Fitting the Motherboard
The Facepalm moment
The brass motherboard stand offs were next to go in, although we thought we got them all, we did actually miss one *facepalm*. Realising this during the motherboard install was a minor PITA so it really is worth taking the 15 seconds we didn’t and just doing a quick check against the mobo when you think you’ve got them all in.
Cable Connundrum
With the fans in and the HX-650 mounted we encountered our first challenge – routing the 8pin motherboard cable. As with other cases (eg. The Cooler Master CM-690II Advanced), if this cable is routed behind the motherboard tray and through the top grommeted hole, it will struggle to reach the 8 pin plug on the motherboard.
There are 2 solutions that immediately come to mind:
- Purchase an 8pin extension cable for about $10
- Rout the cable through the CPU cut out in the upper half of the motherboard tray.
We elected to go with option 2 and pass the cable through the cut out. When installing the motherboard, you have to clip the cable into the mobo during the placement so it is easier with a second set of hands.
A Gamble that Paid Off
The Corsair HX-650 comes with enough SATA power connectors for our needs but as a bit of an impulse buy at PCCG, we grabbed 2 of the Silverstone 4-in-1 Sata power connectors. The spacing on these looked like it would suit the R3’s Hard drive bays. These things are great, the cabling looked great at the end and it meant less leads running through the case. We’ll be adding more of these to our kit bag for future builds – kudos to Silverstone!
Installing the CPU & Checking the Mobo
We had heard a few stories about people receiving a mobo with bent socket pins so we checked it carefully before doing anything else. There was also a full A4 sheet in the box with the motherboard that told us to check the pins first. All pins were fine so we quickly checked the alignment corner of the socket with the new CPU and installed it.
Fitting the Cooler
Installing the Noctua NH-D14 starts with the backplate which was easy to install. The only potential gotcha we saw was the alignment of the bracket to the socket screws on the right in the picture above. If you’re not paying attention, you could get the orientation wrong but it is covered in the instructions pretty clearly.
Next was the RAM and the Blue Corsair Vengeance was a close match to the heat sinks on the motherboard and clipped in without a problem. We had to go low profile RAM due to the behemoth NH-D14, and even with the low profile RAM we had to install it first because the NH-D14 overhangs the slots.
When installing the motherboard in the case, we had some issues with the I/O backplate popping out so it pays to really make sure it’s in and not going anywhere. Sometimes these plates go in without a fuss, other times like this one they play up a bit – patience is your friend here, if it pops out, back off and sort it out then refit the board.
Next Steps
Motherboard installed with power connectors fitted. Note the 8-pin cable at the top left section of the motherboard, running under the motherboard rather than through the grommet in the middle at the top. There was a temptation to install the NH-D14 prior to fitting the board to the case but we decided that we had enough room to do it in this order and we also had 2 sets of hands in case it got fiddly.
The next step was to route and fit the USB headers, front panel audio and fan controller.
