Assembled my first deep learning/ gaming PC

It’s been ages since I assembled a PC (it’s been ages since I used a PC too!), so it was a very interesting and exciting learning experience to build one last week.

Without further ado, let’s look at the parts list:

• AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Processor
• Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition CPU Air Cooler
• CORSAIR Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3200 RAM
• EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER SC ULTRA GAMING, 08G-P4–3067-KR, 8GB GDDR6, Dual HDB Fans, Metal Backplate GPU
• MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK AM4 AMD B550 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
• WD Blue 3D NAND 2TB SSD
• Be quiet! Straight Power 11 650W, BN617, Fully Modular, 80 Plus Gold, Power Supply
• Fractal Design Meshify C Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

PC parts from CPU to the Case!

On to the assembly!

1. Placed the processor gently in to the motherboard socket (match up the triangles for the correct orientation!)

2. Replaced the motherboard’s default backplate with the Hyper 212 Air cooler’s backplate

3. Attached the CPU cooler to the processor (after applying a small amount of the included thermal paste over the CPU)

4. Popped in the RAM sticks to the A2 and B2 DIMM slots on the motherboard

5. Secured the motherboard inside the case and the GPU to the PCIe slot

I connected the case front panel cables (power, reset, hdd led, usb, audio) to the motherboard, power cables from the power supply to the motherboard, CPU, GPU, SSD and powered it up for the first time!

Powered on for the first time! Red EZ Debug light indicating that the boot device is not detected (which is fine as the OS has not been installed yet)

I then tried connecting my monitor to the HDMI port on the motherboard but nothing came up! Then tried connecting to the HDMI port on the GPU…Voila! I could now see the boot screen:

I turned on XMP from the boot menu (as my RAM is rated for 3200 MHz), installed Windows 10, and all the drivers (chipset, audio, lan, and, gpu).

After a few reboots, got everything setup!

As I mentioned at the start it was a great learning experience building my new PC. Additionally, from what I understand you get the best value for money and a good quality PC when you put it together as opposed to buying a pre-built.

However, if one does not have a lot of experience building PCs then one can get in to some issues…like the following ones that I encountered:

1. I had trouble fixing the air cooler as I did not know that the screws are spring loaded so one has to push on them to screw in. In this process, some of the thermal paste started to come off of the side and I had to remove that very carefully (I am still a little concerned whether there’s enough paste now between the cooler and the CPU, so I ran stress tests several times…I’m also going to keep an eye out for the CPU temperatures in the coming weeks or just try to remove and reapply the paste)
2. I mentioned earlier that the HDMI port on the motherboard did not work. I was not aware that this happens when the processor does not have integrated graphics (and many of the processors do not have integrated graphics).
3. I initially connected the cooler fan’s RGB connector to the ARGB connector on the motherboard (JRAINBOW2 connector to be precise). When I was unable to change the color of the fan in the software, I started searching for the cause of the problem and only then realized that there are two types of RGB connections- regular RGB and the Addressable RGB which operate at different voltage levels! Luckily, there was no damage and I reconnected the cooler’s connector to one of the RGB connectors on the motherboard and was able to change the color of the cooler fan in the software.
4. I thought it was a good idea to update the bios of the motherboard and tried doing it using the motherboard manufacturer’s software (MSI Dragon Center) on Windows. When the update restarted the machine, it wouldn’t boot at all! I had to clear the CMOS and luckily the machine was alive again! I found later that it is never a good idea to update the bios from the OS…the preferred way is to do it using the USB stick.
5. I figured that 32 GB of RAM may be a bit on the higher side. 16 GB would have sufficed and I could have gone for a higher speed (3600 MHz instead of 3200 MHz)

So, if you are planning to put your own PC together then you must do some due diligence and spend a few hours going over build related articles/ videos. Picking the parts has a bit of a learning curve so, again you’d have to do some research if you want to make the most of your money.

Also, as in many things in life patience is a virtue! Don’t be in a hurry to finish the build…if you are not sure about something, just stop, read/ research about it and then get back to your build.

That’s it for now folks and hope this article helps you in your PC build :)

Happy building!