Antec 300 Mobo Install Gone wrong

N

night_2004

2[H]4U
Joined
May 31, 2007
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I accidentally used the wrong screws to secure the motherboard to the case standoffs. Thanks Antec for laying out which screws I needed to use :rolleyes:

Anyway, I'm stuck now. The screws that I used are all stuck IN the standoffs, half-assed in there. I can't screw them in tighter, I can't unscrew them. So now it appears that I've ruined nine of my thirteen standoffs (and I have no idea what to do about that since I only have four left and I need nine). But for the moment I want to get the motherboard out of there and make sure I didn't do any damage to it.

I can't see any way to get around this problem that doesn't involve permanent damage to the case.

Help?
 
Yikes. I've had that happen before. If you're using capped screws as opposed to domed ones, sometimes you can get enough torque with a nut driver to get them out. That case does not have a removable backplane, I don't think, which makes this even harder.

I was once able to work screws out with a tiny bit of WD-40, but if you're cross-threaded, I'm not sure that would help, either.

Good luck. :(
 
I think I might have figured out a way to get most of them out. So far five removed...no damage to the standoffs so far so I'm a little happier.

The threading on the 'wrong' screws is a bit finer than the threading of the standoffs. That's how they got stuck.

I got out the power screwdriver, pulling them out is tedious but it is working. There seem to be a few metal shards, so I'm going to have to pull out the hair-dryer and run it to blow away any little bits.
 
Yeah, make absolutely sure you get those pieces of shrapnel out of there...one can fry your board and everything connected to it. I'm glad you found a way to get them out of there...there's nothing more depressing than to be stopped cold in the middle of rebuild.
 
Alright, 'bad' screws are out. New ones are in. Sorry for the brief scare there. But I still do need to blow through the case a bit in case there are any metal bits in there now. I really don't need a short tonight.

I might finish putting it all together tonight, and calling a friend to come over in the afternoon tomorrow. He has an air compressor.

But I'm going to try the hair-dryer method first. My grandmother (I'm visiting) has one that the heating element is pretty much shot...but its a damn good fan.
 
It boots!

Good news, it booted on the first try. I'm sitting idle in BIOS (didn't want to install the disc drives or anything non-essential), CPU is at ~37C.
 
I'm definitely enjoying the Antec 300. And the ASUS P6T Deluxe V2, for that matter.

But the Antec 300 is really amazing. I spent way too much on cable management, but I'm OCD about that even with my desk. But I'm definitely okay with what the Antec 300 has to offer as far as cable management goes.

The fans are just amazing in this system. Dark Knight cooler, and a couple of fans (3x 120mm, 1x 140mm, 1x 140mm CPU fan), and the CPU stays within 37C-62C depending on load at full fan blast. It was pretty loud though, so I tweaked the fan settings and now I'm running around 40C idle and 63C load...it is much quieter during normal use.

I plugged the quieter 140mm fan into the PWR_FAN on the motherboard that always stays at 100%, and the three 120mm fans into the three fan controllers on the board. All the parts fit together like a glove.
 
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