Step 4: Apply thermal paste
The underside of you cooler and the heat
spreader of your processor may look perfectly flat, but if you were to analyse
them under a microscope you would see thousands of tiny imperfections. These
troughs and valleys greatly reduce the contact surface area between the two
surfaces, necessitating an interface medium. This is where the thermal paste
comes in. Thermal paste is head conductive and fills the troughs and valleys,
helping the chip to transfer its heat into the cooler. Because only enough
paste is required to fill these tiny gaps, you do not need a lot of it. Even on
a large chip like a Sandy Bridge E or AMD Phenom the amount shown here is more
than sufficient. Don’t worry about spreading the paste; the pressure from the
cooler will take care of this for you. For smaller chips like a Core i3 or i5,
less paste is required.
Step 5: install the cooler
Install the cooler on top of the CPU
At this stage we fit the main CPU heatsink,
which for our test PC is the exceptional Thermolab Trinity. This cooler
supports all current CPUs be they AMD or Intel, Socket 2011 included. Socket
2011 has a unique cooler mounting system where four standoffs are screwed
directly into the corners of the socket assembly. Socket 1155 has four holes
instead, necessitating an additional backing plate for most large third-party
coolers. AMD coolers use a special plastic mounting frame pre-fitted to all
motherboards. With the standoffs in place, we then fitted four mounting arms to
the underside of the cooler and used the provided thumb nuts to secure them
onto the motherboard. Always make sure the cooler is mounted extremely firmly.
If it feels wobbly, something is invariably wrong and you’ll have to start
again. Never start your PC without the cooler: the CPU will overheat in
seconds!
Step 6: install the memory
In Socket 2011 builds the memory should be
installed in sets of four to take advantage of the platform’s quad-channel
memory interface. If you’re using and AMD Phenom or a Socket 1155 system, the
memory will be installed in pairs instead. On most motherboards the slots are
colour coded to ease installation. It you’re no using all your board’s slots,
populate all slots of the same colour first! We chose Corsair Vengeance modules
for our build, which come with heat spreaders as standard. To install the
memory, simply move to plastic clips away from the centreof the slot and line
up the notch in the module with the corresponding protrusion in the slot. Push
the sticks firmly down, applying equal pressure at either end of the module
until the clip snaps back into place.
Step 7: prepare the motherboard tray
All cases have several sets of screw holes
to accommodate boards of different sizes on their motherboard trays. On some
expensive cases the whole motherboard tray slides out to facilitate this
process, but our Fractal Design Define R3 has a fixed variant. Rather than
screwing the board directly into these holes, we install hexagonal stand-offs
that raise the height just enough to allow the board to sit on the tray without
its underside touching the case. It is critically important that you only ever
install standoffs that correspond to the mounting holes in your motherboard.
Most full-size ATX boards like our P9X79 Pro have nine mounting holes. If you
install extra unneeded standoffs, they will cause a short circuit on the
delicate traces under your board and could damage it. Use pliers or a small
socket set to tighten the stand offs if your fingers aren’t quite strong enough
for the job.
Step 8: install I/O Shield and case fans
The I/O shield is located right next to
the back fans.
Before screwing your motherboard in place
you need to fit the I/O shield. This protects the ports on the back of the
board from accidental damage and also protects the inside of your case from
dust. You should also install any extra case fans in your chassis at this
stage, as it will be much more difficult if you have to manhandle them in once
the board has been fitted. Case fans come in several different sizes, so ensure
you buy the right fans for your case. Fans are secured at each corner via four
coarse-threaded self-tapping screws. Transparent plastic fan frames are usually
made of harder plastic than their black counterparts and may therefore require
an electric screwdriver to aid installation. To install the I/O shield you
simply line it up from the inside of the case and press it into the hole. Make
sure you don’t install it upside down!
