construction time again

All the parts arrived :)

So the first step is to assemble them all on the coffee table without the case.

• Install the CPU and the Memory
• Add the graphics card
• Add the PSU (two ports, 24 pin ATX and 4 pin P4 connector)
• Add a Keyboard and mouse, and connect the GPU to a screen
• I also added the Power On switch from the case, but you could just short this with a screwdriver

Close up of the CPU, Memory and GPU on the Motherboard on the left. Note I didn't bother with the Cooler for the first test. Once it powered on I added the heatsink and fan. This is a very small motherboard!!


With the PSU in view. You can see from the Keyboard just how small the mini ITX board is

So power it on and stand back just a bit.

Nice.








So I left detached the PSU connectors and the GPU.
I added the drives first (SSD and HD) after taking off the case cover
Then installing the motherboard (with CPU and Memory still attached), screwing it to the floor of the case (note added heatsink and fan)  Then installed the GPU.

Rear Profile: 

And finally with the PSU added and all cabled UP.

Note some of the case leads are some of the trickiest to connect (USB headers, power on switch, reset switch etc). I used the cable ties that can with the case to tie all the excess cables to the top of the case.

Once the BIOS was able to recognise the two drives then I was free to install windows 7.
I had no Optical drive to I created a Windows7 bootable USB from the install ISO using Rufus

I had a base OS pretty quickly. For some reason there was no CD of drivers with the motherboard when it was unboxed but I was going to download them anyway as the newest ones are online. So I got the suite of ASROCK drivers here.

The REALTEC Lan driver did not play ball. Windows did not have any recognisable network device.
I remove/re-installed a few times but no luck.
I was considering logging a call with ASRock but I checked first in case there was a newer BIOS upgrade available. So I upgraded to the new BIOS via a nice method called Internet Flash. The network card worked via the BIOS so I was online pre windows boot so I went ahead and flashed it to the latest.
O Gawd now I wish I hadn't.

The BIOS upgrade hung indefinitely. The subsequent reboot failed. The Bios Chip was fried.
Frying pan to the fire!
I logged a call with ASRock explaining my drama and they agreed to send me a new BIOS chip in the post.
Now I'm waiting,
Waiting sucks ass.