New PCS PC - couple of minor niggles

[mr_dog25]

I received my new baby on Saturday and it's a thing of loveliness and beauty and I'm delighted. But, there are a couple of minor niggles for which the after sales support from PCS is proving to be quite protracted and surprisingly unhelpful. Minor stuff I guess, but when you've spent £3k on a new rig, niggles feel meh.

They installed the OS on the wrong drive
I'd emailed in March, during pre-prod, to request it be installed on the 250GB m.2 but they popped it on the 1TB m.2 regardless. Not the end of the world I guess, just frustrating as the 250gb drive feels a bit pointless now; so I'm keen to determine if moving the OS is easy to do (for someone not especially PC-savvy).

Could anyone please point me to/provide an idiot's guide? Googling it has just boggled and overwhelmed.

For peace of mind (in case I'm perpetually boggled), leaving the OS on the 1TB isn't really an issue, right? Advice I was given - not from here - was that the OS on its own dedicated drive was a wise thing to do. But, if it matters not, then I'll just say one last meh, blow a short raspberry and love it anyway.

Case light and fan RGB colour change
The case light and fans (front 3 are RGB) don't seem to have any obvious way to change the colour/effect and there's nothing about them amongst the various literature that the PC came with - or a remote that might control them, or an obvious (not that I know what I'm looking for) switch on or in the case itself.

Googling suggested I'd need Aura Sync (now part of Armoury Crate) so I downloaded that - but it only sees my motherboard (and an LED strip, curiously, as I didn't add one) and even then, changes made don't make any difference (I'm definitely using it right - watched loads of YT vids to check that I was!).

I've asked PCS for a steer but they just said 'download Aura Sync' - I'd told them I'd already done so and tried that before contacting them; the next reply was to say 'download Aura Sync' (kill...me...).

Any ideas on how I change the case and fans RGB if Aura Sync doesn't detect them? I'm stuck with an annoying blinking light purple at the mo, which I could tolerate if it'd at least just stay static ><

Spec details below - it's not showing amends, so of note:

• Case was swapped for the PCS Prism-X RGB Mid Tower Case
• 250GB SSD was swapped for a 250GB m.2

Cheers!

Case
PCS P209 ARGB MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 Ten-Core Processor i9-10900K (3.7GHz) 20MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS XII HERO Wi-Fi (LGA1200, USB 3.2, CrossFireX/SLI) - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
10GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080 - HDMI, DP, LHR
1st Storage Drive
250GB SEAGATE BARRACUDA 120 2.5" SSD, (up to 560MB/sR | 540MB/sW)
1st Storage Drive
4TB SEAGATE IRONWOLF PRO 3.5", 7200 RPM 128MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
External Hard Drive
1TB Seagate One Touch External HDD, USB 3.0, Black
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100x Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Extra Case Fans
1x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
Microsoft® 365 Personal (12 Month Subscription - Digital Key)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Firefox™
Monitor
ASUS TUF GAMING VG27BQ 27"
Monitor Cables
1 x 2 METRE HDMI (M) to DVI (M)
Surge Protection
6 Socket 2m Surge Protector
Cable Management
PCS 1.5M Zip Cable Tidy - Professional Cable Management
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 16 to 19 working days
Promotional Item
Get CoD:Cold War with select RTX Graphics Cards
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland
Logo Branding
PCSpecialist Logo

 

[SpyderTracks]

They installed the OS on the wrong drive
I'd emailed in March, during pre-prod, to request it be installed on the 250GB m.2 but they popped it on the 1TB m.2 regardless. Not the end of the world I guess, just frustrating as the 250gb drive feels a bit pointless now; so I'm keen to determine if moving the OS is easy to do (for someone not especially PC-savvy).

Could anyone please point me to/provide an idiot's guide? Googling it has just boggled and overwhelmed.

They would have put it on the fastest drive by default, but since you asked them specifically to install it on the 250Gb, they should have done that.

You definitely want to delete all the existing windows partitions and completely blank the 1TB drive after you've sorted it though, bad idea to have 2 installations.

It's very easy to move over, you can either do a clean install as per method one here:

How to do a Clean Install of Windows 10 the Easy Way

The Windows 10 upgrade process drags old files, settings, and programs from your previous Windows system to your new one.

www.howtogeek.com

Just delete all existing partitions on all drives before continuing and that will format the 1Tb drive in the meantime.

Or, you can clone the existing windows install disk to the 250Gb drive. There are various free tools to do this:

Top 5 Free & Reliable Hard Disk Drive Cloning Software

Discover the top free and reliable HDD cloning tools. Compare features, benefits and drawbacks of the best free software with our guide.

www.techrepublic.com

If you wanted a paid option which is really user friendly, then I'd highly recommend Acronis TrueImage, simply the best and not expensive.

Case light and fan RGB colour change
The case light and fans (front 3 are RGB) don't seem to have any obvious way to change the colour/effect and there's nothing about them amongst the various literature that the PC came with - or a remote that might control them, or an obvious (not that I know what I'm looking for) switch on or in the case itself.

It's a real shame you didn't follow the advice you were given, that build is quite poorly balanced and could have been so much better for the same budget. But that's another story.

I'm not entirely sure on that case, but it's quite possible one of the buttons on the case cycles colours. If not, it should be controlled by the motherboard software.

For the motherboard software you'd want Armory Crate: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/14Utilities/ArmouryCrateInstallTool.zip

 

[mr_dog25]

That's great, thank you so much. I was hoping to avoid having to wipe the 1TB where the OS currently is, as I'd spent hours downloading and installing stuff before I noticed the OS was on that drive. I guess I could copy everything to the external HDD I got before wiping though, so I'll take a look at the clean install.

Is there any risk leaving it be though, or is it best to have the OS on its own drive?

I'm not entirely sure on that case, but it's quite possible one of the buttons on the case cycles colours. If not, it should be controlled by the motherboard software.

I'll take a closer look at the case and google some example switches to lookout for, to double check. I wondered if it might be something to do with brand of fan - not sure what they are, I don't recall an option to specify that so guess it's whatever the case came with.

Armoury crate isn't seeing the fans, so this one might just need me to learn to like a blinking purple light

It's a real shame you didn't follow the advice you were given, that build is quite poorly balanced and could have been so much better for the same budget. But that's another story.

Consider myself shamed 🔔 shamed 🔔

I was wondering if someone eagle-eyed might call me out 😧 iirc, the advice was:

• Switch to the AMD CPU - I wanted to, but it meant a full order cancel and reorder to do so which whilst the 3080 queue position would've held, the finance deal would've had to be cancelled too and a new application made, meaning another credit search (and my current credit record really can't take another of those for a while!). Plus all the developers at work (avid gamers) said hardly any games would utilise the additional AMD cores and they'd always go Intel.
• Downgrade to a 3070 - I know, I know, that would've been sensible. But I expect to be upgrading to a 4k monitor at some point this year so heart beat brain on that one.
• Upgrade the case - available cash to pay for it dictated the hand there; the finance application was already done so it would've meant finding the money. Plus, vanity - I liked the look of the chosen one 🤪

Cheers for the help bud!

 

[SpyderTracks]

I wanted to, but it meant a full order cancel and reorder

If you phone them, they'll happily transfer over to an AMD build and it doesn't affect your place in the queue.

Upgrade the case - available cash to pay for it dictated the hand there; the finance application was already done so it would've meant finding the money. Plus, vanity - I liked the look of the chosen one

The case is inherently important to the cooling available to the internal components, it's not just a simple case of aesthetics. Unfortunately that case has really poor cooling and is only really designed for entry level builds. It's quite likely you'll face some throttling. Coupled with the fact you've got a very old cooler that has no software monitoring and chose the upgraded paste which means removing the higher quality pre applied paste and applying lesser stuff can in itself lead to cooling issues.

Plus an old PSU model.

Just such a shame, could have been a great build.

As a word of warning, you'll want to fully uninstall bullguard. It causes many issues related to instability, high cpu usage and networking issues.