model.

Yes, plug in both PCIe power cables to the graphics card.

It will matter which SATA ports you use if you want to use RAID, or have problems with ATAPI emulation on your DVD drive. I'd plug the DVD drive into the port marked SATA 1 and the HDD's into SATA 3 & 4.

[FX-Overclocking]

Thanks Jim... I'll give it another shot and let you know how it goes tonight.

[caveman-jim]

[FX-Overclocking]

Bad News! I have everything hooked up, but what I tried to boot it for the first time they system wouldn't "beep" or display anything on my monitor. All that happened was the fans turned on and the motherboard's on-board lighting turned on.

Any idea why its not booting? Shouldn't I have at least got a beep?

[caveman-jim]

Clear CMOS, and if still no joy, do a POST test - have only CPU + HSF installed, 1 stick of RAM ,no video card, see what it does. Do you have a PCI or non-powered PCIe video card for test purposes?

[FX-Overclocking]

Alright, I finally figured out why it wouldn't boot. Apparently I was missing one motherboard power connection.

But NOW it won't recognise any of my HDDs. Its acting as if they aren't there and I can't install Vista. Any idea why this would be? As far as I know all my HDDs are hooked up right. They are using the SATA power and are daisy chained upto the PSU.

[caveman-jim]

Define 'wont recognise HDD's' - are they present in the BIOS? But not showing up in Vista installer? If the latter, download the floppy configuration for your OS here, extract it, copy it onto floppy or usb drive and install Vista (see step 7 in this guide)

[FX-Overclocking]

No, they are not present in the bios or even on a "recovery disc" which I used to look around. The PC acts as if they weren't there.

[caveman-jim]

Reseat the data cables, and try different ports on the motherboard. Don't use the ones labelled SAS.

[FX-Overclocking]

I was using SATA 1 for my DVD drive, and 3 and 4 for my HDD's. Should I try 1 and 2 for the HDDs and 3 for the DVD maybe?

Also, what do you mean by reset? How do I reset... are you just talking about moving them or is there a switch?

Thanks

[caveman-jim]

Reseat; unplug and replug them, to be sure they are making a good connection; and yes, try using SATA ports 1 and 2, with the DVD in port 4.

In the bios, what settings do you have for the SATA controller - AHCI? RAID? Auto?

[12Bass]

Do you have power going to the SATA drives?

[FX-Overclocking]

In the bios, what settings do you have for the SATA controller - AHCI? RAID? Auto?

I haven't touched the bios settings, so its at whatever default is, most likely not any RAID at all. The thing is that neither of the drives even show up at all in bios. Which makes me think it might be an issue of which SATA slots I connect them to in the mobo. I will tinker with it tomorrow evening again and report back.

Do you have power going to the SATA drives?

Yes, I have the HDDs plugged in just like in your picture with both the short SATA and the longer one plugged in.


And thanks again to both of you for the help. I really appreciate the hand with my very first from-scratch build. I will post back in after I've tried some stuff.

[12Bass]

Strange.... maybe try disconnecting all but one hard disk and see if the BIOS can recognize it. Something sounds amiss. Have you read through the motherboard manual? It might have some pointers. Basically, just use trial and error to eliminate the possibilities. It really shouldn't be that complicated....

BTW, can you hear the drives spinning (if you put your ear up close)?

[FX-Overclocking]

I can't tell if they are spinning, theres a lot of fans in the case I'm using... but if they are going they aren't making any active noise I can notice. The manual doesn't have much to say about the matter... I guess I will just try repositioning the SATAs tomorrow.

Again though, does fact that I'm using a 3 link power cable to connect the HDDs make any difference? You know the ones where you have a cord with 3 different links along its body but one connection to the PSU... where I connect both HDDs to it and then it to the PSU. Is this normal to use... its what came with my PSU.

Heres a pic of the cable I use.

[FX-Overclocking]

Somebody on another forum said that I might be using molex connectors which aren't for SATA. Is this true? They fit the power side of my SATA... could somebody please explain what I should be using for cables with pics or links?

[Crag2804]

Do you have power going to the SATA drives?

Someone has already shown you how your drives should be hooked up.

[FX-Overclocking]

I figured out what the cables I was using were, they were SATA to Molex connectors. So I dug up some true SATA power connectors and will give them a try when I have a break today. I also will be swapping the HDDs to SATA slot 1 and 2 on my motherboard and the DVD to SATA slot 3.

Hopefully once I do this my bios will recognise the hard drives existance... or else I'm out of ideas.

I'll post back in with what happens.

[caveman-jim]

If you still get problems, can you take a Pic and post it up?

[FX-Overclocking]

I think most my bugs have been worked out. I am now posting to you via my new rig.

The only few issues I am having now are that A) Scrolling in web browsers seems jerky and unsmooth under Vista 64, and B) Vista won't recognise my 2nd HDD I have. I'm not sure how, but I think I may need to format it or mount it.

Besides those two remaining issues I am nearly finished.

[caveman-jim]

(A) sounds like driver install issues - make sure you have downloaded and installed the newest Intel chipset drivers, storage drivers, audio drivers, graphics drivers, and updated DirectX.

(B) look in the operating systems and general hardware important threads stickies, there is information in there you could find useful.

[12Bass]

Sounds good..... Could be a video driver issue, perhaps not installed properly. V64 is pretty smooth on my X800 (smoother than XP32), probably due to Aero. Use Disk Manangement to format the second drive.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-us/help/d9a4d35e-efdf-406c-a049-0860180129a71033.mspx

[FX-Overclocking]

How do I get to disc management? I've never used Vista before....

[caveman-jim]

• Right click on 'My Computer'
• Click on 'Disk Management'
• If prompted to initialize a new volume, do so
• Create partitions and format as necessary.

[traitoR]

We were promised pictures.

[FX-Overclocking]

We were promised pictures.

Still coming. I want to get it up and in benchmarking shape before I post a full review... with pics of course. I also plan on overclocking this rig to somewhere between 3.5ghz - 3.8ghz. That may come after the inital benching and review though, but I'll be sure to document the whole thing just as I did the build. Just give me a couple more days to "clean house" and put this baby through the paces.