How to build a PC

IT VET

Components

A PC’s major components are The Power Supply 240v (ouch) The Motherboard The CPU The Hard Drive Video Card/PCI Cards

Locate CPU Mount

The first step of building a computer begins with the assembly of the most important parts of your PC - the CPU and the motherboard. You will want to check the pins on the back of the CPU first to see if they match with the ones on the motherboard before you start.

If they match, you will need to open up the ZIF socket by lifting up the steel lever on the side of the socket about 90 degrees.

Install the CPU

Now, insert the CPU to the socket. This will be fairly easy to do. Be sure to make sure that the pins match the ones on the motherboard. If you can not stick the CPU in, turn it 90 degrees and try again until it drops into the socket easily. Push the CPU a little bit to make sure it fits inside the socket securely. Then, lock the CPU by closeing the steel lever you just opened up.

Install the CPU Cooler

NOTE: you MUST install a CPU cooler before you turn on the PC. Turning on the computer without a cooler is very dangerous as the CPU might burn up by itself.

Installing the Cooler

Before you start clipping the heatsink onto the CPU, you might want to apply some thermal paste between the CPU and the heatsink. This will increase the transfer rate of heat from the CPU to the heatsink, thus makes the CPU cooler.

Installing the Cooler

If your heatsink already has a layer of thermal pad (gray or pink colour) on it, you can skip this step. However, it is recommended for you to use some sort of thermal compound even the very cheap ones. In my experience, adding thermal paste will cool your CPU down by about 3 degrees celcius than using the original thermal pad.

Cooler CPU

The CPU cooler includes a heatsink and a fan.

There are also two little clips on the sides.

Attach one clip into one side of the motherboard socket base, and press the heatsink to the correct position.

Install the Cooler

Then, attach the second clip to the motherboard with a screw driver.

The CPU and the cooler are now secured onto the motherboard.

Also remember to attach the power connection of the CPU fan to the motherboard

Types of RAM

There are two basic types of RAM available today: SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM) and RDRAM (Rambus dynamic RAM).

The RAM you can use depends on the RAM sockets installed on your motherboard.

Most systems available on the market today take SDRAM in 168-pin DIMMs (dual in-line memory modules).

Older Pentiums and later 486 PCs use FPM and EDO RAM in 72-pin SIMMs (single in-line memory modules).

SIMM

SIMM (single in-line memory module): A memory-chip module with 72 or 30 pins that connect the module to the PC motherboard. SIMMs are normally found in older systems. They support 32-bit and 16-bit data transfers, respectively.

DIMM (dual in-line memory module): A memory-chip module with 168 pins that connect the module to the PC motherboard. DIMMs are the most popular memory module available today. They support 64-bit data transfers.

DRAM (dynamic RAM): This older, "classic" form of RAM has been supplanted by SDRAM. DRAM stores each bit in a storage cell as an electrical charge that must be refreshed every few milliseconds to retain the information. Although less expensive than SDRAM, DRAM is also slower.

EDO RAM (extended data-out RAM): A faster form of DRAM, EDO extends the time that output data is valid, which eases timing issues between the CPU and RAM and enhances performance. EDO has now been replaced by the even faster SDRAM.

SDRAM (synchronous DRAM): The replacement for DRAM, FPM, and EDO, SDRAM synchronizes memory access with the CPU clock for faster data transfer. Basically, one block of data can be sent to the CPU while another is being prepared for access.

Installing Memory

Before putting your motherboard into the case, you also want to install the memory.

Open up the two clips on the memory slot and push the memory into the correct position until the white plastic clips close by them.

Repeat this step if you have more than one memory chips to install.

Install Motherboard

Open up the computer case and try to hold the motherboard to the correct location.

Install Motherboard

Locate the ports on the back of the case and the motherboard.

Install Motherboard

Take out the metals that you don't need with a screw driver, and make sure they match correctly.

Install Motherboard

Locate the holes on the motherboard and on the case. Use spacers to raise the motherboard, slide the motherboard in, and secure it with screws

Install Motherboard

Connect the power plug into the motherboard. It's a white 20 wires plug.

Install Motherboard

Connect the power switch, reset switch, power LED, HDD LED, and the case speaker to the motherboard.

The connectors are very small, you might want to use a flash light to give you enough light so you can get them into the correct spot.

Double check after you are done

Install Hard Drive Slide the floppy drive,

hard drive, and optical drives into the case.

(If you are going to connect more than one device on the same IDE slot, you will have to make sure one of them is set to master and the other one is slave, or both cable select.

This is done by changing the jumpers in the back of the drive)

Install Hard Drive

Connect IDE cables to the drives. Floppy has it's own port while optical drives and hard disk drives use IDE port.

If you are going to do RAID (more information in last week's guide), plug the two identical hard disks into two RAID slots (usually IDE 3 and 4).

Use ATA133 cable if you have ATA 133 disks.

Connect 12v power to the disk drives. (4-wire cables)

Graphics Cards

A Graphics Card also known as a Video Card is an internal device which controls and produces the display on your screen.

Graphic cards come with various specifications, and unless they are built-in to the motherboard (mainboard) they have their own RAM onboard.

you can still get PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) graphic cards for older motherboards.

Install Video Card

Your video card usually uses an AGP port (brown).

Slide it into the AGP port on the motherboard, and screw the card securely.

Install PCI Cards

If you have sound card, modem, network card, etc. Install them into the PCI slots on the motherboard.

They are white and longer than the AGP port.

(TIP: if you can, don't use the first PCI slot.

The first PCI slot usually shares IRQ with the AGP slot, and it will reduce the performance of the card.)

AGP-Accelerated Graphics Port

•An interface developed by Intel which allows a graphics card to access memory directly which along with the wider bandwidth helps improve graphics performance.

• It will also enables graphics cards to execute texture maps directly from system memory instead of forcing it to pre-load the texture data to the graphics card's local memory.

Port Assembly

Connect your monitor, mouse, keyboard, and power into the corresponding ports on the back of the PC.

Know your ports

You need to KNOW these ports by NAME and by SIGHT. You need to know what they do.

Boot Time

You are now ready to boot up!

PRESS DELETE!

Yay! Now you got your computer started up.

Quickly press the "delete" key on your keyboard until the CMOS screen shows up.

In the CMOS screen, you can configure all your hardware.

Got RAID?

Setup RAID: if you motherboard

supports hard drive RAID, you can now go to the RAID configuration screen and RAID your HDD's. (RAID 0 = strip, RAID 1 = mirror, RAID 0+1 = strip and mirror)

Further Reading

STEP 1 : Materials Required STEP 2 : Remove Case Cover STEP 3 : Case Preparation STEP 4 : Install Power Supply STEP 5 : Install the CPU

Further Reading

STEP 6 : Install Heat Sink/Fan STEP 7 : Install Memory STEP 8 : Configure the Motherboard STEP 9 : Install the Motherboard STEP 10 : Connect Motherboard To Case STEP 11: Install Floppy Drive STEP 12 : Configure the Hard Drive & CD-R

OM

STEP 13 : Install Drive

Further Reading

STEP 14 : Install the CD-ROM(s) STEP 15 : Install The Video Card STEP 16 : Post-Assembly STEP 17 : Initial Boot-Up STEP 18 : Configure The BIOS STEP 19 : Test The System STEP 20 : Prepare the Hard Drive(s) STEP 21 : Install The CD-ROM Driver STEP 22 : Install The Operating System STEP 23 : Tidy Up