Building my upgraded system question?

OK back in 2005 I've finally took the plunge and built my very first computer from boxes to a working machine and I was a little nerves then but it went smooth very smooth since then I re built her 2 x times until prescient day.


OK here is my first long winded question and sentence.


When I built my first machine as I stated above I firstly took he mother board out of the box and then slapped on the CPU then I put artic silver compound on all the little chip I could find and the main CPU,

So I then proceeded to install the video card, sound card, sound card front panel, memory, nic card, and TV tuner while the mother board was out of the case.


OK then I picked up my case and installed all the fans and the wiring and the power supply, Then I put the mother board in the case with the installed component's and it didn't fit so I had to take some of the component's off and then it went in like a piece of cake. And at the very last minute I installed the CPU heatsink before I've powered her up and gave her a last check.



Anyway here is my question I was just surfing new egg's reviews and most of the builders installed the mother board "First" so should I should I go that route on this new build or build it like how I built my last 2 PC's?

Well Derek, I don't think that there is one and only one correct order to do things provided that stuff works when you are done. Let me tell you how I do assembly and some of what I have noticed.

Once I have my work area ready with the case, the parts and the tools, the first thing that I do is to get the mobo ready to go in the case. Do a quick test fit so that you can see if you are going to have any obstructions that might make things harder to go in. Then once you know that, you can certainly put stuff on the mobo first if that will make life easier for you.

For example, on my most recent and (what will probably be) my next mobo, I have CPU coolers that mount through the four holes in the mobo. Those have to be at lease partly installed because of the hardware that goes on the back of the mobo. If you are going to go that route, it might just be easier to get that part of the mounting done fully on your work table. Also, on my most recent mobo, I found that the RAM was in an awkward place once the mobo is in. So for the initial assembly, that went on outside the box as well (as a fellow Scot and bass player, you can probably appreciate the issue with having huge meathook hands).

Later on, if it comes to changing/adding RAM, it is probably easier to leave the mobo in place and just do the work than to take the whole computer apart but for the first assembly, the test fit stage told me how to save myself a few seconds and a small slice of stress.

For cards, considering that a good mobo will have plenty of I/O options on the back of the case and most probably have at least a decent RAID implementation in the BIOS, a graphics card is likely to be the only card that lots of us put in. That is probably easier to mount once the rest of the box is most of the way together.

For all of your cabling inside the case, you probably want to wait until the box is mostly together, although if the test fit stage tells you that one or two might be in any way hard to get to, you may want to put the one end on the mobo first. Just remember that if you are doing a sleeve job or stuffing cables out of the main are for airflow reasons, that you need to be able to see where stuff is going to go and that part probably needs to be done towards the end of the assembly.

Malpine, Thanks for the tips bro. I think this time I'm going to install the power supply last and the mobo first.

I will probably install my cpu, cpu heatsink, then I will install the motherboard.

Actually, i install power supplies first myself. They being the largest and heaviest part of the project, I like to have them firmly screwed into place before I start moving the case around. In fact, one time, I did manage to drop a fairly heavy HSF on my southbridge because I forgot that I had put it out of the way on top of my PSU and then tilted the case. Fortunately it was not damaged so I got a couple of years out of that mobo before it was time for a faster rig.

yeah ... also depending on the case ... installing the psu can be a pita even when empty

DerekDRP said:

When I built my first machine as I stated above I firstly took he mother board out of the box and then slapped on the CPU then I put artic silver compound on all the little chip I could find and the main CPU,

Click to expand...

Wait, so you put AS on EVERY SINGLE CHIP YOU COULD SEE on the motherboard? Why, exactly?