Building what is "essentially" a new computer, have most of the parts, just waiting on the RAM, so as anxious as I am to get cracking, I thought I'd at least put together what I could for the moment. I however have never dealt with a motherboard install before.
This has nothing to do with the cords and wires, I'll figure that one out. This is a much more basic problem.
So I figured out where all the screws and shit were meant to go on the motherboard, found all the corresponding holes in the case and put risers in those. Simple, straightforward.
But here's where computer hardware always fucks with me. Firstly, the cover that protects all the sockets that contain USB ports and audio plugs and crap has these useless extraneous metal tabs that try pushing the motherboard back further into the case like springs. I have to fight them to even TRY aligning the motherboard properly. But that only amplifies my main problem: The Goddamn screw-ports on the board can never 100% align with the risers. I've tried about 20 times now.
You'd think that managing to fasten one screw in one corner and another screw in another corner would ensure the thing was flush, but computer hardware is designed to be SLIGHTLY off so you have to worry about snapping something in half because you're worried you're going to have to bend a board or screw something so tight it that something breaks.
Either way, for whatever reason, the top set of screws don't even take. They're at a higher elevation and have to be pressed down to meet the risers for some reason, and the screws won't fasten, they just spin like they've been stripped. I don't even get it, it doesn't seem physically possible for this to be an issue. Every PC building tutorial I've ever seen shows some jackass installing a whole motherboard in less than a minute, casually, like it were nothing. But I have to keep suffering with this nonsensical garbage.
Point is, I'm exhausted from trying this over and over, I'm terrified I'm eventually going to nick one of the board's capacitors on a side of the case and make it inoperable and I just plain can't see how I can do it.
Any advice? At all?
Pictures might help more.
Working on that, don't have much better camera available than my cell phone's and my current PC refuses to work with certain external devices like Zune Players or my phone, so I have to transfer from another machine.
In the meantime, I'm taken a look at my risers and found a couple issues.
Firstly, nearly every riser I had a problem fastening screws into was somehow stripped, to the point that in testing their grip, I found my screws would almost fall into them, almost no grip at all. I've found other good ones and replaced all but 2. I have two other ones that grip well, but that brings me to the second concern.
Secondly, two of the good risers seem to have the interesting feature of having an extrusion from the top which adds about a tenth more to the overall height. At first I thought it was a product of a lathe that made a mistake, but in checking how it lies against the motherboard, I've found they appear to sink flush inside any given screw-hole on the motherboard with room for the screw itself. This looks to me like it can be used on opposite corners in order to more easily mount the board and prevent it from shifting once in place.
This would answer my two missing screw problem. I'm going to try again armed with this info and see what it accomplishes. I have to say, I find the manual of both the case and the board to be most uninstructive if I'm supposed to understand this, or the notion that the risers would be in any way different, without any direction other than what I can look up on the Internet. God pity the poor soul who doesn't realize you're not supposed to screw the motherboard onto the case without risers.
case name and motherboard?
[QUOTE=JohnEdwards;19603318]case name and motherboard?[/QUOTE]
This,
also the tabs are meant to secure the IO shield to the ports, but you can just wiggle them off.
also, I always like to put RAM in before MOBO because you have to push hard on the RAM in some MOBOs.
Well I might install the RAM first, except I don't have it yet. My 8 gigs of OCZ Gold DDR2 800mghz (PC6400) are a few weeks away from finally reaching my hands, but I decided I wanted to start building crap anyway.
The case is a Cooler Master Centurion, and the board is a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P.
Doesn't really matter at this point, those two risers with the extension turned out to be the exact right thing for keeping the motherboard steady and in the right spot, and I fastened that baby to the case in short order.
Was feeling good, so I also dropped in my Intel Core Duo Wolfdale 8400 into it's slot. Wish I had some thermal paste so I could feel good about attaching that heatsink and fan, but given I'm still not sure I've wired the front panel correctly on the board, it's just as well I don't have to worry about maneuvering my hands around a big stainless steel/plastic CPU cooler when my PC savvy neighbor helps me sort it out before I can finally call the rig a functioning computer.
Anyway, after that I stuck the 1TB SATA hard drive into the bottom-most slot, which I believe and hope will help the case's front-intake fan work better, given a drive won't be right behind it. The case's screwless philosophy towards the hard drives is a Godsend in my opinion. Never had an easier time installing a drive, slid right in, move the plastic device back and lock it in, won't budge unless you say so. Hooked up the power cord and used the data cord to connect the drive to the motherboard.
No power or anything yet, the PSU is currently being used by the PC I'm typing on now, but that's fine. One less tedious wiring job to concern myself with for the moment.
So really, problem solved, and I can always find my neighbor to sort of the wiring.
[QUOTE=J-Dude;19604209]
Anyway, after that I stuck the 1TB SATA hard drive into the bottom-most slot, which I believe and hope will help the case's front-intake fan work better, given a drive won't be right behind it. [/QUOTE]
Isn't the front intake fan positioned there so it would cool the harddrives?
[QUOTE=FHamster;19604456]Isn't the front intake fan positioned there so it would cool the harddrives?[/QUOTE]
Doesn't matter much, you don't really have to worry about hard drive heating unless you have a case with really bad airflow.
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