What a day… what. a. DAY! And it nearly ended in disaster… if it wasn’t for DJ being my guiding light and telling me to calm and relax, and it paid off by fixing an issue that I typically would be calling My Computer Geek (except the guy isn’t there anymore, which makes me even more fortunate I was able to pull this off).
I also figured out why the front USB ports aren’t working, and will explain the reasoning at the bottom of this post.
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Started at 8:30am. The reason why is father had to go get those tests done, while I let the cat out. After trying to enjoy my breakfast (still feeling anxiety for what I was about to
do), I got my computer on my bed, got the new parts ready, and opened the case (taking pictures nearly every step of the way).
STEP 1: Saying goodbye to waiting five years for this moment
With the parts placed behind the case, it was time to give this build a final FUCK YOU!! ..But seriously, more like a ‘thank you’ for handling my shit for those five long
years. Actually having a computer that could do VR at a semi-reasonable framerate (by just upgrading the graphics card).
And soon, that 4350 is going to have a new home in mother’s computer (which would get her back online).
Right, time to unplug everything!
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STEP 2: PSU, I will miss you much
Old PSU has been uninstalled in half the time it originally took me (remembering from my past mistakes). Still don’t know if this thing could had died at anytime, as there’s never any warning signs it’s going to.
Mmm.. but that’s why I bought a new one on a just incase scenario. Anyway, time to remove the graphics card (picture not featured).
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STEP 3: That one fucking last screw!!
Removed the graphics card as planned, and placed it on the shipping bag I got the RAM from (knew it would have a purpose eventually). Then carefully removed the screws holding down the old board.
Finally, I reached the one in the picture above, and holy HELL was it a BITCH to
remove (half of it was from the fact the screw was right under the cooler)!! I assumed I would have the motherboard out in record time (compared to my first attempt), instead it took THREE HOURS!! Why? This is the screw father helped with during the downgrade back to my 4350. He over-tightened it by accident.
With the small screwdriver I was using, I had hardly any grip let alone torque to loosen it enough to make it a lot more manageable. So I tried using other screwdrivers, including one with a really weird (but useful) attachment that extends the range of it. But it too couldn’t break the seal.
Thought of sawing the damn thing off, but I ended up using a DRILL.. yes, a drill, to get it off! Yet by doing so, I fear I just fucked up my chances of having this motherboard.. still work. I don’t see any physical damage around where I had to drill, so I can only hope when the time comes, it’ll still work.
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STEP 4: She’s ready for the upgrade!
Finally, everything’s out after spending through so much hell trying to get that damn screw out! I placed the old board on top of the box that my new parts got shipped in. I also removed dust on the motherboard panel (it was quite filthy).
Now to do the second part of this build…
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STEP 5: New motherboard prepping PT1: Getting the parts ready
Opening up the new parts is like Christmas all over again; so many shiny goodies to play with. Holding the new CPU with my fingertips as I prepare to place it in the awaiting AM4 socket, again I thought this is something I just would never have in my life!!
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STEP 6: New motherboard prepping PT2: When the cooler is cool, and stops being cool
After installing the CPU to the board, I then looked around saying “uhh.. where’s the thermal paste? The box promised thermal paste! SHIT!!” Then I noticed the cooler, face down, stuck to some papers as I lifted it up. ..They pre-applied the paste on the cooler?! Nice!! That is, well, cool of you, cooler!
After figuring out the correct orientation of the cooler, I had to use the drill again on the screws holding the brackets (as they were extremely tightened), then tried to screw in the cooler, using the highly recommended criss-cross X pattern to apply equal pressure on the paste. Except, I don’t think I was ever told “don’t tighten the screw all the way, or the other screws won’t go in”. There’s a similar “don’t tighten all the way”, but that’s only to make sure you’re screwing it in right.. guess that’s what they meant, and only tightened each one five rotations until all four corners were secured. Even wiggled it to make sure.
That bad boy’s not going anywhere.
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STEP 7: When the I/O Shield becomes a little bitch (and nearly fucks me over)
New motherboard, finally installed! I was kind of worried of only having 6 standoffs of my computer’s case, so I attempted to use that kit that Zagro suggested I get (glad he did). However, the case wouldn’t accept the standoffs (proving once again that I should consider getting a new case, after not being able to remove the cooler in STEP 3, as there’s no real purpose why the case has a back panel).
But I digress, and need to get to the point of this. Getting the board in, was ‘interesting’. Mentioned in the manual, there’s three standoff ‘prohibited zones’ on the bottom of the board (to prevent people from using fake standoffs, which can cause damage to the board). This doesn’t apply to me though, as I use legitimate standoffs.
Once the I/O Shield was installed, I put the board in. This took several minutes until I finally pushed the back ports through the shield.. and went through hell. When they mention ‘damage to the board’.. I was pretty sure I caused some. But, I got the standoffs aligned with the motherboard mounting holes, and screwed all six in (with my trembling fingers from tightening the cooler).
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STEP 8: Reinstalling the graphics card
*clears throat and sings a song from Chere as I was listening to DISH’s ’80’s on 8 at this time*
“If I can TURRRRRN BACK TIIiiime, I would HAD– reinstalled the SATA cables BEFORRRRE THIIIIISS STEEE-EEPPP!!”
Seriously, I would had, if I knew how much of a bitch things were going to get later for me. But, I wasn’t smart, and reinstalled my Radeon RX 580 nonetheless. Had to do a bit of extra work with the expansion card shields (this varies from ATX board to ATX board of where the PCI-E slot is situated, and had a similar thing when I had downgraded).
This was probably one of the easiest things to do (outside of installing the RAM and the CPU.. especially when I don’t have all of those damn power cables).
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STEP 9: Installing the new PSU
Not much to say, but I felt it was time to start wrapping this build up (and guess
what? Didn’t even put in the fucking SATA cables in yet. *facepalm*)
Due to what I felt were screw heads that look ripped and deformed, I used some from the bit pack that worked quite well. And after figuring out where’s the holes for the PSU, I finally got it properly mounted and installed (with the fan up, as you can see, it can’t pull in air from the bottom.. when the bottom is made out of aluminum).
Also, a bit of a concern when I was taking the PSU out of its package; felt static, but not enough to damage anything.
Now it’s time to figure out just where in the fuck these cables go.
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STEP 10: Unmarked cables lead to asking help (which one of these is ‘CPU_PWR1’?)
A nice shot of my 42 year old hand as I hold up a set of cables for a picture, and sharing it with DJ’s Discord server (as I’ve been doing since STEP 3). Drafy there said it’s the right-most cable (the 8-pin) that’s ‘CPU_PWR1’ on the board.
Grounded myself and tried to install the cable in, and I felt a semi-sharp tingling in my right hand that lasted until I lifted it up, followed by an electric zap sound on the graphics card.
…Shit. Shit SHIT SHIT!!!! FUUUCK!! I just FRIED the hardware!! Nearly $440 of
parts, destroyed with one fucking zap!! But also, HOW?! I fucking GROUNDED myself!! Then I remembered what happened when I took the PSU out. The fucking thing had a static charge in it!! …Ugh. But, I kept working on it, hoping that what I did, maybe wasn’t fatal. Didn’t have anymore zaps after that as I plugged in the rest of the cables (including finally the SATA cables, which I went through hell to connect them to the board.
Looking down at the board, I saw no burn marks.
Maybe I got lucky? Guess I’ll find out when I’m done.
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STEP 11: Dances with Front Panel Connectors (a failure to RTFM)
One of the most ‘fun’ things to do as a PC Builder, is to plug in these tiny bastards on the correct pins at the right bottom of the board. I consulted with DJ’s server while consulting with the manual. It was confusing TF out of me;
I would assume it’s saying (for ‘H.D.D. LED’) to put black in 1 and white in 2. Except it wants me to put them in longways! The FUCK?! But after further examination, the manual was literally showing me how to put them in! …Wow, I’m an idiot.
So, H.D.D. LED goes in 1 and 3. RESET SW goes in 5 and 7, and PWR SW goes directly behind it. They’re now installed properly. Yay!
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STEP 12: …Am I actually done? DJ says not yet
CPU installed=CHECK
Cooler installed=CHECK
Motherboard installed=CHECK
Graphics Card installed on new board=CHECK
PSU installed and all known cables installed on board=CHECK (I think?)
Drives hooked up and ready to go=They fucking better be! God damn SATA cables. 😛
Front Panel Connectors installed properly=CHECK
So.. am I done? Can I wrap this up and see if I truly did fuck up nearly $440 worth of electronics with that zap? Yet I also felt “why bother? It’s dead”, plus mother wants to check her bank balance, and with my computer like this, I don’t know how (outside of my phone).
DJ then calls as I’m trying to think, and wants to see the inside of my computer. He’s saying to move the CPU power cable out of the way of both fans. It took him showing his computer for me to understand what he was saying, and was able to do so. Then he
says “get it hooked up and try it out”.
*deep sigh* I do so, hooking up all the essentials to the back of the new ports (and noticing there’s two USB Ports less than before. Great. Maybe I shouldn’t had been so hasty with that USB 3.0 expansion card Wuffer was going to give me. Fuck.
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Step ….: Fuck Burger King, my computer’s more important!!
Once everything was in, I did my usual 10 second countdown before hitting the power button on the case. I closed my eyes while pointing the phone at my primary monitor for DJ to see. Heard it booting, but heard silence from DJ. A sense of pure dread went through me, feeling it was over, I fucked up, game over man.. game OVER!!
DJ however, felt all was not lost as he instructed me to unplug everything (including the power), then press the button. It clicked as usual, but nothing came up, He said this just took out the static charge from the PSU, then he had me put it back on the bed and check to see what caused the computer to not have a screen.
As there were no beeps, he didn’t feel it was a RAM issue; more like a cable not properly plugged in all the way. It was getting very much past 6pm at this time, and I told him that I gotta go eat.
He said he may not be back on later, as it was midnight for him. Comforting.. so I’m on my own. But I went to go eat, then came home an hour later.
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Step …!!!! IT WORKS!! (repeating ‘IT WORKS!!’ several times, each time getting
louder, and with more exclamation points)
Back to my computer, I gave it another look. Decided to take off the PCI-E power cable for the one that’s first in the line. I found this a bit odd in my thoughts, but also felt I’m just not going to have a computer. I’m going to be screwed, just like mother is.
But, I put it all together and tried it. Staring at the monitor, I noticed the blue light suddenly holding steady… and then I saw the fucking POST screen!!
My jaw dropped to the floor, my eyebrows went sky-high as my arms did, and started screaming OMG IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS!!!!!!!! at the top of my lungs. I DID
IT, AGAIN!!! WOOOOOT!!!
What’s even better? Windows didn’t bluescreen! I saw my desktop, just as if I turned it on normally! HELL YEAH!! This is AWESOME!! DJ was right! I didn’t have to do all of that prep work!
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Checked my computer’s system settings, it shows the Ryzen 5 2600 is now my new
CPU, with 16GB of RAM! WOO!! No more being stuck with a CPU from 2012!!
This, is awesome. And to DJ, you sir, are a God-given lifesaver. I would had lost my sanity if it wasn’t for you. Thank you for being there when I needed it.
The CPU is running at around 34*C on idle, and has a TDP of 95*C. With how the CPU draws a lot less power than my 4350 (yet still blow it out of the water), it can have that higher temp limit.
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In closing, I did run into a few issues;
– D drive missing in Windows = Fixed with either pressing the SATA and power cables in better, or replacing the cable with one that the new board came with (thinking something’s wrong with it).
– CD-RW missing in Windows = Not fixed, low priority to fix. This would be more my fault for stupidly unplugging the cables from the drives (when I just needed to get them out of the way for the new board). I mean, the drive is powered, but it isn’t recognized in File Explorer.
My thinking is it doesn’t use a SATA Cable, or it’s similar to the graphics card of the cable thinking the drive is a slave instead of a master.
– Graphics Card temp at 50*C on idle, and the fans aren’t spinning = Unknown. After consulting DJ on this, he recommended I get MSI Afterburner and manually trigger the fans. Did so, and activated a custom fan curve. Immediately, the GPU cooled to 35*C in less than two minutes. So, it seems either that shock may had fried the automatic fan sensor on the card, or it didn’t feel it was hot enough (as it cooled down pretty damn quick when I manually engaged the fans). Thank God the fans didn’t get fried at least.
– USB 2.0 front panels still don’t work = Maybe possible fix. Glancing at the manual that came with the board, I noticed two areas on the board that control the ports on the front (and don’t remember ever seeing said plugs). Might want to take the drive cage off one of these days, and really see what the hell happened. Though, I could just get a better case and not have to deal with that.
– Windows now needs a new key = Something I have to fix. Remember when I said it was like I turned it on normally when I got everything working? It seemed the same (at the time) for Windows to not see I need a key. But, it did eventually catch up…
Now this wouldn’t be a problem to buy a new key (even one of these cheap
ones).. unfortunately it is now, when I had to help mother get out of some serious
debt (that took 3/4 of my balance). The reasoning is taxes kicking in. Now I barely have enough for groceries this Sunday… and I have to buy a key. Fuck. Even if it’s just under $14, every penny counts when you have less than $100 to survive for two weeks.
I really don’t have a choice, I have to buy a key. Mother does have some savings. It’s not much, but she does give me permission to use it if I absolutely have to. And this key is something I ‘absolutely have to’ (as Micro$oft is pissy if they don’t get their money).
As for the future, DJ says I will only need a new key if I upgrade the board. So a reinstall (if required) would be fine.
EDIT: Done. Purchased a key for $14.57, and now I won’t have to worry about Windows restarting my computer. I’m going to have to take this out of her savings, though.
So tomorrow, I’m going to hopefully try to get in VRChat with this new hardware, and see if it was worth the nearly $440. Hope to see very promising results (of 90 FPS in VR).
