[SOLVED] New build lessons learned

[rpei1]

I just finished my new build, got it up and loaded, and adjusted all the settings to my liking so I thought I'd pass on some of my mistakes and experiences. I'm not a total newbie to building, but no expert either. I build a new system every 3-4 years, and this is my 4th build. My system:

Ryzen 7 3700x
ASRock B550 Taichi motherboard
Fractal Design R6 case (comes with 3 fans). Extra Noctua NF-A12x25 in the bottom of the case for a little extra cooling and give the fan hub a PWM fan.
Seasonic Focus PX 750W PSU
Fractal Design Celsius+ S24 AIO cooler
Sabrent Rocket Gen4 NVMe 1TB
GSkill Trident Z Neo DDR4 3600 32GB 2x16 CL16
Crucial BX500 2TB SSD
Sapphire RX5700 Nitro+ SE GPU
Pioneer BDR-209DBK Optical drive (repurposed from old computer)

No real problems with the actual build. Put everything into the case and hooked it all up. I do wish the PSU came with more PCIe cables with single connectors. The GPU apparently prefers separate power cables for the 2 8 pin power connectors and so does the mobo. So, I had to leave two connectors dangling at the GPU. No problem, but adds to the clutter. Also, in trying for a neat build, I tried to route the cables to keep them bundled together, but I wish some could be just a little bit longer. Would have made a bit easier. The PSU cables to the mobo were barely long enough. Hooked the AIO to CPU_Fan1 and the fan hub to CHA5. I wanted to connect that to CHA1, but the cable wasn't long enough.

Plugged it in and turned it on. Powered up to BIOS no problem. Lucky me. Flash updated the BIOS using USB drive I prepared earlier. No problem. Left the BIOS at default setting, made the DVD the boot drive and put the Windows OEM DVD into the drive.

Lesson 1. Don't hook up another SSD before loading Windows. I finally figured out that this confused Windows for some reason. Wouldn't recognize or load the OS onto the NVME or the SSD. Kept getting error message about the format. After I disconnected the BX500 SSD, Windows started to load on the NVMe SSD. After I completed the load, I reconnected the SSD and it was fine.

Lesson 2. Load the LAN driver from the mobo utility disk to complete Windows install. Load kept freezing at the point where it needs Internet connectivity. Double checked my connectivity and it was fine. Finally just went with the no internet load option and when it finished, I loaded the LAN driver. Went fine from there and Microsoft updated everything and even imported a lot of settings and stuff (e.g. Favorites) from my old computer. I wish I knew this before hand as it would have saved me a lot of aggravation. I don't recall this being a problem with my other builds.

Lesson 3. Go back into BIOS and change memory defaults to recognize the 3600 memory and use XML profile 1 (actually the only option besides default). HWiNFO verified memory running at the right settings and timings. Adjusted the fan curves in BIOS to provide more cooling to keep temps lower. Still can't get the ASRock A-tuning utility to work.

Thanks to all who helped me on this forum and I hope this helps someone.

 

[Mrgr74]

I just finished my new build, got it up and loaded, and adjusted all the settings to my liking so I thought I'd pass on some of my mistakes and experiences. I'm not a total newbie to building, but no expert either. I build a new system every 3-4 years, and this is my 4th build. My system:

Ryzen 7 3700x
ASRock B550 Taichi motherboard
Fractal Design R6 case (comes with 3 fans). Extra Noctua NF-A12x25 in the bottom of the case for a little extra cooling and give the fan hub a PWM fan.
Seasonic Focus PX 750W PSU
Fractal Design Celsius+ S24 AIO cooler
Sabrent Rocket Gen4 NVMe 1TB
GSkill Trident Z Neo DDR4 3600 32GB 2x16 CL16
Crucial BX500 2TB SSD
Sapphire RX5700 Nitro+ SE GPU
Pioneer BDR-209DBK Optical drive (repurposed from old computer)

No real problems with the actual build. Put everything into the case and hooked it all up. I do wish the PSU came with more PCIe cables with single connectors. The GPU apparently prefers separate power cables for the 2 8 pin power connectors and so does the mobo. So, I had to leave two connectors dangling at the GPU. No problem, but adds to the clutter. Also, in trying for a neat build, I tried to route the cables to keep them bundled together, but I wish some could be just a little bit longer. Would have made a bit easier. The PSU cables to the mobo were barely long enough. Hooked the AIO to CPU_Fan1 and the fan hub to CHA5. I wanted to connect that to CHA1, but the cable wasn't long enough.

Plugged it in and turned it on. Powered up to BIOS no problem. Lucky me. Flash updated the BIOS using USB drive I prepared earlier. No problem. Left the BIOS at default setting, made the DVD the boot drive and put the Windows OEM DVD into the drive.

Lesson 1. Don't hook up another SSD before loading Windows. I finally figured out that this confused Windows for some reason. Wouldn't recognize or load the OS onto the NVME or the SSD. Kept getting error message about the format. After I disconnected the BX500 SSD, Windows started to load on the NVMe SSD. After I completed the load, I reconnected the SSD and it was fine.

Lesson 2. Load the LAN driver from the mobo utility disk to complete Windows install. Load kept freezing at the point where it needs Internet connectivity. Double checked my connectivity and it was fine. Finally just went with the no internet load option and when it finished, I loaded the LAN driver. Went fine from there and Microsoft updated everything and even imported a lot of settings and stuff (e.g. Favorites) from my old computer. I wish I knew this before hand as it would have saved me a lot of aggravation. I don't recall this being a problem with my other builds.

Lesson 3. Go back into BIOS and change memory defaults to recognize the 3600 memory and use XML profile 1 (actually the only option besides default). HWiNFO verified memory running at the right settings and timings. Adjusted the fan curves in BIOS to provide more cooling to keep temps lower. Still can't get the ASRock A-tuning utility to work.

Thanks to all who helped me on this forum and I hope this helps someone.

Hi @rpei1

1st off, a warm welcome to the forums!

2nd, that's a very nice PC you've put together & congrats that it all went together more or less fine and that you were able to diagnose the issue(s) you came across! Nothing is more frustrating than having a problem and having no clue what it is or how to fix it, so again, Kudos.

Last but not least, thanks for sharing! Whats the PC's primary use gonna be? Work? Pleasure? A little of both?

In regards to #2, I'd hazard a wild guess that it was because the B550 is a new chipset, that you had to load the driver from the CD. Even though the LAN hardware itself may have be used on earlier mobo's, because the mobo's hardware itself is new tech, it may be a bit before Windows is given an "universal" driver during installation. You may want to give thought to slipstreaming the LAN driver into your OS thumb drive to prevent having to swap out media or in case you remove your optical drive in the future or waiting a few months and then making an updated Windows bootdisk that'll have the drivers.

Other than that, very nice!

Thanks again for sharing and again welcome to the forums!

 

[rpei1]

Hi @rpei1

1st off, a warm welcome to the forums!

2nd, that's a very nice PC you've put together & congrats that it all went together more or less fine and that you were able to diagnose the issue(s) you came across! Nothing is more frustrating than having a problem and having no clue what it is or how to fix it, so again, Kudos.

Last but not least, thanks for sharing! Whats the PC's primary use gonna be? Work? Pleasure? A little of both?

In regards to #2, I'd hazard a wild guess that it was because the B550 is a new chipset, that you had to load the driver from the CD. Even though the LAN hardware itself may have be used on earlier mobo's, because the mobo's hardware itself is new tech, it may be a bit before Windows is given an "universal" driver during installation. You may want to give thought to slipstreaming the LAN driver into your OS thumb drive to prevent having to swap out media or in case you remove your optical drive in the future or waiting a few months and then making an updated Windows bootdisk that'll have the drivers.

Other than that, very nice!

Thanks again for sharing and again welcome to the forums!

Thanks!

I didn't really need a new system as my old i7 7700K system was doing fine. But, it was about 3 1/2 years old. The new system may be a bit of overkill as my primary use is pleasure but I wanted to be ready for Flight Simulator 2020. I'm not really a gamer, but I might do a bit more of that now what with the whole COVID-19 stay at home situation.

 

[g-unit1111]

Lesson 1. Don't hook up another SSD before loading Windows. I finally figured out that this confused Windows for some reason. Wouldn't recognize or load the OS onto the NVME or the SSD. Kept getting error message about the format. After I disconnected the BX500 SSD, Windows started to load on the NVMe SSD. After I completed the load, I reconnected the SSD and it was fine.

That's because Windows 10 loads critical boot files across multiple connected drives during the installation process. It's a super annoying feature and it can take a while to sort out it out if you don't know what you are doing. Like many people I found this out the hard way as well. It's a simple fix for it though, you just have to look out for it.

Lesson 2. Load the LAN driver from the mobo utility disk to complete Windows install. Load kept freezing at the point where it needs Internet connectivity. Double checked my connectivity and it was fine. Finally just went with the no internet load option and when it finished, I loaded the LAN driver. Went fine from there and Microsoft updated everything and even imported a lot of settings and stuff (e.g. Favorites) from my old computer. I wish I knew this before hand as it would have saved me a lot of aggravation. I don't recall this being a problem with my other builds.

Yes, always load the drivers from the motherboard CD that's included. They don't include those things for nothing!

Lesson 3. Go back into BIOS and change memory defaults to recognize the 3600 memory and use XML profile 1 (actually the only option besides default). HWiNFO verified memory running at the right settings and timings. Adjusted the fan curves in BIOS to provide more cooling to keep temps lower. Still can't get the ASRock A-tuning utility to work.

That's personally my biggest gripe with Asrock boards is that they usually include garbage utilities. That's usually why I prefer Gigabyte boards because they have much better utilities that they include. Asus and MSI have decent software as well.

 

[hang-the-9]

Thanks!

I didn't really need a new system as my old i7 7700K system was doing fine. But, it was about 3 1/2 years old. The new system may be a bit of overkill as my primary use is pleasure but I wanted to be ready for Flight Simulator 2020. I'm not really a gamer, but I might do a bit more of that now what with the whole COVID-19 stay at home situation.

Your i7 CPU will be able to handle new games for quite a while, you were well over the requirements for Flight Sim 2020, and are fine for any other game. It's like replacing a car because it "only" does 0-60 in 5 seconds and swapping for a car that does it in 4.5

 

[rpei1]

Your i7 CPU will be able to handle new games for quite a while, you were well over the requirements for Flight Sim 2020, and are fine for any other game. It's like replacing a car because it "only" does 0-60 in 5 seconds and swapping for a car that does it in 4.5

The CPU was probably okay, but I needed a better graphics card according to the hardware checker and more memory. So I just figured it was about time for a new build anyway.