Question Need some help assembling my PC: how to install the M2 correctly, and where to place my water coolers

[heyset]

Hi!

I've bought a PC recently and the parts arrived today.

I've started assembling it and I've got some questions that I'd like help with:

• The motherboard (an Asus Prime Z790-P) came with 3 sets of screw male + female for the M.2 connector
  • Am I supposed to use all three females and only one male to secure the M.2?
  • Or should I only use one set of female+male depending on how big my SSD is? (mine is a WD Black SN770)
  • I've added the three females since they seem to sit nicely under the SSD, and I've only screwed the male that sits in the exact place where there's the hole for it in the SSD; but I'm not sure if that's correct or it could cause issues
• The case (CoolerMaster Master Box TD500 Mesh) comes with three fans, and I've bought a Master Liquid ML240L water cooler for the CPU
  • Where do I actually put the water cooler fans? 🤔

I've attached some pics of my current confusion

 

[Lafong]

You say "3 sets of screws" for M.2 drives.

I'd therefore guess that your motherboard can take 3 M.2 drives and has 3 M.2 ports.

The "sets" would presumably be identical, with identical lengths and identical threads. Each set one female and one male.

If you have ONLY one M.2 drive, you would use only 1 set.

Keep the other two for possible additional drives or in case you lose the first set.

M.2 drives vary in length as well as capacity. Most desktop consumer drives will be M.2 2280, which refers to dimensions not capacity. Not sure what you mean by "big".

All 3 sets of screws should work equally well on that motherboard for any M.2 drive you will come across, BUT..........................they may well not work on another motherboard brand. There doesn't seem to be standardization across brands.

 

[CountMike]

Best way to keep those screw sets from loosing them is to install (screw them in) in other M.2 places. They are pretty difficult to come by.

 

[heyset]

Thanks for the replies, guys!

It all went well 😍

(I know, bad photo)

I haven't had the time to install any OS in it yet but the stats on the BIOS menu all look fine 🙏