wait to get with it. Richard was saying something about something making a horrendous clunking noise inside the
case, and he then informed me the carton was totally demolished in transit, and he made the poor UPS driver wait
until he could at least see if the outside of the case was damaged - which it wasn't. That's always a good sign. [How
do these boxes get so trashed? Was that one marked with: Drop Kick instead of Drop SHIP ?
Maybe it was a Test Carton from Enlight, or, one of Pandora's Snakes shedding its skin on the way, something.
Who knows, at least the packaging did its job.]
So, while I'm in the Cleanroom Lapping Area (bathroom) lapping the bottom of the WBK, I had Richard take
the case apart to check for the clunking noise. Between the two of us, we figured it out. To me, figuring out how to
open a case is sometimes very fun. For some reason, Enlight opens from the front, hiding a couple of screws holding
the side panels on, which slide forward, instead of backward. Guess those unsightly screws in the back required a whole
new way to crack a case, whatever. And what's with the motherboard panel? That's all it is. You still can't slide the board
out, but I guess you can feel the back of the board for temp or something. hmmm. The clunking noise was the extra case
fan and system speaker that had shaken loose and was flopping around. No damage, just pop it back into the slots, and
it's fine. Whew. Clunk, to me, means a metallic sound. I thought the p/s had come loose, but....not. Coo!. Nothing's broken.
After about 30 minutes of figure 8-ing on wet 320 Wet or Dry paper on a plate of glass
)
,
the bottom looked pretty danged smooth - I know the Thermal Compound is supposed to fill in those irregularities in the metal,
but it sure looked a lot better all shiny and smooth. I'm wondering why they can't run these sinks through some sort of
smoothing process before putting them in the box, but... oh, well. Maybe there's enough business doing this to set up a
mill....ha. Minor stuff, really, it probably would have worked just fine without doing all that sanding. I didn't lap the CPU,
though, just didn't feel the need to make a wet mess of it. And didn't want to possibly change the pad heights, either.
So, out to the Sterile Dustfree Cleaning Area (the back porch where the air compressor is) and blow out all the water just
to make sure there wasn't any unneccesary moisture. Time for Stage II : Assembly.
Back to the bedroo...er, well, you know, and lay out all the stuff to see if I forgot to order anything, and swallow that
lump in my throat, it's time to mount the CPU and Heatsink to the board. To me, this was THE most critical part of the
whole deal. I've seen a few cracked chips from improper mounting techniques, and a friend of mine had just fried
his brand new Tbird 1.3 in seconds because of a small, unnoticeable gap between the sink and the CPU. I dropped
the CPU into the socket, locked 'er down, and gingerly put some Artic SIlver paste on the CPU first. Here's a bit of
advice - be careful of how you apply that stuff. It doesn't take much to get it all over EVERYthing, and it doesn't wipe
off easily. Don't really know the electrical conductivity of the Artic Silver, but I figured, maybe wrongly, that silver was a
pretty good conductor and made SURE that none of the bridges were connected by the paste. To make sure I had a good
contact, I installed the HSF and then removed it to see if it was on the sink. Sure enough, it was perfect. Reassemble, and
move on to the next phase. Drop the 256 Meg stick of Micron in the slot, and place the momboard into the case.
That was easy enough. Only one thing bothered me about the board and case fit - the holes weren't quite lined up -
close, but not perfect. Guess that's from mass producing the case, but after some tugging and pushing, it all screwed
down nicely, fairly square, all slots lined up, etc. Hey, it's starting to look like a computer.
Now, plug in the power supply and front panel connections, plug the fan into the 3 to 4 adaptor, and mount the drives.
I mean, well, not really mount the drives, I meant install them, ok? cheez, some of you people are real sickos.
)
)
[ Careful of the sharp edges around the case holes. I really did put my blood into this project.]
The Enlight came with some cool sliders for the CDRom(s). In fact, the Enlight came with all sorts of extra screws and
mounting rails, and the like. It was a good choice. Only thing was, like I mentioned, although both side covers can be
removed separately, the mb tray wasn't removable. About the only time you'd really need one though, is if you change
things frequently. I don't have that luxury, not being a cool hardware tester with even cooler hardware freebies.;-)
Next step - 'round' the IDE cables.
)
)
Rather than cut the strands like I've seen some folks do, I simply folded them over twice from the outside edges in, and put some nice little yellow wire
ties around them. Yeah, I know, not quite 'round', but a far better arrangement than the way they were. The airflow
improvement HAS to be better - there's nothing in the way. And, I didn't have to worry about slicing either the data lines or
myself. Me and razor blades don't get on too well at times, but that's another story.
Now, drop the GeForce in, and take notice of the placement. Some GeForce cards are long enough to obstruct the
memory slot, but not the Shuttle. It also didn't have (nor the m/b) the lock mechanism I've seen on others. I don't remember
if that's part of the card, or not, since I never took notice. Have to remember to pay attention next time. Now, install the
TurtleBeach sound and the US Robotics modem, and.... ah, I think it's time to turn this puppy on.
The scary part. Will the Magic Smoke escape? Will the Fans fan, the Shuttle blast, the Westerns digitalize? ... all those
things that make a difference, you know. Let's double check everything first; no, let's triple check everything first.
I'd rather YOU have the honor of hitting the Power Button, Richard [I didn't break it]. If it goes, it's because of some Karma
YOU must have needed to work out, not me. Too many positive ions in your fingertip ? Didn't you ground yourself ? ;0)