Made in Malaise, yah?

Just a word of advice. Never buy a mobo, chip, and fan separately , or a barebones kit & a separate cpu fan. I've 'built' several computers for myself, but this is the first time I've gotten a mobo that didn't have the chip and fan already installed. Really, the socket 775 mobo and chip were no problem together. The way it's done now, without the need to press all of those pins down into place works great. Except, I later unclipped the bar that holds down the cpu cover plate to look at something, and when I was closing it back, I heard a loud snap... Not sure what that was about.

But the fan... sheesh! I worked on installing that thing for well over an hour and ½! I was putting so much pressure on it trying to secure the clip that my thumb hurts this morning. I have no idea how I kept from snapping the mobo in-two. I read reviews of every socket 775 cpu fan on the website and chose one that someone specifically stated fit my mobo with no problems. Well, I had problems. (I'll add mobo and fan specifics later for those that may want or need to know) The fan has a plastic mounting plate that clips to the mobo and then some metal clasps that fit onto that mounting plate to hold the fan and heat-sink down onto the cpu. It's made that way because the heat-sink is huge and you wouldn't be able to mount it to the mobo if it was all one piece. So, I chose the orientation of the mounting plate so that the metal clips would be on the sides where it seemed they would cause the least problems. If the hold down clips had just been oriented 45º from their actual position, all would have been right with the world. In one position, the metal clips would have had to have been forced between the mounting plate and some kind of (what looked like) key components that didn't need to be disturbed. In the other orientation, they would have to be forced down next to a small heat-sink on one side, and a small fan over a nVidia mobo chip on the other. I chose this latter orientation because it seemed to be the less chance for harming anything. Well, the small heat-sink also interferes with the mounting plate, and even after using a knife and shaving it down a bit, it doesn't fit all of the way down completely. So, after fooling with this thing for an hour with it slipping all around on the thermal grease on top of the cpu, I finally got it clipped into place, but I still don't know that it'll be 100% effective because it may not be sitting flat on the cpu. (and I may have broken a dozen different things...)

Anyway, I should be done installing all 4 hddrives and the add-on cards tonight, so I'm hoping to fire it up to BIOS before going to bed to make sure it's at least working at that level. Jeez I spent a lot of money on this stuff.