| Now that we have installed the hard drives and connected them, this completes the installation of all of the internal components. The last device we have to install and connect is the power supply. When you are buying the parts for a do-it-yourself PC, the power supply you choose is very important. It must have several things. First, it must provide enough power to your computer so that all components get all the juice they need. The power supply we bought supplies 420 watts of power. This will give us enough power to power every component of our computer, including our light kit, with enough juice that we will have room to spare and thensome. If we were to purchase a 200 watt power supply, for example, we could very easily run in to power shortages which could lead to computer failures and eventually damage to the circuitry. The second thing consider is cooling. Will your power supply help cool your system or make it hotter? The power supply we purchased has 2 cooling fans on it, one on the back for exhaust and one the bottom of it to pull hot air from the inside of the case, as you can see in the picture at right. This aids in cooling our system. So now that we have told you about power supplies, lets install this power supply. |
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Installing the power supply in this case is very easy. Simply slide the power supply in place from the inside of the case, while being very careful not hit anything else in the case, such as the video card or RAM. The cables coming out of the power supply can also damage internal component, so you may want to hold those back while doing this. Once slid in, hold the power supply in place with one hand and screw in one of the 4 screws in the back of the case that will hold the power supply in place. These are standard screws. Once one screw is in, you can let go of the power supply and then secure the other 3 screws. As you can see from the picture at left, our power supply came with many connectors. You can also see that the bluk of the cable, the motherboard power plug, is wrapped in black mesh to make it less cumbersome and more aerodynamic for better airflow. If you want to do any cable managment, now is a good time start. Organize your cables and figure out which power cables you will need. The ones you do not need, you can group together and secure with a zip tie to keep them from hanging every where and getting in the way. Once you have does this, we can now connect the power to all of the internal devices that need it. |
| The first power cable to connect is the motherboard power connector. Our motherboard is in the ATX form factor, as almost all new motherboards are. The power connectors to the right are the ones that are need to power the motherboard. The big connector goes in to a plug located right next to where the IDE cables plugged in. The smaller connector goes in to a plug on the opposite side of the motherboard, by the rear cooling fan. The reason there are two for this motherboard is because PCI-Express can draw more power than the one large connector can supply. Additionlly, it supplies addition juice to the CPU, if needed. This motherboard also has an additional 4-pin standard plug incase the power supply you are using does not have the extra smaller power connector. Once the motherboard is connected, go ahead and plug everything else in; the hard drives, using the powers supplies built-in SATA power connector, the DVD and CD burners, using the standard 4-pin power connectors, the floppy drive, and in our case, the front 5.25in. Audigy2 sound card interface. Also, connect power to anything that needs it Refer to the invidual components manuals' if you are not sure what else gets connected. |
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If you did not purchase a light kit, then Congratulations! You are done! If you did, the very last step in this whole process is to install the light. How you install these is entirely up to you. Our light kit came with two 12 inch neon blue lights, a rear expansion slot power switch which mounts in to an empty expansion slot on the back of the computer, and a transformer that powers the lights with a standard 4-pin power connector on it. This allows us to connect it to the chain of connectors we made for the internal fans. We decided to place our lights on the bottom of the case, one on one side, one on the other, and we mounted the switch in the back. This case also came with a clear rear 120mm cooling fan with built-in blue LED light and 2 blue LED lights on the front door of the case. This case should look very blue when it is all light up. Once the light kit is installed, you are done! Go to the last page to see what this case looks like completed... |
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