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difficulty level of installing mobo, cpu and ram?

etoman01

Junior Member
based on the recommendations I've been getting, I've ordered a Soyo Dragon plus, Athlon XP 1800+ and 512 mb of crucial RAM. The Athlon is retail, not oem. how hard will installation of these components be? I've never installed any of these components, however, I'm fairly familliar with them, and I believe I can do it. I'm just wondering, would you recommend installing it myself, or should I have someone with experience install it?
 
The only part that requires any real "technique" (i.e. not just reading the manual) is clipping on the heatsink. And everybody has a first time for that... so suck it up, be careful, and you'll be fine. Also, the Dragon Plus's documentation is fantastic, so you should have little trouble getting things working once assembled - again, assuming you RTFM.
 
I would say the heatsink as well,just remember apply the pressure on the clips not the heatsink itself on install.



<< I'm just wondering, would you recommend installing it myself, or should I have someone with experience install it? >>



You should be able to do it yourself it`s not that hard ,more common sense really and there`s nothing like building your first PC all by yourself 🙂.
 
Don't forget that if your heatsink doesn't have the pad on it then you will need thermal compound. (some folks use artic silver)

Good Luck

Will
 
I second the opinion that the heatsink will be tricky; make certain you clear all extraneous cables and "stuff" out of the way so that you have easy access.

other things to remember that will cause you no end of problems if overlooked: make certain your ram and v-card are fully seated in their slots, and that your drive cables are correctly inserted. The v-card can sometimes be worse then the cpu as it will let your unit start up but nothing appears on the monitor. The drive cables can also cause problems and I usually keep 1-2 spares that I can use to test whether it's a cable or a drive that's bad. Otherwise, give yourself at least a full night to install stuff and make it work.

though you didn't mention it, are you planning on reformatting your hd?? Considering that you're changing your mb, it might be a good idea to do a clean install of your os.

good luck

edit = if your cpu is oem, you normally have to buy the heatsink seperately, and this isn't a place to be cheap.
 
etoman, I just did this after buying parts from christmas money. Just use a screwdriver for pushing the heatsink on. The retail Athlon XP comes with a heatsink, that is what I bought. It has a thermal pad, so no need for additional paste unless you overclock.
 
Dragon+ and amdmb reader here 🙂 I'm logged in there now actually.

the retail athlon comes with a heatsink and fan. just read the directions on everything.

the dragon+ manual is excellent, you should have no problems as long as you read the directions. it'll tell you where everything plugs in.

remember when you mount it in the case that you use the standoffs so the board doesnt directly touch the case.
 
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