CoolIT Boreas MTEC Chassis Review

Installation Con't

Where this particular cooling system requires mounting screws to be placed through the motherboard we took this opportunity to properly prep the motherboard for the Boreas CPU block retaining screws. This may sound complicated but is in fact a very easy process. You start it by threading a plastic washer over one of the four screws, thread it through the motherboard’s CPU mounting holes, thread another plastic washer over it and then tighten down a large standoff. Once this is accomplished you simply repeat it three more times.


With the motherboard properly prepped, you can now go ahead and install it just as you would in any other case. After the motherboard is securely mounted to the motherboard tray you can either install the CPU or GPU. We decided to install the CPU just to get this step out of the way first.


To install your video card, you simply line it up in the slot you plan on mounting it and then seeing which blanking plate and thumb screw needs to be removed from the motherboard tray. When you have the proper plate removed and have inserted your GPU in its slot on the motherboard you can then reinstall the screw to help stabilize the GPU. You can then reinstall the motherboard tray (or first install any more cards needed and then reinstall the tray) as you are finished with the biggest part of the installation process.

At this point the only five things you have left to do is install your optical drive (which while technically optional is more than likely standard for most builds), plug in your cables for the drives and power cables for the various parts, install the cables for the front panel (power button, restart, etc), mount the Boreas’ CPU block to the CPU and set up the MTEC controller. Since our motherboard was already prepped for use in open bench (and thus came with power and reset buttons which mount the motherboard) we opted for not installing the various cables. We did mount them to one of the two motherboards to ensure they were working but to help speed up the hardware change from Intel 775 to AM2+ motherboards we decided to not use them on all setups.


We will not bore you with the cable installation process as you should all know how to do this and more importantly the parts you use in your build may require more or less cables. However, before we get to the Boreas installation we would like to mention the optical drive installation process. Before you can install your optical drive you must first remove one of the three metal front bay blanking plates. Unlike on cheaper cases, these blanking plates are made entirely from metal and are secured to the drive bay via four screws. If you try and just pop one of these off, you are more than likely going to mess up the case or at the very least scratch the living daylights out of it before tiring, becoming frustrated and reading the manual for the proper procedure.

Once those four screws are removed you then simply push the plate out the front of the case from inside the drive bay. Once this is accomplished you can then slide in your optical drive and secure it the old fashioned way with four screws. We say the old fashioned way as there is no tool-less goo-gaws or other frivolous things here to deal with, just plain old school screws. This makes for a very secure mounting process but is time consuming and seems very outdated (or even antiquated) by today’s standards.