Building Your Own Graphics Workstation, Part Three
Page 2 of 6
Installing the Hard Drives
We have two Maxtor hard drives to install first: the 20GB system drive and the 80GB data and applications drive. Since these two drives are both ATA-133, we need to put them on the same IDE channel, meaning they need to be connected to the same IDE port on the motherboard. If a slower ATA-100 or ATA-66 drive were to be connected on the same channel, the ATA-133 drives would get knocked down in transfer speed.[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Before you install the drive(s) you have the option of adding a hard drive cooler. This is a fan or two on a bracket that screw into the bottom of the drive to provide more airflow to the drive itself. The higher rotation drives can generate a good amount of heat particularly during disk intensive applications like video editing, but since we already have fans blowing in through the drive cages, they’re not necessary. Take one of the drive cages, and screw the 20GB drive into the top mount. Install the 80GB drive in the bottom spot it in the cage to leave a spot between them for good air flow. Set the master/slave settings so that the 20GB is master and the 80GB drive the slave. Put the drive cage into the case; lock it in with the lever. Run a rounded IDE cable from the second (blue) IDE connector on the motherboard to the drives: the top black connector to the master 20GB drive, the second gray connector to the slave 80GB drive, and the far end’s blue connector to the motherboard. Connect a Molex power connector to each of the drives.
Take the 100GB Western Digital drive (if you have this third drive) and mount it into the lower drive cage. Run an IDE cable from that drive to one of the yellow IDE connectors on the board. Connect a Molex power connector to the drive. Each of the two yellow IDE/RAID connectors can handle another two hard drives. They cannot handle CD or DVD drives, however. If you want a RAID setup (where you can stripe two disks together to act as one larger and faster drive, or mirror one to the other for protection), you’ll need two or four of the same drive. Follow the Soyo manual for info on how to setup a RAID. But the hardware setup is the same: Install the drives and connect them to the RAID connectors.
Digital Doctor 5/Fan Installation
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If you don’t have the Digital Doctor 5, you’ll need to connect all the fans to a Fan Mate (if you have them) and then either to the motherboard or to the power supply using an adapter (4-pin to 3-pin fan connector – the Vantec fans all come with these adapters).The fan power connectors on the motherboard are located between the PCI slots and the yellow RAID connectors (designated CHFAN1, CHAFAN2), and right above the AGP slot, next to the chipset (designated CPUFAN2, CPUFAN1, CHAFAN3). We’ve already plugged the Zalman CPU fan to the CPUFAN2 via the Fan Mate, so that leaves us with four available connectors on the board. Plug in the two rear fans into CHAFAN3 and CPUFAN1, and the bottom two front fans into CHAFAN1 and CHAFAN2. That leaves us with the top cage fan, the side panel fan, and the top rear fan over the power supply. Plug these three fans into Fan Mates and then the Fan Mates into a power supply Molex power connector using the 4-pin to 3-pin adapters included with the Vantec Stealth fans. You will need to use a 3-pin power extension cord or two, especially for the side panel door fan.
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Digital Doctor 5
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The Digital Doctor will give you a readout of the case temperature or system components in about seven different parts of the case, and turn fans on and off according to set points you define. The LED readout on the Digital Doc has an amber backlight, which looks OK and everything, but if you’re adventurous and handy with a soldering iron, take a look at this web page giving directions on how to replace the orange light with a much cooler looking blue light.
While you’re changing the backlight, you could also very easily remove the round black speaker on the top PC board, by simply heating up the solder connecting the speaker’s pins to the board, and gently pulling it out a little bit at a time. Like I said, it makes things nicer not to have to hear the Digital Doc beep every time it turns on a fan, or keep beeping when a temperature is a few degrees above the fan turn on point. If you only decide to remove the speaker, take a look at that link anyway for tips on how to do it right.
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