Sockets And Other Things
The technician checks the boards to ensure that components are securely in place.
After this phase, the boards will enter a final wave soldering process to lock in all the components.
More Manual Work
Graphics Cards
Gigabyte's graphics boards go through a similar process.
Sometimes, two boards are attached together and are separated after a preliminary wave soldering process.
Bonus points for those who can tell what GPU is on this particular board.
Heatsinks Go On
A technician over in the graphics production area handles cooling. A large GPU cooler is attached to the PCB.
A Lone Graphics Card
A Mean Test Bed
After a complete assembly, motherboards and graphics cards are rigorously tested to ensure that everything works.
From the photo above, you can see that Gigabyte leaves nothing unexamined. All ports, sockets, and connectors go through testing. If an error comes up, the board is sent to the labs to see what can be done. Sometimes, a particular part may be faulty and can be easily removed and replaced. This is where selective wave soldering plays a key role.
What Our Tests Kinda Look Like
Another shot of the test bed.
Notice the twin PCIe CrossFire and SLI test cards.
Unboxing? Boxing
While manufacturing is occurring, another assembly line prepares the packaging. In this case, motherboard boxes are prepared for each individual product line.
In the above machine, pre-printed boxes are cut and folded into proper proportions before being sent to a manual assembly line.
Almost Finished
During this phase, all the necessary accessories, manuals, and discs are brought in.
Completed motherboards and graphics cards are moved to this area for final packaging. This part of the line was the perfect opportunity for us to swipe a few motherboards and graphics cards without being seen. With speed and skill, our agent covertly moves in to bag a few motherboards and graphics cards.
Her mission was made easy though since no one was there.
Ready To Ship Out
After workers pack the boxes, they're moved over to the mass packaging line where they're put into containers and then loaded onto pallets.
Labels are attached denoting what models are contained and serial numbers are recorded.
From here on out, where the motherboards and graphics card go are beyond our reach.
We'd like to personally thank our Tom's Hardware Secret Agent for her covert shots. We could not have done this without her. After her run through Gigabyte's production facility, our Agent was nabbed by Gigabyte officials who then identified her as "Sherri 'Kobe' Lee" after she was found to have LA Lakers defender Kobe Bryant tatooed to her neck.
