Building a new PC – PART 2: The build

Last Friday all parts for my mini ITX pc project had finally arrived and I could start unpacking all the new shiny technology. There is nothing like the smell of fresh circuit boards  ahhhhh… bliss!
Here is a frontal shot of the Silverstone SUGO Series SG07B Case.

Sexy! Look at that shiny button! And four holes for putting stuff in. Two USB 2.0 ports, one microphone port and one headset port; this is really all you need. You can hear it, speak to it and connect external devices such as a mug warmer or a rocket launcher. Sweet!

And then for the rear end.

Amazing… and two more buttons to play with. The button on the left is used for controlling the Master System fan. It can be set to a default of 700 or 1200rpm. The right one is the reset button. Most computers also have a power on/off switch near the power plug socket but this does not have one. Remember this for later…

The case also came with a power cable, instruction manual and some other things that I will come back to later.

The  Silverstone SUGO Series SG07B Case has two fans. The main system fan which is a 180mm Air Penetrator running at 700/1200rpm at 18/34dBA located at the top of the case. The second fan is located in the amazing 600W auto switching power supply (PSU for the geeks). This is a more standard 120mm super silent fan and it is located at the bottom of the case.

First thing I had to do was to gently rip this sexy beast apart. This basically meant un-screwing lots of Philips head screws.  First removing the top cover, then the 180mm fan bracket, then the optical drive bracket, then the hard drive bracket and finally the optical drive cover. This was a lot of screws so I made sure to put them in a safe place where they could not be grabbed by little fingers.

On the picture above you can see lots of cables including a ATX 20/24 pin motherboard connector (big black connector), 2 PCI Express power connectors, USB connector (the blue one), HD audio connector (the yellow one), SATA power connectors and lots of other fun stuff. The black box with the shiny plastic to the right in the case is the wonderful 600W PSU. Also note how Silverstone is stamped into the metal on the top left corner of the case.

How are we going to fit 3 hard drives, a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a CPU cooler a motherboard, a DVD Drive a graphics card and 4 gigs of memory into this little space?

Behold!!! The motherboard!

Lets unpack the motherboard and install it in the case. Cannot really go wrong here…  just make sure to use the right screws.

The CPU goes in the middle where the big yellow sticker saying Note! is. Memory goes in the two slots to the right of the CPU and the graphics card (GPU) goes in the slot below the CPU. We will install the GPU towards the end of the build as it is huge and I have big hands and it would be impossible for me to get anything done.

Now it is time to start hooking up all the cables. And install the hard drive and DVD drive. The blue and red cables are SATA cables. The DVD drive has a special SATA cable that also delivers power to the drive.

Looks like a bit of a mess. The rest of the cables will be organized and fastened before I close the case.
The computer is now almost done. All that is left is to install the graphics card and re-attach the 180mm fan. And finally putting the top cover back on.

In the picture above the Radeon HD 5770 GPU has been fitted and hooked up to the PCI Express power cable. Most of the cables have also been fastened.

Top fan has been put back on. YAY almost done… But wait there is more. The geniuses that have designed this case also made sure to include a VGA duct that ensures that the GPU gets an optimal airflow from outside the case. The duct also has a dust filter.
You can see the duct in the picture below. Installing the duct can be a bit awkward  as it need to match the intake of the GPU perfectly… I got it on the first try.

Then I replace the top cover and the build is complete! (Also note that I have replaced the 3 screws on the cover with "finger screws" so a screwdriver is not required to open the case.)

Well not quite. I guess I need to boot it up right? Just too make sure it works? Ok, I plug it in and press the power button….. Silence… nothing. What da f***.

To be continued…