Design 'oversights'

Soldato
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Just installed my Gigabyte 880GM-UD2H into the case and I noticed something, that I'm sure has been mentioned before, but "they" keep doing it it seems.

What I'm referring to is the fact that the SATA ports are positioned only a couple inches away from the end of the PCI-e slot. So once I put my 4870x2 card in I'm not going to be able to connect anything...

I realise the 880GM-UD2H is a cheap motherboard but still, surely this could be avoided. They've managed to position the Floppy connector and the IDE connector nicely out of the way!

Am I gonna have to send the motherboard bundle back?
Why didn't I think to check earlier, there are enough pictures of the board!

Anyway, I thought it might be interesting for people to mention any other design flaws they've come across. Could be amusing and also something for the rest of us to watch out for.
 
Soldato
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25 Aug 2010
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If you have that motherboard and an akasa venom CPU cooler, the RAM should go on first as the cooler sits over the first two slots, g.skill ripjaw sticks are just clear of the underside...
 
Soldato
OP
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Does the board come supplied with right-angled sata cables, as some manufacturers supply these.

The board comes with 1 right angled SATA cable, which it says should be connected to the HDD. Also the way they've done it if you did use it, it means the cable would then cover at least 1 SATA port.

I think, quickly sizing it up I should get away with just covering 1 of the SATA ports as I'm planning to water-cool the graphics card which should reduce the profile. That should hopefully leave me with 4 SATA ports.

Now lets see:
1 x HDD (should be ok)
1 x DVD drive (should be ok)
1 x CM 690 II top SATA connector thingy (may be an issue)
1 x front eSATA port (does anyone actually use these?)

As long as I don't get an SSD drive I may get away with it. If I do get an SSD drive, I might have to lose the front eSATA port...
 
Associate
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1 Sep 2010
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I had similar problems, but with the first two memory slots being covered up by the cpu cooler (fenrir). The memory had heat spreaders so they would not fit under the cooler. I brought the overclocked motherboard bundle. You would have thought overclockers would have noticed this.
 
Associate
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I had similar problems, but with the first two memory slots being covered up by the cpu cooler (fenrir). The memory had heat spreaders so they would not fit under the cooler. I brought the overclocked motherboard bundle. You would have thought overclockers would have noticed this.

had exactly the same problem with my patriot vipers and ud5 board. still do in fact. my solution was to keep the fan over the ram higher up on the megahalems and bend the clips so they just sit on top of the ram's heatspreaders. looks messy but works. i'd rather damage a £5 clip than a £100 stick of ram :p
 
Soldato
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Same issue on my new build on an Asus P7P55D Pro - the Freezer Pro 7's cooler fan blocks the slot nearest the CPU. It's not a particularly huge cooler either.The good thing is that the SATA connectors are at the edge of the board and at right angles.
 
Associate
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16 Mar 2007
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The only way I got around it was to cut a big hole in the motherboard tray so I could access the sata ports from behind, so even with a card installed I could still get to them
 
Associate
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3 Oct 2010
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Took me ages to find this thread again but i thought this may help anyone in the same position as i and the OP was while choosing components for this board.

I stupidly without checking Dims bought a 5850 originally off an auction site which i wont name, and it wouldnt fit the Gigabyte mATX as it covered two SATA Ports and i couldnt fit everything.

Then a mate told me a GTX460 should fit as its a bit shorter, and it clears the ports easily. I can now use all 5 ports with no worries, my only issue being i can never SLI because of my choice of board form/no PCIE spare.

The exact model was the ZOTAC AMP, as I'm not sure about size differences between manufacturers and don't want to cause problems for anyone.

I did think this was especially wierd seeing as OCUK spec this board with one of there Phenom builds! And now i understand.
 
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