Assembling the Better Box

From WGSWiki

If you haven't already, surf over to Building A Better Box to read about the specifications for the Better Box. That Wiki laid out the components for a small, economical and capable machine which would be appropriate for a self-built home server. This Wiki will pick up where that one leaves off and show you how to assemble those components into a working server. This build will follow those specifications closely except for the hard disk arrangement. Instead, this machine will use two Seagate 500GB disks in a RAID 1 configuration as the system drive. Other hard disks may be easily added via the SATA backplane as individual requirements dictate.

Tools

The following is a list of tools which would be useful to have available during assembly. Not all of them may be needed but it is good to have them available just in case. One of the readily available "computer tool kits" will probably contain most of what you need.

• #1 Philips screwdriver
• #2 Philips screwdriver
• 1/4 inch nutdriver
• needle nose pliers
• side cutter pliers
• Arctic Silver thermal compound
• Package of small cable (zip) ties
• Package of 1" x 1" mounting pads
• Anti-static wrist strap

Gathering the Components

What you should have available on your workbench before you start are:

• APEVIA X-QPACK2-NW-BK/500 Case
• Athena Power BP-SATA2131B (SATA) Backplane
• MSI P6NGM-FD LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7100 Micro ATX Motherboard
• Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Allendale 2.2GHz 2M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Processor
• 2 each Kingston 1GB DDR2 800 memory stick
• 2 each Seagate 500GB Barracuda 7200.10 hard drives (or hard drive(s) of your choice)

Nice to have but not absolutely necessary are two Evercool Quiet Memory Coolers for the 1GB memory sticks. Also, make sure to have available the documentation/users manuals for the case, the motherboard, the processor and the SATA backplane as you will need to refer to these for assembly details.

Assembly

Be cautious when handling the electronic components taking care not to handle them by the connector pins. If you live in an area where static electricity is common such as areas with dry air then it may be prudent to use an anti-static wrist strap connected to a good ground. Also, if you are on carpet, don't walk around too much as that will help generate more static. Another trick you can use, is turning on a humidifier in the room though not right next to the components. Humidity helps cut down on the static in the air, and this is a plus while working on computers.

Open the Case

I will not go into great detail on operations with the case because they are well covered by the users manual. If there are any questions about how to do something please refer to that manual.

Unscrew the three thumb screws on the back of the case. Slide the cover to the rear an inch or so and then lift it straight up. Unpack the items which have been shipped inside the case such as the power cord, packages of screws etc. Unwrap the cables inside and familiarize yourself with what they are. Remove the motherboard tray by removing two screws on the back panel. Remove the metal plates and plastic covers which block the two external drive bays.

Do a test fit of (but do not permanently mount) the SATA back plane. In my case it did not go in at all and I had to do a little body work on the case with a file before it would slide in easily. If that is necessary for you, be sure to clean any debris out of the case with compressed air before proceeding. A word of caution here. The case material is not very thick so be careful when working on it so as not to bend or break anything.

Snap out the I/O shield in the back of the motherboard tray and replace it with the one that comes with the motherboard. Do a test fit of the motherboard and you will see that it is necessary to remove a few of the twist outs in the I/O shield to accommodate all of the connectors at the rear of the motherboard.

Assemble the Motherboard

Remove the motherboard from its packaging and lay it on a flat surface. Install the processor by following the instructions contained in the Intel processor users manual. Be sure to only handle the processor by the edges, orient it correctly, lower it straight down into the socket and secure it with the lockdown mechanism. The heat sink that comes with the processor appears to have thermal compound already on it. However I used a few small dots of Arctic Silver on the processor just to make sure.

Next install the processor fan/heat sink assembly. I found this to be a bit difficult. The assembly mounts with four plastic pins which go into holes in the motherboard and are expanded by pushing and twisting inserts in the pins. When I would tighten the last pin one of the others would pop out. I had to go around several times re-doing pins until I got them to all hold. Make sure to plug the CPU fan connector into the socket on the motherboard. Refer to the motherboard documentation for the socket location.

Remove the two 1GB memory sticks from their packaging and install the Quiet Memory Coolers by following instructions on the cooler packaging. Orient each stick correctly and push it straight down into the memory slot until the locking tabs on the ends snap closed.

Mount the motherboard on the motherboard tray using six screws. Care should be taken to line up the connectors at the rear of the motherboard with the holes in the I/O shield. There are spring loaded tabs on the I/O shield so it can be a bit tricky to get the screw holes lined up until you get a couple in.

Mount the Hard Drives and SATA Back plane

Remove the two screws holding the hard drive mounting cage to the case and pull it straight up. Mount the two Seagate 500GB hard drives to the cage with screws on both sides making sure that the connectors point to the rear of the case. Set this aside for the moment since the hard drive cage must be out in order to mount the SATA backplane.

Slide the SATA back plane halfway in to the drive bay openings in the front panel. Space is tight between the back plane and the power supply so it will be necessary to plug in the connectors before final mounting. Plug SATA data cables into the connectors for hard disks 1 and 2 (refer to the back plane documentation to identify those) and route them to the left side of the case. Plug in two of the four pin molex power plugs into the connectors on the rear of the back plane. Slide the back plane assembly the rest of the way in so that it is flush with the front panel and fasten it with screws from both sides.

Replace the cage with the hard drives in the case and secure it with the two screws. Plug the two SATA power connectors into the appropriate receptacles on the hard drives. Plug two SATA data cables into the hard drives and route them to the left side of the case.

Wiring the Components

Slide the motherboard tray into the case but don't fasten it down. Now is the time to wire everything up so make sure that you have the case and motherboard documentation handy. Plug the 24 pin and four pin power connectors into the appropriate sockets on the mother board. The six pin PCI express connector is not needed at this time and can be tied off. Plug in the front panel USB and audio plugs into the respective motherboard sockets. There is no fire wire (IEEE1394) socket on the motherboard so this lead from the front panel can be tied back. Plug the power LED, hard drive LED, reset switch and speaker leads into the proper positions on JFP1 and JFP2.

Plug the SATA data cables from the two hard drives into SATA ports one and two in the motherboard. This is important because they need to be identified in the BIOS if you use them as part of a RAID array. Plug the other two SATA data cables into ports three and four. It should be noted at this point that with two internal hard drives and three slots in the back plane but only four ports in the motherboard, we are one short. When the third drive in the back plane is required it will be necessary to install an expansion card to provide the fifth port. If necessary that card could also have an external (eSATA) SATA port to attach additional drives in an external housing.

The four pin molex connectors for the two fans and the front panel power need to be connected to the power supply. Also, the temperature probes for the hard drives and CPU need to be attached. I taped one to a hard drive but there is no good way to attach the other to the CPU heat sink. Instead, I mounted the other in front of the rear fan to measure the temperature of the air leaving the case.

After the wiring is complete you will need to dress and tie down the cables. Exactly how to do this is a matter of personal taste and experience. In general you should keep cables out of the air flow as much as possible and keep them from falling on to the motherboard or getting into fans. I use cable ties and mounting pads to secure things.

Testing

At this point, before putting on the case cover I would do a little bit of a "smoke test". Plug in the power cord and turn the box on for just a few seconds to make sure that all of the fans, particularly the CPU fan, are operating. If they are, you are good to go. If not, then you need to fix that problem before proceeding.

If everything looks good it is time to hook the box up to a monitor and keyboard. What I do is use a KVM switch so I can use the same devices that I use for my major client PC. But you can use whatever you have around. Make sure that the power switch on the back panel is on, then push the power button on the front panel. You should see the POST sequence on the monitor so make sure that all of the memory tests OK and all of the drives are detected. Also check the front panel to verify that the green power LED is on and that the orange hard disk light flashes with disk activity.

If backplane appears dead you will need to power up each individual drive by pushing the HD1, HD2 and HD3 buttons on the front panel. All of these buttons plus the reset and the fan indicator LED should be green. If the back plane HDD drives were not initially powered, then cycle the power again and check that the drives are detected in the POST.

If all of the above is OK then you are done. If not, you will need to power down and double check your wiring for errors or for faulty components. Once everything checks out you can put the cover on the case and crack open the celebratory beverage of choice.

Before you can actually use the box you will need to set up the BIOS and load the operating system. Since this box has no DVD drive, you will need to do the initial software load from a USB Flash Drive. Check out the using a USB Flash drive to install Windows and Slipstream Windows Home Server tutorials for how to do this.