Installation
Mounting
We now move to the assembly stage of our configuration inside this Grandia GD11 from Silverstone. Here are the components that will be used for the assembly:
- Motherboard : Asus Crosshair VI Hero
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X
- Graphics card: ASUS HD 7970
- Cooler: Cryorig C1
- Power supply : NZXT C1000 Gold V2
Power supply:
The assembly of the power supply is done in a classic way by depositing the block on its place with a fixing which is done by screwing the block by the back. In the operation, we will pay attention to the orientation of the fan, the latter must be turned towards the outside, on the filter side.
In addition, to facilitate the assembly of the block, do not hesitate to remove the storage slots. This way, the whole motherboard tray is easily accessible.
Storage:
For the storage, we will have to remove the various supports to attach our various hard drives/SSDs. By the way, the mounting is done in the traditional way: four screws and a good old Phillips screwdriver. However, before putting everything back in place, we can only advise you to finish assembling the motherboard, the graphics card and the cabling.
Installation of the motherboard :
If you have a motherboard in ATX format, be aware that you will need to add a total of three spacers. Fortunately, Silverstone provides the necessary to install them on the motherboard tray.
Once the spacers are in place, we’ll drop the motherboard into its slot, and then screw it to the case via its nine mounting points. Again, for the assembly of this component, we can only advise you to remove the various supports for front storage units.
The cooler, graphics card :
Before proceeding with the cabling, we move on to the assembly of the graphics card and the CPU cooler. Given the location of the storage units, it is clearly better to remove the various baskets beforehand.
For the CPU heatsink, as this Grandia GD11 does not have backplate access, the first thing to do is to mount the CPU cooler, or the AIO pump before installing the motherboard. In our case, we used a Cryorig C1.
As for the graphics card, it’s not very complicated since you just have to free the slots corresponding to the card’s location. Once the card is mounted on its PCIe slot, all that remains is to screw it to the case with its bracket.
Cabling:
The control panel:
For the cabling, we start by setting up the control panel connectors. In general, it is not very complicated since the cables will run along the front panel before being dispatched to their respective ports on the motherboard. To make things easier, we’ll use the two Velcro strips on the front of the case to help with the wiring.
On the other hand, the Grandia GD11 would deserve to have a cable for the HD audio a little longer. For the connection to our Crosshair VI Hero, it turned out to be a bit tight. 5 cm to 10 cm more would have been perfect!
Motherboard:
Now we move on to connecting the motherboard and for this we will need to add the 24-pin ATX and EPS12V strands to our C1000 Gold V2 power supply from NZXT. Routing them is not very complicated. Again, we run the Grandia GD11 through the front and exploit the velcro strips. Just that in theEPS12V it will only be attached by the first velcro before going along the top of the motherboard.
Graphics card:
As for the graphics card, same observation: we add a PCIe strand to our power supply. Again it will go through the velcro brands on the front of the case before being connected to the graphics card.
Storage:
For storage, things get a little more complicated. During the wiring process, we found it more convenient to plug in our HDD/SSD combo before putting everything back together. Fortunately, the various storage slots are close together, so it is possible to connect all the media with a single SATA cable. The excess cable can then be stored behind the front panel, on the right of the latter.
As for the data cables, once again, there is no secret as they will run along the front panel before being connected to the motherboard. In fact, to make things easier, it’s better to connect them first to the motherboard and then to the hard disks/SSDs than the other way around.
Once everything is connected, you can finally put the HDD/SSD baskets back in place.
Overall:
Overall, the assembly goes pretty well, we’ll just make sure to remove the storage slots to make it easier. As for the cabling, you should not hesitate to use the two Velcro strips on the front. They are a precious help to better arrange and fix the cables!
