CDs' System Upgrade w/Step-by-Step Pics!

[CDsDontBurn]

Here are some before pics of my system. Specs are as follow:

s478 p4 3.2Ghz Prescott
2GB (2x 1Gb) 400Mhz OCZ Platinum RAM 2-3-2-5
Abit IC7-G
PowerColor 4670 1GB
OCZ PowerStream 520w PSU
250GB HDD, 320GB HDD, 500GB HDD







Haven't blown / cleaned it out in a while. The clean streak there across the video card was from the night before from me opening the case and my daughter "checking" out my system.



Aside from the dirt that you see, here is the - up until now, what I thought was good - wiring job of my system.





Just did a general cleaning out with the compressor. Big difference in the amount of dust. Still a small amount of dust here and there though.





Some of the wiring on the rear side of my system.



Beginning the backup of all my crap over from my 320GB HDD to my 500GB HDD.

[CDsDontBurn]

Beginning the tear-down of my old components





My system fell over before the tear-down and the top case fan broke as a result. That was one of several unanticipated slow-downs I came across while building my system.





Motherboard is out!



The motherboard itself.



Everything else is out.



Specs of my old PSU.



The inside of my case all gutted.



Another angle of the inside.

[CDsDontBurn]

Mid-Case fan, flash off.



Mid-case fan, flash on.



Here's that top fan I mentioned earlier.



All the HDDs I intended on using.




Core components of my new system.



I/O shield installed



Intel i5-3570k installed!



Still an avid user of AS-5.



CPU fan installed. This is a Scythe SCSMZ-2100 92mm Samurai ZZ Rev.B - Compliments of malmental.

[CDsDontBurn]

Other angles of the CPU fan.





I noticed that the DIMM slots were slightly angled. As long as all the pins are going through the interface, this shouldn't be an issue.



The RAM!







The RAM installed.



My better, yet questionable quality, power supply.





The top fan has been replaced with another identical fan.

[CDsDontBurn]

My 7870 Myst Edition video card!



Front panel headers connected.



Test fit with my new video card. As soon as I did this, I had a gut feeling that my video card wasn't going to fit. I did a few test fits with the top HDD tray with the 250GB HDD installed in both slots to see if it was going to fit or not. It doesn't. I need the case to be about a half in longer in order for the card to fit. :annoyed:

Oh yea. MoBo is installed.



Took my system home. Was having issues getting my optical drives out.



Took off the front panel to get the optical drives out.





Thinking of how to continue



All my optical drives. The old ones and my new one.

[CDsDontBurn]

SATA and IDE optical drives are in. IDE one is there just to fill space more than anything.



My daughter exploring all the computer goodies.



Beginning the wiring job. Here, I've already done the front panel cables as well as the SATA cable from the optical drive.



Power cables of my HDDs.



My daughter "helping" me.



Another angle of my daughter helping me.



The power cables are a bit close to that bottom middle fan.







Heat will fix that.

[CDsDontBurn]

Notice how far the cables "pop out".



Applying heat to make the cables maluable and put them in the position I want.



Cables have cooled down now and are in the position I want.



It's hard to see, but the cables are actually further away than before to the fan.



Beginning cable management work on the SATA cables.



Cable management of SATA cables done.



My PSU has a mesh grille to protect the fan. This grille though pops out ever so slightly and causes it to "bend" up.



Tried to use the PSU retention bracket. Long story short, it didn't work because of that "bend".



Attempting to slide the PSU in with that one fan there. Long story short, that doesn't work.

[ryandigweed]

Wow. That's an amazing upgrade. Reminds me of myself. But great pictures. It gives a good idea for a first time computer builder