Assembly Process: Part 3 - Installing the Motherboard

Installing the Motherboard in the Case

Begin this step by placing the case on its side with the open side facing up and the bottom of the case facing you.  We’ll need to prepare the way for the motherboard.

Preparing the Way.

1. The I/O panel cover (I/O shield) is almost never a perfect fit and needs to be removed and replaced with the I/O panel the came with the motherboard.  This new panel will reflect the actual positions of the back panel connectors.  This case’s I/O panel can be removed by repeatedly twisting and prying the panel until you snap the small metal perforations that are holding it in place. Be careful not to cut yourself on the sharp metal edges.  We are just going to throw this piece away when we remove it, so don’t worry about preserving the shape or integrity of it.  A pair of pliers come in very handy for this task.

For future reference: Most other cases I’ve seen come with panels that are the same snap-in design as the panel from the motherboard box.  These shields can be removed by a few firm taps from the butt-end of a screwdriver.  The shield snaps into place from the inside, so to remove it, apply the firm taps on the side of the shield on the outside of the case.

2. Snap the new panel into place from the inside pushing out.  Make sure the holes for the keyboard and mouse PS/2 connections are closest to the power supply and the three audio port holes are closer towards the PCI slots.  We’ll need to open up two more slots to fit our motherboard: the one covering the video port and the one covering the LAN port.  The metal piece covering the video port can be easily twisted off, while the LAN port cover needs only to be lifted up and out of the way.

3. Inside the case we’ll need to get everything out of the way so we can painlessly slide the motherboard into place.  That’s better.

4. Now that we’re ready to install the motherboard, touch the grounded power supply and round up the motherboard screws and your screwdriver.  The motherboard screws are the longer screws (without points) with the rounded Phillips heads.

5. Take hold of the motherboard by its top and bottom sides and set it gently into place against the back panel and power supply.  The back panel connectors should poke through the I/O panel just enough to line up the screw holes in the case with the screw holes in the motherboard.  Sometimes one of the parts of the I/O panel will still be blocking the entrance of the connector panel.  Just bend it out of the way and it won’t bother you again.  Align the screw holes in the motherboard with those in the case and proceed to secure the motherboard with the appropriate screws.  Sometimes it’s very hard to navigate the screws in the tight quarters. If during this process or any other time you happen to drop a screw into the case, remove it immediately.  If you forget to remove it, and it gets into the wrong spot, it could cause an electrical short in your motherboard, which isn’t fun to deal with.

Tip: You can try holding the screw onto the screwdriver as you lower it with the pointer-finger of the hand holding the screwdriver.  You can also try lowering the screw and making the first few initial turns with needle-nosed pliers.  My colleagues and I have had success in the past by carefully using a lightly magnetized screwdriver to make the process easier.  I’m neither endorsing the use of a magnetized screwdriver, nor accepting liability for any magnetic damage done to your components, however, it does make the job considerably easier, and I haven’t had any problems with it in the past. 

For Future Reference: Most other cases that I’ve seen do not have raised screw holes on the motherboard plate, and instead, they offer a large variety of screw holes on the surface of the motherboard plate.  The case will come with a handful of 1/4" or 3/8" brass standoffs (sometimes called “mounts,” or “posts”) in the same bag as the screws.  These standoffs can be easily hand-tightened into the holes that align with the holes on the motherboard.  This creates a customized fit for each motherboard.  The motherboard can be secured by screwing the motherboard screws into the standoffs.

Connecting the motherboard.

Now that the motherboard is secured, we can plug in the power cables and front panel connectors.

1. The power supply comes with a 20/24-pin ATX connector.  The last 4 pins detach for non-PCI-Express motherboards (we’re using a non-PCI-Express board).  We won’t be using those extra 4 pins, so simply slide them off the power connector.  We will, however, be using the similar-looking 4-pin connector (2 yellow wires, 2 black wires) which carries a different current than the one we just disconnected.  Plug the 20-pin ATX connector as well as the black and yellow wired 4-pin ATX connector into their corresponding headers on the motherboard.  As for the 4-pin connector we just unhooked from the 20-pin, just let it dangle.

2. Next we can plug in the front-panel switches and LEDs.  Gather up the 5 connectors labeled Power LED, HDD LED, Reset SW, Power SW, and Speaker.  Let’s check out the motherboard manual to find out the arrangement of these connections to the motherboard.  We know from the layout diagram that we will be using the groups labeled JFP1 and JFP2 located along the bottom edge of the motherboard.  On page 9 of the manual it shows the exact connection locations for each of these connectors.  The only two misleading parts of this diagram could be that there are two places to connect the Power LED cable – one with 2 pins and one that uses 3 pins.  Upon inspection of the Power LED cable, we can see it is a 3-pin connection, so we will ignore the 2-pin connection.  Also, the groups of pins JFP1 and JFP2 are in reverse order on the diagram compared to their positions on the motherboard.

Tip: The colored of the two cables in each connector (not black or white) usually aligns with the “+” pin on the motherboard.  This is the easiest way to try to configure the pins correctly on the first try, but there are other ways to tell.  For example, if you turn each connector over and look at the back side, there is a very small arrow that indicates which pin should (most likely) be connected to the “+.”  How do you know what pin is a “+” if it’s not painted on the motherboard?  Check out the diagram on page 9.  It shows the pin numbers 1, 2, 9, and 10 for JFP1. Based on this indicator we know the sequence in which they numbered the pins.

2 4 6 8 10 1 3 5 7 9

We can see the power switch, for example, connects to the 6 and 8 pins.  The “+” pin is the pin with the lower number (i.e. 6, when compared to 8).  An additional bit of knowledge about these pins is that the switches and the speaker are not sensitive to which pin gets connected to the “+” pin (as long as it’s connecting the right pins), but the LEDs won’t work if they’re plugged in backwards.  Also, I’ve never known a computer to be damaged by incorrect front panel connections.  Whatever LEDs or switches are not plugged in correctly will not function, but it won’t hurt the computer.  To me, this is the most painstaking part of the computer- building process because no matter how hard I try to connect the pieces properly, most of the time I find myself correcting my mistakes after (trying) the initial boot.  This usually involves flipping the connection of an LED or moving everything over a pin because I misread the diagram.  Now that you’re an expert on case pins, plug them in according to the diagram, and let’s move on.

There’s one thing left to connect from the case: the cable for the front USB ports.  This one’s really easy, I promise.  Locate the JUSB1 header on the motherboard, which is along the bottom edge and very close to where we just connected those case pins.  Note that there are 9 pins, with one missing to make a rectangle.  Look at the USB port cable, and you will find 9 matching holes in the connector.  It plugs right in.

Now the inside of the case should look something like the photo below. You may notice that I’m tucking away the cables instead of leaving them jumbled inside the case.  Besides being general assembly etiquette, keeping things neat and tucked away will improve the airflow around your case, which is very important in higher-end machines.  The process of organizing cables is also known as cable routing.  It’s especially important to route the 20-pin power cable and the IDE ribbon cable (we’ll install later) because of their size.

Continuing on to Installing the Hard Drive >>

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