XG Viper 2 Case Review - Did someone say install?
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One of the first things you do when installing a motherboard into a new case is figuring out how it’s going to mount. Most cases come with a variety of holes and mounting points, and you need to figure out which ones your board will use.
In the above image, you can see where I’ve added a number of brass stand-offs to the case itself. When the motherboard is added to the case, holes in the motherboard will line up with these stand-offs, and screws will be used to fasten the motherboard in place.
Additionally, you will see that I’ve pointed out some mounting slots towards the front of the case. I don’t see these very often anymore. It used to be that you would use plastic stand-offs on motherboards, which would slide into slots like those above. There would then be 2 or possibly 3 brass stand-offs on the motherboard to lock it in place. With today’s cases, it’s not uncommon to use 7 or 8 brass standoffs to mount your motherboard firmly into the case.
Being that I’m a little on the obsessive side, I don’t like pushing on my motherboard when there is nothing underneath it to support it. As it stands, my motherboard extends about 2 inches past the brass stand-offs towards the front of the case. If I plug in IDE cables or new memory, I’m pushing down on part of the motherboard with nothing underneath it. This could potentially cause damage to the board, so I’m not going to do it. At the same time, none of the holes in my board line up with the mounting slots for the plastic stand-offs. What do I do? Improvise.
As you can see, I clipped off the bottom of the plastic stand-offs with some wire cutters. I then attached them to the two corners of the board that had no support beneath them. Now, when mounted into the case, these corners of the board are supported. In the last picture above, you can see how the memory banks are located in between the plastic stand-off, and the last mounting hole for the brass stand-offs.
Finally, here is a picture of the motherboard inside the case. I’ve taken the opportunity to point out all the screw-down locations, as well as the two additional plastic stand-offs. As you can plainly see in this picture, those two plastic stand-offs will come in useful when installing memory or the IDE cables.
I have a final note on the installation of the motherboard. This case is light and compact, which also makes it a little difficult to install the motherboard due to the close quarters. I’ve done my share of installs over the years, so this wasn’t that huge of a deal, but it could have been much easier with a removable motherboard tray popular with most new cases, nowadays.
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