Building your own, Part #2: Putting Everything Together.
Jul 17 '03
The Bottom Line Choosing to build your own can be daunting, but this guide should provide some help to guide you down the right path.
I have discussed both the pros and cons of building vs. buying and about picking all the right pieces so you can build your own. Hopefully after reading these (and other good articles found here at Epinions and elsewhere), you decided to build your dream PC and you’ve ordered and amassed all of the pristine pieces of the puzzle, so now it’s time to put it all together. While everyone has their own way of doing things, I present my personal experiences here, your mileage may vary. There are plenty of other resources online, so if you find yourself unsure of the next step make sure you know what you’re doing before you go on.
To start, I like to have everything ready to go in front of me. As far as tools are concerned, I highly recommend a non-magnetic Philips screwdriver, a small nut driver, clean needle noose pliers, and a good light source. If you have access to an anti-static mat or an anti-static boot or wrist strap, use these. If you don’t have these, don’t worry too much, you can always discharge any built up static electricity by touching the chasis of your case. Do this often. You can build up thousands of volts of static charge which will reek havoc on the thin gate oxides of all the complex circuitry of the different parts of the computer. Don’t go dragging your feet through the shag carpet before you start, okay?
Time for surgery
With all your tools ready, everything laid out ready to go, and you’ve prayed to whatever God you pray to, you’re ready to get started. I always start with the motherboard and processor. You’ll probably end up paying the most for them, so it goes without saying that care must be taken. I usually use the big anti-static bag that the motherboard came in to serve as an extra layer of protection between the board and your table. Both Intel and AMD processors come with detailed instructions for the installation. Read and follow these carefully. For the processor, there is a ZIF (zero insertion force) socket that the processor sits in. There is a little lever that releases the contacts and allows placement of the processor. The processor is keyed in two places, preventing you from putting it in wrong. It will only fit in one direction so if it isn’t going down, don’t force it. Make sure it slips in easily and then push the lever down to lock the processor into place.
Next is the heatsink. This is the single most important part of the process but it is also the most nerve racking. Your processor is a little square of silicon that will crack with the right amount of force in the wrong place. Again, refer to your instructions and make sure you are doing everything correctly. The heatsink isn’t symmetrical, there’s usually a little notch on the bottom which will line up with the one of the sides of the ZIF socket. If you’re using an aftermarket heatsink, you’ll want to use the thermal compound that is supplied with the fan. This ensures a good thermal contact between the processor and the heatsink. Most heatsinks included with the processors have a little white square that acts as the thermal compound. There are two brackets, on opposite ends of the ZIF socket that act as latches for the heatsink. Making sure you’re heatsink is facing the right direction (again, instructions) latch one side of the processor by hand. Then carefully but with some oomph, using the needle nose pliers or the nut driver, push the other latch down. If something feels wrong, something probably is, so stop, reposition the heatsink and try again. Barring any catastrophe, the heatsink will latch into place and you’ll be set to go. If you hear the horrible sound of a crunch, you may have just flushed a couple hundred bucks down the toilet. Carefully remove the latch and inspect the processor. If you don’t see any visible cracks, you’re must be hearing things. Put the heatsink back on and proceed with the installation. If something is visibly cracked, it’s time to call the manufacturer.
You can breathe a sigh of relief, the worst part is pretty much over. Now we can mount the motherboard into the case and continue on. Your case should come with some brass standoffs that will be used in the mounting. You will see a group of screw holes on the inside “floor” of the case. You will also see corresponding holes on the motherboard. These are used to mount the motherboard to the case. You use the brass standoffs to keep the motherboard away from the case. You will want at least six standoffs, preferably eight or ten. Put standoffs in each corner, and then place them where you will be applying pressure to the board. This includes near the memory sockets, near the IDE/Floppy connectors, and by the expansion slots. Once you’ve tightened the standoffs, place the board on top and line up all the standoffs with their respective holes on the board. Make sure all of your I/O ports line up with the I/O shield and then set a few of the screws but don’t tighten them until all are set. Once you’ve set them all you can tighten them.
Your motherboard is now in place and you should place your memory in there sockets. If you have more than one stick of memory you should check with your motherboard’s instructions, some boards are finicky about the order in which you fill the banks of memory. Again, the memory chip is keyed so it will only go in one direction. There are two little latches that you should open all the way, line up your memory and then firmly press down until both latches clip into place. Make sure the memory is seated securely. I know that RDRAM is especially flaky in this regard so make sure it is seated properly before moving on.
Next step are the drives. In my system I have a CD-ROM, a CD-RW, two hard drives and a floppy disk. Since I'm assuming you’re using a tower case, I suggest you start from the top and work your way down. We’ll start with the CD drives.
Most cases will either have a little track to guide the 5.25” drives or rails that get attached to the drive and then slide into place. Either way, installing these drives are pretty straightforward. Don’t skimp on the screws here, make sure you have a screw in four places: two in the front, two in the back. With the rails you may have to experiment with the placement of the screws, but it’s really not that bad.
With the CD drives mounted, we can move to the smaller floppy drive and the hard drives. Both are 3.5” in size so they usually fit into a little cage that can be removed from the case for easy installation. I recommend putting the floppy as high as it will go in the cage and then starting from the bottom, install the hard drives. You want to make sure there’s good air circulation in between the hard drives, so allow for that as well. Installing these drives is simply securing the drives with the screws provided into the cage. You can then reinsert the drive cage, we’re not going to connect any cables yet.
Next we install the different cards that will go into your system. Before Windows XP, I would do this step one card at a time because Plug N Play just wasn’t good enough to keep up with multiple cards at once. Now I think XP can handle it. Since I recommend getting a board with an Ethernet port , built in sound, and plenty of USB ports, the only cards I installed were my video card and an IEEE1394 expansion card. Here installation is very easy, it’s just a matter of inserting the card into their respective slots. The video card goes into the AGP slot, so that leaves you with your choice of PCI slots for other expansion cards. Just remove the little metal guard over the slot opening and carefully insert THE card into its slot. Then, using the screw from the guard, screw the card into place.
Before we connect everything, I strongly suggest adding a couple of fans to enhance airflow through the case. There will already be a fan for the power supply, one for the processor and probably one for the video card, but a couple more will go a long way in ensuring long life for your PC. There are spots in the front of the case and at the back of the case for mounting fans. Usually the 80mm fans will be sufficient. Make sure the fan mounted in the front is pulling in air and the fan in the back is blowing air out. This allows cool air to be drawn in by the front fan (which is mounted lower than the back fan) and hot air (which rises) to be expelled by the back fan. Installation is a snap. The front spot will usually have a little plastic cage that you can clip the fan into. This cage then clips into the front of the case, usually in front of a grating to allow air in. Using the provided screws, mount the fan in the back in place and then attach each screw part of the way until all four screws are attached. Then you can tighten them all to secure the fan. The screws are thick to create their own threads as it is screwed into place.
Finally we’ve got a bunch of cables that need connecting. Properly and neatly placing your cables is an art form but will be worth the extra time it takes. Take a few minutes to get all your cabling planned out before you start connecting things up. Make sure you are not plugged in to the wall yet. That comes last. The first thing to connect is the power supply connections. There should be one main header connection on your motherboard with a corresponding cable coming from your power supply. Plug the power supply connect in first. Next, plug in all the drives. Both the hard drives and the CD drives will have the same connector for power. They only go in one direction, so connecting them is a snap. Next, connect the floppy power cable. This is a smaller version of the hard drive cable. Once all the power connections are made we can connect the IDE and floppy cables. Silkscreen lettering next to the two IDE connectors should be labeled IDE0/IDE1 or IDE1/IDE2. You’ll want to put your main hard drive one IDE0. If you have a hard drive and one CD drive (especially if it’s a CD burner) you’ll want them on different IDE channels. This will increase data transfer, making backups and other burning operations faster. The IDE cables are keyed such that they only go in one direction but an easy trick to remember is that pin 1 on the cable is colored red, which goes right next to the power connector. Same goes for the floppy drive. After all the drives are connected, we can connect all the fans to power (make sure the fan to the CPU heatsink is connected This is crucial.)
The moment of truth…
Now that everything has been connected and plugged in, take a step back, go get a drink and take a short break. This gives you a chance to come back with a clear head and go over ALL the connections one more time before you apply power.
Take a deep breath and plug the power cable into the power supply. Turn the power switch and make sure your fans turn on. If one of the fans doesn’t turn on, shut the power off right away and make sure all the fans (especially the processor fan) turns on.
The next step will be to make sure the BIOS recognizes all the different parts to your system. Once you’ve powered on your system, watch the screen closely and you’ll see what key to hit to enter the BIOS program. It’s usually F1 or del. The BIOS program tells the operating system what your computer is made of, so making sure that your BIOS recognizes everything correctly is important. You can do a lot of tweaking within the BIOS but you can also paralyze your system making the wrong chocie, so don’t change any settings you don’t know what they are for. One thing you should check is that the BIOS correctly ID’s your IDE drives correctly. Also, most new motherboards have a motherboard health monitor, so make sure your CPU isn’t too hot. You should also make sure that the BIOS is running your Front Side Bus and memory at the right speed.
Once you’ve verified the BIOS is doing everything right, you’re ready to continue on to the actual OS. If you are upgrading your system, you will either use your old hard drive or an image of your old system on a new hard drive. If that’s the case, you can let the computer boot up and let Windows recognize all your new parts and you should be good to go. Do note that if you are running XP it is possible that if you made drastic enough changes you’ll have to reregister with Microsoft, which can be a pain.
If you’re building a whole new system, once you’ve verified everything with the BIOS, before you exit the BIOS program, set the boot order to the CD-ROM drive and insert your OS CD into the drive and allow the system to boot to it. Installing the operating system should be easy from here.
If you’ve reached this point, congratulations, you’ve done it! Your system is finished and you can enjoy all the new toys your system has to offer.
What’s happens when something goes wrong?
I could spend a write another piece on troubleshooting the new system, so I can only give a few ideas to figure out what went wrong. If you turn the system on and nothing happens, don’t fret. Check your motherboard connections again, perhaps the memory isn’t seated well or a cable has come a little disconnected. Your board may beep if there’s a problem and your manual will tell you what the beeps mean. You can buy a POST (Power On Self Test) card that will tell you what is causing the problem your motherboard is hanging on. There are many other ways to troubleshoot, including plenty of tech support numbers to call, too, so don’t forget that you have plenty of options.
We’ve made it to the end!
Well, it’s been fun reviewing all the new toys I’ve put into my system and these past two articles have also been fun to write. Hopefully if nothing else, you, the reader feels a little more confident in cracking open the case of your computer and getting a little more “intimate” with it. It is actually quite easy once you decide to take the plunge and try it. Just be sure to take your time, be careful and have fun. Computer building is very fulfilling and extremely enjoyable. Just don’t be afraid to do it and give it a try!
Thanks for reading and good luck with your next computer system!
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
rice75
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Tony Rice
Location: Columbus, OH
Reviews written: 73
Trusted by: 66 members
About Me:
Resident Evil 4 will own your soul. Do not resist.
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.