Antec AX61 Elite Build Guide (POV)

hello guys in this video I'll be building a computer inside the antec ax61 elite this is a follow-up video for the unboxing and first impressions I did on this case I have a ryzen platform over here and I really wanted to test the capabilities of this case so I decided to go and buy an antec water cooling solution so yeah this is gonna be fun okay so first thing first let's remove the side panel I like to do it when the computer is flipped on its side for safety reasons I used to work as a PC builder in a local computer store and this is how a typical day looks like in the shop working with the power drill and not a screwdriver makes your workflow a lot faster so okay let's put the tempered glass side panel right away inside the cardboard box I like to put it between the two pieces of foam again for safety let's remove the side panel also put it in the Box okay so what I do first I like to prep the case for installation I like to go with the motherboard first so we have our i o shift over here make sure the audio jacks are at the bottom and we go like this foreign ers so that's ready okay next thing we need to put our motherboard now usually the standard layout pretty much in any case is like an ATX layout for the standoffs as you can see in my motherboard the standoffs are here and here so it's kind of offside a bit so I will need to change my standoffs I think I also need a couple more because my board is a bit of a standard version of Micro ATX I have a couple of screws also over here usually this is the layout but it's a bit of a longer board because it have four Ram slots so we need two more here okay for motherboard installation I like to flip the case one Pitfall you should pay attention is you can see that the cables from the fan are sticking out here so make sure to move them up so they won't get stuck in the ports I like to put the motherboard in a bit of an angle make sure we are aligned here yeah looks good take our motherboard screws usually I like to use the screws with the little ring on them you have a bit of a like thicker screws usually they are used for the power supply we need one two three four five six seven eight the first one I like to screw it by hand just because I need to hold the motherboard in order to align it with the standoff like to put the center one first and then I like to use the drill and motherboard is installed okay so next I like to install the power supply so far no problems motherboard installation was pretty smooth except this cables you need to pay attention not to get them stuck than inside the ports I talked in my video about this little pads over here at the bottom so they give support to the power supply it helps also to damp the noise from the fan and also protect from short circuits because this is metal and this is metal near metal and metal usually don't work very well especially when it comes to power supplies there is a filter over here not the best one it's probably like the most cheapest filter you can get uh you can also move the hard drive cage over here but this power supply is not that long so I don't think we'll need to do that but it is possible if you want to you have two screws at the bottom and you can move it a bit over here or just remove it completely it looks like we might actually need to remove it unless can do something like this nope so that's the thing about this case it is pretty narrow compared to like other cases because the hard drive cage is getting stuck at the bottom connections of my power supply so I thought we could avoid it but I guess not it's okay let's move on okay looks good make sure we align one two three four like I said I like to use the thicker ones especially for a power supply that it is at least five times heavier than a motherboard up the torque a bit and the drill bit okay looks good next thing I like to do is to install any hard drives I have or ssds so in my case I have a Samsung 250 Gigabyte 850 Evo SSD you have a couple of options here to install the SSD you can either install it over here in these two spots I think you need to install the SSD in the other side you can also use the hard drive cage there is uh cutouts for SSD but because this place is very narrow and I don't have hard drives I'm just gonna not use it and save this space for my cables I'll need four more screws I like to use the same ones I used for the motherboard I like to think about the orientation like of the cables so I have a card out here I guess they made it intentional because you have cutouts here for the throughout your cables to your motherboard but this cutout is probably for the say the power and data cables so put my SSD over here let me show you like this okay I can use it also like this I think here it's a pretty good spot align the hose and fire in the hole as you can see the other two screws are like behind here but the made holes over here so you can exit access access it through the hole [Music] and it should be good to go I like to put straight away the Sata cable because I always forget about them so it goes under here here let's remove this harness of the fans for now because I am going to remove the front fence anyway because you can't mount a radiator on the top in this case because there isn't enough clearance you can put fence here but not radiator because it's way thicker so I will need to move these fans at the top and then put a radiator here I like to put my motherboard cables so we have the 24 pin good let's put our EPS connector so that's the four plus four uh usually they mark it with the CPU initials so we know it's for CPU I hope you can see this but my CPU EPS connection is over here and as you can see I like to do this before I install a cooler because then it's hard to reach over here okay so this is for the graphic card I guess we can route it here for now in the front like this next I like to do the front panel cables there's also an RGB controller built in over here with the reset switch so this one needs to go over here that way we can control the LED of the fans let's do the form panel basically these cables are to control your power button your LEDs in the front of the case up top I always like to flip them so the side that is written it's on the bottom facing down and I pretty much know the order by heart I do recommend to use a manual like the motherboard manual every time you do this just to make sure you're not confusing if you don't connect them properly then things might not work for you but yeah there we go next we have two harnesses here a USB so that parsed a USB at the top this case I have two USB 2.0 and a USB 3.0 which is this thicker cable but for the USB 2.0 there's a difference cable so it's this one and again uh usually motherboards have I I don't think you will be able to see this with the GoPro resolution but they kind of label if it's a USB 2 or whatever so you can just look at the motherboard but if you're not sure just look at the manual and the next one is the audio cable so that gives audio for the front panel or the microphone and headphone jack now usually there's a place here because this cable and the connect over here but as you can see um yeah my power supply is a thick boy I can't run it from there so we'll do it from here not that big of a deal all these cables have like special pin layouts so it's it's very hard although they look similar it's very hard to mix those so don't be too afraid of it next we have our USB 3.0 cable let's see what's the best way to Route it so my USB 3.0 connector is here so I think the best way is to ride it from the bottom so we go over here like so looks nice I like how all these cables are from the bottom not tingling from the side that way when I put the coffee card it doesn't interfere with anything up next we can do some cable management just a light light cable management just to see where we are I like that you can kinda smoosh the cable over here let's put a zip tie be careful when you do that not to cut yourself a cable I did that once and it wasn't fun let's connect the SSD before we forget I think okay so my graphic card is pretty big you can see the problem there the SATA connectors are over here so I kind of need to the cable kind of go from here and go here so it won't get stuck in the graphic card actually can just put it from here I don't know why I overthink this so that's good done okay so we're pretty much halfway done all I have to do now is to remove the fans then I need to install the radiator installing a radiator especially a 361 it takes time and a lot of focus so I'm gonna take a small break it's okay to take breaks especially if it's your first build just take a breather you know be proud of what you you have done so far get yourself a cup of tea or coffee and we will keep going afterwards okay we are back and now we are going to install the 360 radiator the first we'll need to take out the fence in order to open the front panel you need to put your hand over here there's a tab over here that you can hold push it out towards you like so and the fans are screwed from this side now a potential problem I can see already is some of the screws are at the bottom over here would be a bit hard to reach them but we'll do our best now what I will be able to do with the drill I'll do with the drill so one thing I already noticed in some cases there's like a real and you can kind of move it up and down over here it's fixed so there's only one position that the radio can go I don't like this too much it shouldn't be a problem but we will see I want to make sure that all the fans will be disconnected because I don't want cables to get stuck so let's throw out the cables from here it's gonna be hard with the power supply I might will need to remove it yeah there's no way I'm going to do that with the power supply inside so let's remove the power supply I don't have to completely remove it but just move it aside just so I can reach out with my hand okay got it okay now we need the other side move all of this very carefully and continue over here I will recommend to if you're doing this if you're removing the fence do this before anything else so that's something I learned over here I can't reach the screw I have the risk of accidentally break one of the ram slots so let's take the ram out I rather work twice and not damage anything third fan is out for now I will leave those aside because you may never know how we are going to install the radiator so let's move our case aside and open our radiator I've never seen this before it's gonna be my first time installing this I am a bit nervous because it's radiator and each company have their own like kind of way to install uh radiators so okay that looks like a lot of work let's go [Music] that's a big mess of RGB cables I noticed that this radiator have the fan already pre-installed we will need to remove them in order to install it in the front because the fans are going from here and the radar radiator needs to go over here now another potential problem this SSD might interfere in our way let's double check that first because I think it's not going to go in but ntec may surprise me let's see what are we okay it doesn't go in with the fan so we'll have to remove them [Music] let's do a quick test fit you need to be careful of the cables from the top front panel okay looks good looks like it's going in and looks like we are okay shall we start installing the fence over here we're gonna do the fence facing with the blades inside so let me push fresh air from outside to the radiator each fan have a cable to power it and an RGB harness this is a splitter you can daisy chain them together so it doesn't really matter which fence goes where spring back our screws align one of those oh I think this screw is not long enough you know it's okay [Music] um did I miss the hole I think these screws are not long enough should I hand screw them maybe nope it doesn't go in let's maybe try a different screw or you know what we can do we can actually unscrew this one just to get some tension back like the problem is there's like a bump here and this bump actually prevents us from reaching out let's try it this way maybe starting from the top yeah it just well not only it doesn't reach it also starting to eat the standoff over there what should we do maybe if we add another fan it will get more attention so should be fine maybe this standoff got eaten so much because over here it goes pretty like no problem seems like only this one is our problem maybe it's just like a factory defect or something but we will see let's do our second fan like you can feel it doesn't go in all the way and it's okay like it's holding the fan no problem there but I wish uh I think did it do this kind of weird bump over here like very weird just extra space that you can get for your [Music] for your cooler and let's try this again shall we got the standoff inside the cooler over here got completely eaten and I can't I can't screw it it just there is a fix for it but I'm not gonna do it now so it's okay we'll leave it like this it's not ideal but at least we got three screws over here so the fan is holding fine we're not gonna have any noise problems or something like that so it's all good over there sometimes you just gotta take what you get and move on you know next we should install the pump let's do our bracket two hours later boy this is the worst installation guide I've seen so far I've installed plenty of colors but this one this is just awful what is even going on here I'm so confused like this one says enter bracket and this one says empty bracket I guess that's AMD bracket what and Tech please work on your manuals guys please it'll just be the best for everyone I'm just gonna go with my gut over here and my experience of installing dozens of coolers for you you can always watch a video like maybe installation video I'm sure there is pretty much on every color these days for me I don't want to watch videos right now and I'm just gonna go with my gut okay so I eventually managed to install the pump was a bit of a pain instructions weren't very clear and I know I I told you I don't need to go and see a YouTube video but then I told to myself what a kind of a teacher I am if I'm giving you a tip to go watch a YouTube video and don't do it myself so I will link in the description down below very good video on how to install this it helped me a lot so if you are to install a cooler like that I hope it will be helpful to you too okay so all we have left to do is put the power supply back in and I will connect the RGB and the fans then I want to see if we can mount the free fans that we took out from the front if we can mount them over here and uh yeah other than that just install the part the graphic card and see if the system works I'm gonna put the blades upwards so it will exhaust hot air because we already have intake and I'm not gonna fully install them just gonna make a test fit first so let's put one fan we'll put one screw okay that's one yeah there's no way there's three fans in here is this top is ready for free fans let's see what I say on the box I'm pretty sure on their website it says you can put three fans at the top okay I'm a bit of a dum dum it says top 120. okay so after double checking that when I Was preparing myself for this video I was sure that on the website it said you can put free fans at the top I don't know maybe I got confused because of the layout over here you have like free maybe that's why I got confused but you can obviously see there's no space for third fan over here I don't know what I was thinking I guess it's a lesson for myself next time uh I should pay attention more also a bit of a problem I can see here is that the radiator uh tubing gets stuck in the fan so I might not put two fans I might just put one here I can if I want to strap this tubing into something and make sure it doesn't get stuck in the blades but I don't want to take the risk at least I have much less work now that's a lemonade out of lemons I guess is that how they say that make a lemonade out of lemons I don't know okay I'm gonna do some cable management I think we have a lot to do I can put back the front panel for now one important thing I did mention it in in my unboxing video when you put the cables in this hose make sure to lift the round holes open because this is where the tabs are going in and you don't want to smush any cables okay so I'm done with cable management uh I guess we can do last one over here just to kind of make it more tight there we go my general rule will be like I know it's not the prettiest cable management but it is very practical just to make sure it sits uh tight and flush when you will try to close the side panel I really liked about this case that over here they did like a bump this whole piece is is a bit more inside so you have much more room for cables overall I'm pretty happy you know what it's not the prettiest one but it's kinda okay I think all I have left to do is to install the graphic card now one thing I really hate about this case the PCI brackets you need to break them I really really hate this because you can accidentally scratch your motherboard so you need to be very careful one trick that I used to do when I was working at the store I was taking this side folding this and then do this kind of small motions and then it just breaks without the risk of scratching the motherboard so that's a cool trick you can use we need to unscrew this this is the GPU cover I'm not sure how long this card in centimeters I can look it up and then add it on the screen after in the edit you do need to kind of put it in an angle because of the radiator be very careful of course is that the most satisfying sound in the world or what let's put our screws I always make sure to see that displayports are not going to up because then it's hard to plug cables so you kind of need to screw it a bit lower okay so that's done now we put the cover back that's good overall it looks really nice I'm actually very surprised like very pleased with this case I thought I will have a lot more to complain about but other than the stupid mistake I did thinking that there's gonna be three fans going inside here yeah I think it's pretty okay got a bit of a sag over there but that's fine let's try to close our side panel I always try to close the side panel first not to scratch the of the glass let's say how easy you can fold it I always put my hands like this and push it let's put our thumb screws it is a bit tight but I think I did a pretty good job with the cable management don't forget it's a budget case no bumps and a triple radiator with extra two fans thick power supply the removal of the hard drive cages this big here if you probably noticed I still haven't plugged the PC even to check if it works because I always like to do it in the end you can plug the computer before like you cable manage and then you do the cable management and you accidentally unplug a cable and it just doesn't work so okay so Moment of Truth will this computer post okay we already have the fan spinning even though I didn't turn it on yet I think I know why it is let's try to turn it on no seven hours later so I think I know what's happening here the case fans and also the water cooling fans have an RGB connector that goes into the motherboard and I have two argp connectors in the motherboard unfortunately and none of them works properly every time I connect to each and one of them the system just won't put up for some weird reason so I don't have real way to control the RGB I really wanted to connect all the RGB together right now only the back to fans work with the reset button and I don't have any way to change the RGB for the cooler uh as you can see I did a bit of a mess with all the nice Cable Management we did here this is the RGB connector for the cooler I tried to daisy chain them together I tried to connect them separately every time I plug in our argb to the motherboard I have one at the bottom and one over here the system just refuses to boot up so yeah it is a bit of a bummer for me pretty sure the problem is with my motherboard I try to bios update it I try to change settings on the BIOS I tried a bunch of stuff none of them work but that's not the point of this video point of this video is to show you the Intec x61 Elite the building experience was pretty good I'm actually very surprised I thought I I will have a lot more to complain about but overall it was pretty fine in terms of cable management in terms of installing components the front radiator was easy to install just apart with the screws that couldn't really get inside the radiator was a bit annoying but eventually we managed to do that as well so system is pretty quiet as well I don't know if you can hear but case is pretty quiet these fans are not like super high quality ones so I wouldn't expect too much of them for now the temperatures look fine this appears on 37 degrees it's an AMD CPU and we are in the mid of July so temperatures are fine all my devices are showing up everything is okay I think in terms of like building experience it's a pretty good case if I didn't had this annoying RGB problem I think I can say I enjoy it a lot uh but yeah this one was a bummer to deal with but it's over now I'm gonna edit this video upload it and hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comment section down below thank you for watching guys I hope you enjoyed this kind of a build guide I'll see you next time thank you

Channel: Full Tower TV

Views: 1,440

Keywords: antec case, antec ax61, antec ax61 elite case, antec ax61 elite review, antec ax61 elite atx mid tower case, antec ax61 argb, antec ax61 build guide, antec ax61 elite case review, how to build with the antec ax61 elite case, antec ax61 elite build guide

Id: 6bk3io5KxnA

Length: 30min 57sec (1857 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 23 2023