A look Inside

Taking the ASRock NUCS BOX-1360P/D4 apart is a relatively painless process at first glance. Much like its siblings, you will need to remove the four screws on the bottom, which will allow you to lift the bottom plate off and thus install your system memory, M.2 SSD, SATA HDD/SSD, and so on.


While further disassembly for system setup is not required, continuing further to do a deep clean was a nightmare. The fit and finish are so tight that getting the mainboard out of the chassis was not fun by any stretch of the imagination. First, you will want to remove the screw holding the Intel AX210NGW Wi-Fi 6E module. This is easier than removing and reattaching the antenna wires later. You will also need to remove two black screws on each side, securing the mainboard to the chassis. With all that removed, you are going to need to wiggle, shimmy, shake and likely use a tiny flathead screwdriver as leverage between the chassis and CPU heatsink to get the board out. Be careful, be patient, and take your time; once it is out, the hard part is done.


With the motherboard now free of the chassis, it's possible to flip it over to gain access to the heatsink and fan. The Delta fan used here is a BSC0805HA-00 and can be easily found on Amazon or elsewhere if it needs to be replaced. The CMOS battery is under the fan, but you can disconnect it via the plug near the edge of the mainboard.


Finally, before I put everything back together, I installed the memory and SSD, a quick and painless process. For M.2 2280 SSDs, you use the provided screw to secure the SSD to the standoff once firmly inserted into the M.2 slot. The memory is much the same; slot it in fully and then push it down. Now, all that remains is to install Windows via USB key, which is incredibly simple thanks to the Windows Media Creation Tool, as you can download the tool, set up a USB drive, and have Windows installed in less than an hour if your internet speeds are decent.