The '09 Rebuld Pt. IV - Down to business

Imagine my surprise when I saw the rest of the components I'd ordered on our doorstep less than two days after the video card arrived. TigerDirect had said the motherboard wasn't set to ship for 7-21 days, but there everything was in two big boxes on the front door step. Needless to say, I pressed J' into service, but what's neat is that he's been just as excited as I am about the whole deal.

So we got down to business, literally installing everything except the processor and fan one morning before I headed off to work LOL The processor and fan got installed on my lunch break. We commandeered a part of the kitchen counter for the install, having beat up our knees doing the '04 rebuild on the kitchen floor. (I'd already learned a lesson about static the hard way, having fried a mobo in college trying to install a USB device on my carpet in fuzzy slippers!)

A few issues popped up, but nothing too serious:

• The full ATX board needed 9 spacers but the old motherboard had only 8. We left the gap at the bottom right corner of the board. I spacers hours later, but by then everything was already hooked up. If I do any serious upgrades, then I'll add the final spacer.

• The stands for the case prohibited the board from laying flush in the case, so they had to go. Thankfully, J is amazingly handy with a pair of plyers, so out they went! Not too concerned about the case not being elevated because it sits in an elevated position on computer desk, with lots of room all around, so it should be OK.

• I'm still paranoid about the placement of the board main power. Rather than at the edge of the board by the front side of the case, it's in a bit on the back side of the case (see above). Therefore, the power cord goes over/near to the processor fan. It's wrapped (really nicely, too) but I'd still rather keep cables away from the moving parts in the case.

• It took a couple seconds for us to realize that even with the case's setup for holding DVD Writers in place, we still needed to attach the screws to the side because that's the mechanism for the locking system lol

• The case also came with two racks for additional drives down at the bottom right. Those came out at first, but one went back in because of harddrive issues that I'll get to soon.

The hardware install went very well — quick and easy. I hoped the boot up/software side would go just as smoothly, but of course, that wasn't to be the case.