1. Remove the side panel of your case by unscrewing the side panels with a screwdriver.
2. Screw in the motherboard stands. Your case purchase should include a bundle of screws packed in the box. Find the narrow screw stands that need to be affixed to the interior case platform. With motherboards based on the ATX spec (the current design standard), 10 stands need to be screwed in. Putting a screw stand in the wrong slot could short out your motherboard!
3. Install the power supply. Take the power supply out of the box and unravel its cables. Our power supply is modular, so we only use the cables that we actually need to power our internal devices. Find the included set of screws in the power supply box. These will be different from the ones included with your case.
4. On to the motherboard. We’re going to be using a third-party CPU cooler for this build, which will keep your CPU perfectly chilled for overclocking. The Zalman 9700NT requires that you install a mounting bracket onto the motherboard. To do this, first align the bottom part of the bracket to the underbelly of your mobo. Its four holes should line up with four screw holes surrounding the CPU. Screw in the top part of the bracket carefully. The corner of the bracket with the extra niche should match the corner on the motherboard where the CPU locking pin rises (bottom left in our photo). Make sure you don’t screw the top bracket in to tightly, or the bottom bracket may lose alignment with the screw holes.
5. One last bit of preparation before putting in the motherboard. Remove the generic motherboard back panel port plate from the rear of the case. It should easily pop out if you push it from the outside. Replace the generic back panel plate with the one included in your motherboard box. Snap it in by pressing its corners against the case from the inside. You should hear a distinct click when each corner is snapped into place.
6. Time to install the motherboard! Carefully place the motherboard into the case cavity, holding it from opposite corners. Angle and slide it in from the front of the case toward the back, so the back panel powers can fit through the back port plate. Once the motherboard is aligned and correctly situated, screw it in with 10 small screws that were packaged with your case. Don’t go overboard when you tighten the screws
7. Read your CPU and motherboard instructions carefully to find out how to remove the socket shield and properly align the processor. In this case, our CPU has a tiny triangle in one corner that must be aligned with the one corner of the socket that’s missing a metal contact. Close the socket shield and lock the CPU into place by clamping down on the CPU socket pin.
8. Apply thermal paste to the processor before mounting the CPU fan. The Zalman 9700NT fan includes a small bottle of thermal paste, along with a tiny brush in the cap for easy application. Don’t goop the paste on. Spread it evenly over the processor, leaving a little bit of space around the edges to spread. Apply a little bit of paste to the bottom of the CPU cooler as well.
9. Carefully place the CPU fan on top of the processor, with the fan facing away from the back of the case (as seen in our photo). This ensures that air flows smoothly from the front of the case through and out the back. Drop the clamping bridge under the center of the cooler, and screw in one side with the screws packaged with the cooler. Screwing in the other side requires a bit of strength, as the clamp will bend to lock the cooler into place. Don’t press too hard or you’ll risk damaging both your CPU and motherboard. We recommend screwing both sides in halfway first, then slowly tightening each side. Plug in the CPU fan adapter to the three-pin port located near the processor socket. Refer to your motherboard manual for the exact location.
10. Remove a few of the PCI slot shield plates from the back of the case. You only need to take out the ones that are blocking the holes you’ll need for your video card. Drop in your video card into the PCI-E slot. If your motherboard has more than one slot, check the manual to locate the “primary” PCI-Express slot, which has the most bandwidth for graphics. Push the card straight down into the slot gently and firmly, and make sure the white retention clip snaps into place. Screw the video card’s bracket into your case. [Optional: Pull a six-pin PCI-E power cables from your power supply and plug them into your video card.]
11. Locate two memory slots on your motherboard. Our build will have two 1GB sticks of DDR memory. You’ll want to insert them in alternating slots (color-coded on our motherboard) to run the memory in dual-channel. Align the RAM so the gap in the row of pins matches the slot on the motherboard. Plug the RAM into the slots until the locking brackets on both sides snap up. Make sure your RAM is completed seated, as improperly-installed RAM is the source for many system malfunctions.
12. Screw the hard drive into the bracket. Slide your optical drive in until it’s flush with the front panel. Just press the button on the side of the interior cage to lock the drive into place. Plug a SATA cable into your motherboard for every drive you have (including hard drives and optical drives). Plug a SATA power cable into your power-supply (these should be included with your PSU). These power cables have a flat SATA power connector on one end.
13. Using your motherboard manual as a reference, plug in the front-panel cables to your motherboard. Most cases have front panel USB, Firewire, and headphone jacks, among other ports. Look to your motherboard documentation to find out where these go.
14. Locate the eight-pin power cable from your power supply, which provides power to the CPU, and plug it into your motherboard. Like the PCI-E connector, this plug is keyed and should only fit in one way, so there’s no risk of putting it in backwards. Finally, you’ll need to power up the motherboard by connecting the 24-pin main power connector.
15. Connect the power cable to your fan that is mounted behind on the case.
16. The finish line is in sight! This final step is to tidy up our cabling by hiding all the excess wires out of the way. With our case, we can pull cables and hide them.
