7. Wire Management

A close-up of the air intake: wires from the power supply blocked the CPU cooler's air intake.

The need for good wire management was clear from the start. The ATX power plug was tucked underneath the corner of the power supply, and it took a lot of work to get the wires out of the way of the video card. The AGP slot was so close to the side of the power supply that I was afraid that the solder joints on the back would make contact with the power supply casing.

Luckily there was enough clearance and it wasn't a problem; however, if there had been RAM sinks or a heat pipe installed on the back of the card, I would have been in trouble. I had forgotten to install an IDE cable for the hard drive and had to remove the CPU cooler, so I took the opportunity and wrapped the loose wires in spiral wrap.

Power supply wires wrapped with spiral wrap.

Side view: It was a tight fit to get everything in there.

A close-up of the Northbridge cooler. There was only ¼" (64 cm) of clearance between the bottom of the hard drive caddy and the cooler fan.