installation help asrock z77extreme 6

[pontypool]

putting this mobo into a coolermaster haf xm.
bit confused about the installation. googled the problem and registered at coolermaster forums but waiting for manual activation. ive got all the gold stand screws in place which the motherboard sits on, but theres a chunky silver standoff screw which it shows in the diagram going just above the drive bays to the top right of the motherboard. well i cant find exactly where this is supposed to sit and im not even going to turn it on until im sure.
on a second point was the installation of the cpu (which obv came with a stock heatsink and fan) but unlike previous amd cpus which had a thermal pad already in place, this cpu had thermal paste applied in a zig zag pattern. it is my understanding that this is supposed to be applied thinly and evenly. is this a critical point? im guessing yes, in which case its a bit hard and not viscous. Should i heat and then spread it?
other than that not 100% sure how to get my existing windows installation on two sata raid 0 i beleive (both are merged into one drive) to run on this new mobo and case. cant seem to find anything in the manual, only the fact that you plug them into those sockets :s seems not specific about details...
plus the jumper cables to connect speakers , front usb etc, they both seem to refer you to each others manual . case/mobo

[- wardog -]

Are you referring to part(s) in the lower right expanded view in the below pic? With the phillips screwdriver inserted and the down and around arrows showing direction?

[pontypool]

yup exactly. it isn't clear about where it goes. btw is that where the cable frpm the psu with the metal loop on the end?

[parsec]

Well, that part in the picture above is simply a little adapter tool for screwing in the gold standoffs into the mother board tray. It is not a part of the board and belongs in the bag of extra screws.

Also, I don't get "cable from the psu with the metal loop on the end".

[pontypool]

oh right. so i dont need that component ?? theres just the one of them, and it was listed on the installation of motherboard section.
dont know how to describe the cable from psu, except that its a thim cable with a metal ring at the[end which in my old pc, was attatched to the chasis (by way of screw through the ring) on the part of the chasis suporting the hdd's. i can only presume it was some kind of grounding cable.
other than tis standoff compnent which may or mynot need, how do i place my existing windows 7 os on two raid drives into the sata sockets?
on this board you apparently place the drives via the front panels, seated on the rubber stand, and when it slts in it mates wih the sata connectors, ut as for the connection to the mobo it obviously varies slightly from other boards that you dont use cables to link the drives as the xport chip does that, but how do i plug them intothe mobo so its raid 0... (both drives merged as one) there appears to be a choice of sata 2 andddsata3 sockets. now i cannot or the life of me find info in the manual, even though i found dual ddr setup easily enough (a1-b1)

[parsec]

What power supply make and model do you have, I've never seen one with a grounding cable.

Why are you saying "tis standoff compnent which may or mynot need"? I guess you need confirmation from someone else...

The thermal compound on the Intel CPU cooler will spread out by itself, you don't need to do anything with it.

The two X-Dock drive bays on the front panel are really made for "Hot-Swapping" drives in and out of a running PC, which is not what you can do with a RAID array. You need to mount your drives in two of the six internal drive bays. You then need to identify the six Intel SATA ports on your board, which support RAID. There are also two ASMedia SATA ports that are separate from the Intel ports and do not support RAID.

Connect your two drives for RAID to two of the Intel SATA ports, either two of the SATA II or SATA III ports. The SATA mode in the BIOS must be set to RAID. With a fresh installation of Windows, you'll need to configure the RAID 0 with the Intel RAID Option ROM that can be accessed when the board POSTs by pressing Ctrl i.

The cables from the various connections on your case are just matched to the corresponding plugs on the mother board, which are identified in each products manual. I suggest you do some studying about this, since it sounds like you've never done this before.

Also, your PC Spec's are not filled in much, so we don't know what components you are using, like PS and disk drives.

[pontypool]

well actually ive been told its the asmedia usb sockets which support raid and the intel ones dont. i'll flarify by stating that an os is already installed on my two sata drives and i want to keep the data, so no fresh install.
can't see how you can install in one of the 6 ports as i dont know how the sata cables get from there to the socket.
ive installed other mobo case combos, but find the coolermaster haf xm a bit unusual, with it's[psu cable management (assuming that's what the box next to psu is. and the drive bays are odd

[parsec]

Oh right, RAID on the ASMedia 3.0 interface, how did I miss that...

[- wardog -]

Oh right, RAID on the ASMedia 3.0 interface, how did I miss that...

hehe

A mid tower case and the RAIDed OS drives are housed in an external USB enclosure?

OP, can you verify this is correct?

Pardon us but that runs counter to logic. Hence mine and parsec's amazement. Caught quite off guard with that.

[pontypool]

hehe

A mid tower case and the RAIDed OS drives are housed in an external USB enclosure?

OP, can you verify this is correct?

Pardon us but that runs counter to logic. Hence mine and parsec's amazement. Caught quite off guard with that.

i meant sata. as you probably knew