Hypercube² Part II

MOTHERBOARD and BACK PLATE INSTALLATION


After a long search I found what I was looking for: A micro ATX motherboard with an on-board TV-out, the CHAINTECH 7NIF2. And it is black :) What a treat - I really hate all the brightly coloured motherboards.



Of course, I was more interested in what was INSIDE the box... ;-)



The motherboard will be installed on the bottom plexiplate with standard motherboard standoffs.



Of course, a standard motherboard tray comes with holes already drilled in the right places... I had to measure and drill my own.



It turned out to be less of a problem than I thought, and all my measurements seem to be correct.



There are a few things on the motherboard that stick out visually, noteably the copper northbridge cooler - this needs a little attention.



On the left is the low profile CPU cooler from Thermaltake - I had already sprayed it silver from its original black colour. On the right a replacement Northbridge cooler, again, silver so it doesn\'t stand out.



My brand new AMD XP 3200+



I used Arctic Silver, of course, and mounted the CPU heatsink



Here is the final motherboard, complete with new Northbridge heatsink, as well as a few smaller ones I added, such as the Southbridge



For the backplate I had to make a custom piece out of plexi. The plate that came with the mobo was an easy template. With a drillbit and a lot of filing it was not so difficult to make.