Computersight -

Image by Tim in Sydney via Flickr

1. Remove front panel of case (it just snaps in via 4 posts through 4 holes, so removing it mainly involves just pulling a bit), remove 2 screws and the cover of whichever 5.25″ drive bay you care to use for the DVD drive (I use the top one for user convenience, but the bottom bay might be better for cabling reasons). Replace front panel of case.
2. Remove “starboard” side panel. This involves removing two thumb-screws and sliding it off. Take miscellaneous debris (screws, standoffs, etc.) out of case.
3. Remove I/O shield that came with case, replace with I/O shield that came with motherboard.
4. Screw 6 motherboard standoffs into the appropriate holes in the motherboard chassis inside the case. Place motherboard on top of standoffs. Screw motherboard to standoffs.
5. Open CPU slot, remove CPU slot cover, determine correct orientation of CPU in slot, carefully drop CPU into slot, close slot.
6. Install CPU heatsink/fan.
7. Install RAM (which involves little more than lining it up and (gently) jamming it into the slot), optical drive, and hard drive. Note that the case has tool-less drive bays, so no screws involved.
8. Install video card.
9. Install SATA cables for optical/harddrive, and the various front panel components (power/reset switch, etc.), refer to manual if necessary, but the polarities are written on the board. White is negative. Note that this basically amounts to little more than plugging shit in.
10. And, finally, install the power supply. I leave this for last because it lets me limit how much of a mess I have to make inside of the case (that power supply, sadly, is not modular, but for a bulk office PC build (that just happens to have a mediocre video card capable of running most mainstream releases *cough*), I couldn’t really justify dropping the extra money on a modular PSU just to make things neat). The only cables you should need are the mainboard power connector (the big one, duh), the CPU power connector (4 pins, it’s the only one that will fit), one molex (for the case fans), and 2 SATA power connectors – I think it’s actually less than half of the total number of individual cables, but I haven’t counted. Should be at LEAST one more molex, at least 2 PCI-E supplementary power cables for BIG video cards, etc., that you won’t use. This actually takes me longer than all of the rest combined – I suck at organizing cabling. I usually end up taking the “port” side panel off at this point so I can jam excess cable into the space between the case and the frame.

After that, just close it up, turn it on, pop an OS install disk in, restart it, and you’re off