Okay….. first thing. Take the Apex MI-008 miniITX case out of the box. Don’t unscrew, bend, staple or otherwise mutilate the case. Just look at it. Turn it around and familiarize yourself with the external appearance. That’s your starting point. Everything else will be measured against that.
Before we start messing with the case and making any modifications, we need to verify it will work straight out of the box. No sense in spending time and effort only to find the supplied power supply is bad or the power button is broke. Now you can unscrew the top cover and install the assembled and tested 1088XEL motherboard. Connect the front power button and power LED(observing the correct polarity according to the labeled front power/led cable) and ATX power supply adapter.
Connect your chosen video and audio device and keyboard and then connect the supplied AC power cord to a power outlet or power strip and the socket on the back of the case.
The moment of truth. Press the power button on the front. If you didn’t mis-connect something and the case is functional, you should be rewarded with the Ready/SDX prompt. If not, don’t go any further until you find and fix the problem or determine that you have a bad case and need to send it back for replacement or refund.
Congrats if you get normal power up. Now you get to disassemble and remove the motherboard and ATX power supply adapter and put them aside in a safe place.
Hot dog! We can get started!
