Building Your Own Graphics Workstation, Part Two
Page 5 of 6
Installing the Motherboard
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Be careful not to cut yourself on the sharp edges there. You might want to get your girlfriend or a small child to do this for you (it's fun to watch them cry). Once out, snap the shiny metal Soyo shield into place (make sure it's oriented correctly) and you're good to go. If you have a different case, you may or may not need to replace the shield.
Lay the case down on a table to give you easy access inside. Pick up the motherboard by the edges (while you're still grounded!), and lower it carefully into the case so that the motherboard's ports line up with the holes on the new shield in the back of the case. At this point, you are only lining up the mounting holes in the motherboard to the mounting holes on the case's panel. Use a sharpie or marker to designate which case holes match up to the motherboard's mounting holes, and take the motherboard back out of the case.
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Grab the motherboard and slip it back into the case, lining it up with the port shield in the back and the standoffs with their respective holes. Take some of the screws that correspond with the standoffs (the tighter threading of the two different kinds that came with the case), and screw the motherboard down. Just don't get them too tight; you don't want to crack the board, at least not yet. Take the power supply’s ATX power connector and connect it to the motherboard. Then attach the 12V Pentium 4 power to the board. Make sure that your power supply is not plugged in. And if you don’t have your grounding strap on right now, smack yourself really hard, and then go get it and put it on. Chicks really dig guys with grounding straps. And by “chicks” I mean convicts who want to shank you in the kidney.Open up the motherboard manual to the page where it shows you a graphic of the motherboard and what all the connectors are. We'll be connecting the case wires to the motherboard using the book as a guide. You don't want the wrong wires connected -- it could short out the board, or worse yet: the LED lights on the front of the case won't light up and look cool. In the bottom corner of your motherboard, next to the yellow IDE connectors, is a series of pin connectors. These attach to case wires that run to the LED lights and switches on the front of the case. Each of the case wires is named on its black connector and corresponds to either two or three pins in that block of pins. Connect each of the wires to their corresponding pins on the board, using the manual as a guide. The black wire goes to the grounding pin. If the connection is reversed by mistake, the LED either will not light up at all, or will be on constantly. There is also a small chance of a shark attack.
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Installing the Case Components
Now that the motherboard is all set, and after you're finished with the Dominos and at least a liter of Coke, we'll install the drives we have into the case, and run the cabling to the motherboard. The front of this case needs to be removed before the floppy drive and USB 2.0 hub can be installed. Locate the little push bar on both sides of the front plastic panel. Push them in and gently, yet firmly, pull the front panel off the case. (If you have a hard time taking it off the case, pick up the case and smash it through a window).
With the front panel off, loosen the two thumbscrews to release the 3½" drive cage. Pull the cage out through the front and install the floppy drive in the top slot (or bottom if you want, you weirdo). Do this by lining up the screw holes in the drive with the screw holes in the cage. The cage has a number of options as far as screw holes (hello!), so slide the drive in first, then replace the cage in the case to eyeball where the drive will be flush with the plastic front panel when it's replaced. There should be about an inch or so of the drive sticking out from the front metal panel. Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
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