Power Supply and Case Fan

 
I recommend the fist step be to  install the Power supply. Apparently size is a factor here in that the power supply must not exceed 140mm, do to case limitations. Unless you can determine the size of your power supply it’s trial and error as to which one will fit. I choose Seasonic because I read that it would fit the case. I also replaced the stock case fan with fan by Antec because it’s reputed to be quieter.

Motherboard, CPU, Ram

IMPORTANT If you’re not familiar with Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) then before you do anything else read up on it here. Taking the necessary steps to prevent static build up is essential if you don’t want to fry your components.

Given the tight constraints of the case I choose to assemble the components on the motherboard outside the case. Install the CPU fist and follow the supplied guide that comes with your CPU.  The CPU heat sink is a personal choice, you can use the stock one that comes with the CPU however there are much better solutions out there that are quieter and will better cool your CPU. When installing the Arctic Cooling heat sink you must remove the black attachment that is attached to the fan, see here for directions to install the cooler. Installing the Ram was next and is fairly straightforward. 

Next attach the spacers that came with the case securely to case at locations marked with the letter A. Attach I/O Shield that came with motherboard to case and make sure it aligns with motherboard layout.( I always align the I/O Shield to the motherboard before I put the motherboard into case to make sure the ports align perfectly. With such confined space you don’t want to have to pull the motherboard in and out of the case. Once everything is attached to the motherboard, very carefully align motherboard onto spacers and tighten screws. The next step is to attach all the cables to your motherboard, see the documentation that is specific to your motherboard.

DVD-Player

I installed the DVD player only to facilitate the installation of WHS. Reportedly you can install it off of a USB thumb drive but to save time I opted for the sure fire way and installed a DVD player.

Hard Drive

Attach hard drive to drive bay. Their wasn’t a whole lot of room to attach the cables to the back of the hard drive, I would of liked to have L shaped SATA cables. I choose just install one hard drive to get WHS up and running. I had 3 more SATA ports to install 3 more internal SATA drives if I wanted to.

  REMARK: In order to attach more then two internal SATA hard drives to this system you will need to purchase two 3.5 brackets so the hard drives will fit into the 5.25 drive bays.  

To test to see if everything was functional, I powered the PC up. Everything looked like it worked so I proceeded to close up the case and install WHS.

Next… Part 3: WHS Installation, Bios Tweaks and Software Additions
Index: all posts in this series

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