it's done. last night i assembled my new computer. and it rules.

there were only minor glitches in putting everything together. the first was getting the case open. i just could NOT slide the side off. it seemed to be caught right were the lock is. i though, "great, they shipped it to me locked with the keys inside." so i broke through the drive bays, reached way in, and snagged the keys. turns out, it wasn't locked. instead, the handle near the lock moved to release the catch, and then it swung open. no wonder it wouldn't slide.

so then i just followed the directions that came with the motherboard, and most everything went alright. i sort of bent a pin or two when i finally got the processor open, but it was so minor that they straightened right out and slid into place. whew! i had to connect a gazillion wires for the front case USB and firewire ports since they were all individual instead of just being bundled into one 'outlet.' and when the labels didn't exactly match the motherboard chart, i just took educated guesses... and they all work!

the scariest part was hitting the power switch. ryan came home just in time to help me install all the drives, so that sped things up. and since the case has a side window, he made sure to bundle some of the wires out of the way. he also moved my front case fan so that it brings the air past the hard discs. smart move, i think. but i had to hit the power button by myself. when i did, we had a good laugh. all four case fans came with multicolored LEDs; each one has a blue, red, and green light. pretty corny.

speaking of fans, i sure have an abundance of them. the case has four, and there is one for the CPU, the motherboard chipset, the power supply, and even the graphics card has one. what is that, seven? no, eight!

anyway, i just got all my data back from ryan's computer where i was storing it through all this. and now i'm getting ready to start installing software. that's not going to be as fun as building the computer was.