Shuttle SS40G Barebones AMD System

Assembly

This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.

This is where things got interesting. As I have stated before, this is a really small case. No space is wasted and things are packed in like sardines, but that doesn’t mean everything won’t fit or that it’s extremely difficult to put them in their place.

Click to Enlarge

As the above pictures will show you, taking out the drive bays is the smartest thing to do when installing your components and with only two screws holding it in place, it’s quite easy to manage.

Click to Enlarge

From here you can see the CPU socket, memory slots and IDE ports as well. Being a FlexATX motherboard does make the components all that much closer to one another. Here is where we start the actual assembly. First we start with the RAM, CPU, and heatsink. Although the RAM can be installed at any time, I found it best to do this first. This way it’s installed and doesn’t have to be thought of again.

The next item is the CPU and heatsink. I strongly suggest having the drive cage removed for this part of the assembly. It is easier to maneuver the heatsink with its accessorized radiator without the cage in place. You will also be able to notice just one more offset concerning the heatsink as its form is not centered over the CPU. Installing a CDR and hard drive are your standard affair and offered nothing new from the norm. The only thing different in this case is the cabling. There are plenty of places to put the cables and they will even come marked for their intended use and appropriately sized as well. The CDR cable has even been rounded, for the lack of a better term, to allow ease in hooking it in appropriate hooks for the cable.

Click to Enlarge

Installing the drive cage and routing the cables is all that is left to do. A simple drop in place and connect the cables. There is a cable hold down at the bottom of the drive cage to hold the flat cable for your HDD. Just route in through the hold down and plug into your drive and it will stay as far away from hanging down on your memory as is possible.

From either side of this case, you can tell there isn’t much room for error, but this was one of my easier installs that I have done as of late. The trickiest part was the heatsink/radiator combination install but even that wasn’t too difficult. Just keep your mind on the heatsink itself and the radiator will fall into place. I’d rather be certain the heatsink is flush than the radiator, and this train of thought will make this job easier.

So that’s the system in a nutshell. Let’s see what I found in the BIOS and what kind of performance I got with this system along with my conclusions.