|
Customizing the YY Cube Part 2 |
 |
Being assimilated by the Borg can be a painful process, just look at all those nasty power tools. Cutting, grinding, it's almost too much to bear at times. Nevertheless, we must keep going if we are to assimilate all superior technology into our cube...
Before I cut the CPU fan hole in the top of the case, I want to make sure it going to line up in a way to best benefit the cpu cooling as well as the overall case cosmetics. While I'm at it, I think it is probably a good idea to cut the hole for the window on that case side panel so we can see how that all lines up as well. At the least, I'll probably mark off the windows so we can imagine how it will look. In order to do all of this, I need a motherboard with cpu and zalman cooler installed. So, I get to play with the digital bits for a little while and leave the case cowering downstairs in the dark waiting for a fresh session of cutting and grinding.
|
I'm just about ready to install the cpu and cooler on the mobo, but first there's a couple of things I need to tell you. See that red mat everything is on? See that blue band with the wire around my wrist? These two are antistatic devices. The little shocks that you get from the carpet and zap the cat with are like gigantic thunderbolts when you are dealing with transistors as small as they are inside these chips. They will literally blast them asunder, even with shocks that you barely notice. Its very important to follow antistatic precautions whenever you are handling the electronics. Look know at my other hand. See those books? RTFM! Let me say it again, "RTFM!" I know you don't like reading manuals, I don't either, but do it anyway. Chances are they're very terse and there isn't much to read if you wanted to, so don't fret. I wanted to make sure I read my mobo, cpu, and cooler manuals and followed the appropriate steps to avoid frying an expensive cpu. |
 |
| Here's where that cpu is gonna live on the mobo. It's called a "zero-insertion force socket." Note the little silver handle sticking straight up? That makes it easy for the cpu to fit in. |  |
| Did I say easy? Man, the sucker just dropped in with no pressing whatsoever on my part. If you have to use force to get it to seat, you are doing something wrong! Also, it only fits one way. If it doesn't drop in, this could be your problem. |  |
| The silver handle is down, locking the chip in place. Now I'm using a syringe to apply thermal paste. This paste ensures good heat conduction between the chip and its heat sink, the fabulous Zalman cooler. Note that all the action takes place inside the little silver thingey the syring is touching. Most of that gray is just a big carrier so there's room for all the pins. The three little black circles are rubber pads to spread out the weight of the heatsink. |  |
| As you can see, the thermal grease has now been liberally applied to the top of the chip. |  |
| Now its time to secure the heat sink to the chip. It's held in place with a spring loaded clip. It looks way too big to fit until you realize that bending it over the heatsink is going to make it just right or maybe too small. Use one screwdriver to hold it down, and then take a phillips in the other hand, seat the tip in the hole in the top of the clip, and press smoothly and firmly until the clip locks in place. Looked scary, but wasn't too bad. There have been stories on the net of people breaking corners off their chips and so forth, so be careful! |  |
| Bob stops to admire his work. Remember how important I told you it is to admire your work? Its easy right now. You haven't turned it on and discovered it doesn't work. You are not in the throes of troubleshooting some schizy problem yet. So admire your work. Get your rocks off while you can and whenever you can. Sounds like something Mick Jagger should've said, eh? |  |
| Yeah, let's admire it a little closer too. Look at that crazy Zalman cooler. Is that thing rad or what? |  |
|
May as well put the ddr ram modules in while we're about it, right? I love the goofy inflatable packaging they came in. You probably can't read what those stickers say, so let me help: "512MB, PC2100, DDR". Yeah, that's right, you're lookin' at a full gig of RAM baby! |
 |
|
They came with nice black heat spreaders. I bought Mushkin ram. It isn't the cheapest, nor the most expensive, but it had nice reviews. I thought about getting some hot overclockers ram, but nobody was selling 512MB modules, only 256MB. I just had to have a gig. Someday, I may want to replace the black spreaders with some anodized blue, but there's no hurry. |
 |
Here we go. Peace, tranquility, harmony, 1.4 GHz Athlon T-Bird, 1GB PC2100 DDR RAM, black SiS 735 superfast mobo, and a partridge in a pear tree. How sweet is that!