(31) Stay frosty
Fully customised liquid cooling can be a monster to do right, but it does come with some major advantages. Lower running temperatures are a given, generating more potential for overclocking, but the key draw for many users is the significant reduction in sound. Fans can be run slower, resulting in less noise. Creating your own liquid-cooling loop is a costly process, though, demanding a budget of at least $1,000 to do properly.
Planning out the build is absolutely necessary if you’re going to be installing coolant tubes in your case. Take a side-on photograph of your case, and use your picture-editing software of choice to plan out the positioning of your components and tubes, making sure to ascertain which direction you want the coolant to flow. The larger your case, the easier it becomes; reservoirs and radiators can take up a lot of space. Smaller cases may demand the drilling of holes through metal frames to feed through tubing. Angled fittings can remove the need for bending your tubes; while flexible tubing is an option, hard tubing is easier to secure in place, and tends to look better, too.
The pump needs to be gravity-fed by a reservoir, so vertical installation within your case is required. When it comes to radiators, it’s worth having at least 120mm of radiator space allocated per component being cooled. For example, if you want to cool your CPU and your GPU on the same loop, you’re going to want a minimum radiator size of 120x240mm.
(32) Installing the OS
The best way to go about installing a new OS is to grab a copy of Windows from http://bit. ly/Win10MediaKit, if you’ve still got your digital key (or you have a Windows 10 license connected to your Microsoft account). Download the Media Creation Tool and Create Installation
Media on to a USB drive, then simply plug that stick into your new build, and boot it up. If it doesn’t work, head into the BIOS and adjust the boot order, so that the system boots from the USB first. From there, just follow the on-screen prompts to set up the operating system.
(33) Update drivers
To get your graphics up to speed, head to either the Nvidia or AMD website (depending on your GPU), and download the most recent driver update. If you’re using an older motherboard, you’ll want to update the chipset first. Just find the product on the manufacturer’s website, and grab the latest drivers. You’ll also want some additional drivers here; look for audio and LAN drivers in particular, and remember that the chipset needs to be installed first.
(34) Light show
Custom lighting can be a tricky business. It’s easy to buy an assortment of compatible RGB components and click a lighting preset in the manufacturer’s own RGB control software, but if you want to go truly flashy, you’re going to be installing light strips. These aren’t too expensive, but you also need adapters and potentially an RGB controller, too.
When it comes to installing them, ensure that the strips themselves aren’t visible from the windowed side of your case; light should always be shining on your components, rather than out of your case. Find spaces and corners to conceal them, either under the lip of the case’s edges or beneath the black border of a tempered glass panel. Using two strips installed at right angles in a corner creates a more even spread of light across your motherboard, but if you’re using fully addressable RGB lighting, it’s important to ensure that they are synchronised up properly.
(35) Installing software
Presumably, you’re going to want to put some programs on your shiny new computer. A good one-stop-shop for this is http:// ninite.com, which enables you to choose from a selection of key programs to quickly and easily download to your C drive. Ninite also keeps these up to date automatically, if you want it to. If you’re a gamer, you’ll likely have to do some busywork; while
Steam is on Ninite’s list, other platforms, such as Origin and the Epic launcher, are not. Similarly, if you use higher-end image or video manipulation software, you’re going to have to seek it out yourself.
(36) Tweak RAM settings
You’re also going to want to take a look at your RAM settings. Double-check that the memory is running at the correct frequency and CAS timings, then enable XMP settings if you’re overclocking. You can attempt to manually pump this up, too, but be careful – DRAM voltage increases of more than 10 percent can prove lethal to your sticks.
(37) Color coding
Unless you’re going for a very specific color scheme, it’s
generally best to stick to white lighting. This gives your components a good amount of definition, without drowning out any RGB effects your mobo is putting out. Bright single-color
LED strips are likely to just highlight the predominant colors on your components, flooding your build’s appearance with blue or red. If your strip allows for brightness adjustment, opting for a slightly more conservative light level is a good call.
Addressable RGB is great, provided you ensure that you can synchronise to retain an appealing pattern across your entire build.
(38) Search warranty
If you can’t work out what’s wrong with your build –or if you can, but you can’t fix it – there’s one more port of call: the warranty. Most brands come with a decent warranty, and some components even come with a lifetime guarantee. Customer service is generally good
– if they can’t diagnose the issue, you’re likely to get a fresh replacement part, provided you haven’t done something horribly wrong to the offending component. Don’t be afraid to raise a ticket even for minor issues; when it comes down to it, they are the experts.
In addition to general design quality and longevity, this is one of the key reasons we recommend sticking to recognisable brand-name components. If you’re not sure when purchasing, check the manufacturer’s website, and read some reviews on reseller sites. If you can’t find many (or any) reviews, tread carefully; don’t be lured in by a low price and an obscure manufacturer name.
(39) BIOS mastery
Knowing how to modify your build’s settings in the BIOS is a vital part of proper PC building, enabling you to get the absolute best out of your hardware. We deal with CPU overclocking on the right, but that’s not all the BIOS can do. Fan curves are a great place to start; set a low curve (between 35 and 50 percent power) for any temperatures below 60 C, then ramp them up. This guarantees a quieter experience when your PC is idling.
(40) Speed up booting
There’s a number of ways to speed up actual use of your PC. Fast boot or boot order settings can be useful to tweak, and ACPI settings enable you to adjust system-level power states and how they interact with input from peripherals. If you’ve got an Intel board, consider turning on the Rapid Start function, which speeds up resume times from PC hibernation. Remember that your operating system boots faster from an M.2 drive than a SATA one.