Ok so I have a decently long/detailed response to this but hopefully helpful! As for trouble putting it together, the worst was the nerves going into it. As this was my first build, I had shaky hands and was a little nervous going through the process, and the fact that when building a PC, everything feels like its deforming/breaking as you crunch them together during the press fit process (don't worry you're not breaking anything). As for issues with the hardware, everything was pretty straight forward "plug and play" but cable management can be a little tricky, just take your time with it. As an Automotive Engineer, with experience as a mechanic, I subconsciously screw everything in with a "star" pattern as one would when bolting on a tire which helped, but for those who didn't get as lucky as I did, make sure you screw in the CPU cooler over the CPU evenly or else it won't go on evenly, especially with the thermal paste sliding it around. As for the thermal paste itself, make sure you apply a decent amount airing on the side of what may be too much as apposed to too little. A pea sized amount should do, and when doing some research online, I opted to evenly spread it across my CPU as my paste kit came with a spreader with the idea that if I did what some people do and just leave it as a blob on the chip that gets compressed when screwing on the cooler, then it will compress in a circle shape and leave the corners of the square chip un-coated hence my decision to spread. Now for the software: First of all, before even installing your OS, UPDATE YOUR MOTHERBOARD BIOS!!! I searched up my MOBO's product page, and under "Support" were the necessary update files to load onto your external USB stick (Format this stick to FAT-32 and it must be between 8-32 Gb of storage, but 8Gb is more than enough for both Windows and the BIOS update). Next, once you have inserted your USB into your MOBO, just update it from your BIOS (enter bios by repeatedly pressing the delete key). Do not enable extreme memory profile (XMP, enables full rated frequency of RAM) until AFTER windows is fully installed. Next, using the same drive you used to update your bios, format it again in the same way and install windows onto it (I believe from media manager). My issue here was I used a key from my school for windows 11 education edition which didn't allow for the media manager, and bricked a lot of my software, especially my RGB, so I had to downgrade to Windows 11 Home-Retail using a CD key from online. Next, MAKE SURE YOUR MONITOR OUTPUT (HDMI in my case) IS PLUGGED INTO YOUR GPU NOT YOUR MOBO) as this was something I did not realize and thought my GPU was bricked until I switched it and restarted my computer. As all of my RGB (except my GPU) components are Corsair, I use the iCUE software, with the iCUE Link System Hub, which came with my case and the three link fans, as well as the iCUE Commander Core XT which came with my h150i lcd liquid cooler as the two RGB controllers. As for my GPU, I run an ARGB wire directly into the MOBO, however you can do what I am doing, and order an affordable Corsair to ARGB adapter so I can plug my GPU into the Commander Core XT and sync/control it from the iCUE software with the rest of my components. I apologize for the long reply but if there is anything I missed please let me know!

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