|
| STEP
5 |
Now its
time we add some hardware. I always start with the drives. Let's get
up top and mount our 1st device. I personally prefer the burner up
top as it seems to get the most use. We need to remove the slot cover
from the front bezel of the case as well as the one affixed to the
chassis of the case. Now we slide the drive into the bay from the
front and mount it flush with the rest of the covers in the bezel
with the screw that were included in the drive package. The second
drive is a DVD in our case. We'll mount it right underneath the CD/RW
the same way. Next is the hard drive. This is a 3.5" drive and
fits in the bays directly below the 5.25" bays. Slide the hard
drive in from the back. Line up the screw holes and attach it with
its accompanying screws. We opted out on the floppy. These days there's
just not much of a need for an extra 1.44MB of storage. However I
have still seen some motherboards that will not allow a flash from
the CD. We now move on to the IDE cables. Make sure you use the thinner
stranded ones for your hard drive. These are Ultra ATA cables. It's
best to use an ATA-133 cable with an ATA-133 drive. If you're unsure,
it's real cheap to pick up a new cable that you know is correct, the
rounded ones are very popular and much better for airflow than dangling
ribbon cables. You can use a cable that's higher rated than the drive
and the drive will work at its full performance however, if you use
a cable that's lower rated, the drive will only go as fast as the
cable will allow. I was not pleased with the airflow of this case
so I did a little origami and folded the cables out of the way of
airflow. This method is actually better than the rounded ones when
done correctly but not near as pleasant to the eye.
|
|
| STEP
6 |
Now we
get to play with a little more wiring. It's time to supply power to
everything we've installed. Coming from the power supply, I'm sure
you've noticed a bunch of wires hanging down. Well grab the one that's
got the most wires and the largest connector. This is the ATX power.
It supplies power to the motherboard, fans, AGP/PCI cards and anything
else that plugs into the board. If you're using a high-power fan like
the Panaflo U-series we are here. I don't recommend attaching them
to the board. Use the 4 pin molex connectors. This is the same connector
you'll plug into the IDE drives and other items you decide to add
at a later date. For those that are installing a floppy, it uses the
other flat 4 pin connector that's about half of the size of the standard
4 pin molex. We also need to plug all of the lights and buttons from
the case to the board. I highly recommend grabbing the motherboard
manual to find the correct placement of these. They always mount towards
the bottom right of the board. These are very small connectors that
fit over pins on the board. We also need to plug in any case fans
and power supply fans that are controlled by the board. Try to route
the wiring in a clean fashion and hide it as much as possible. Wires
can make a good case look bad real quickly. This case also had the
front side USB and microphone inputs and those have to be wired to
the board as well. Look at the picture below of the wires on the left
and its enough to make anyone want a standard for USB!
|
|
| STEP
7 |
Now its
time to put in any PCI or AGP cards we need such as the video card.
We have a very pretty AGP Ti4200. The AGP slot is easily found as
it's usually brown. It's also smaller and farther back than the PCI's.
AGP Pro is actually quite a bit bigger than standard AGP but will
accept a standard AGP as well. This just means you need to be careful
to get the placement of the card correct. AGP is always found at the
top of the slots. We're using on-board sound so there is no audio
card to install. We do have an additional item to install which is
the audio I/O port that came with the board. It takes up a PCI slot
from the case but not from the board. It plugs in to a proprietary
pin set on the board. The SOYO also came with a smart card reader
which we put in the 3.5" bay and needed to wire up as well.
|
|
|
| |
Next
> Step 8
|
|
