System Installation: Hardware
Before I could begin I had to make sure that I took the correct safety precautions. This involved me making sure that the main source of power to the PC was disconnected and that I “earthed” myself to avoid passing static electricity through me. (See safety kit pictured)
I started with an empty case and then screwed in an ATX Power Supply Unit (PSU) into the rear of the case. When I installed the PSU I had to make sure that the fan outlet and power socket on the PSU will face outward and the power connectors all hang loosely inside the case.
Then I inserted the motherboard into the case. To do this, I first had to align up the ports of the motherboard up with the slots of the rear panel of the case. After that I then screwed the motherboard into place. Once that motherboard had been successfully installed into the case, I began by replacing all the mounting brackets, ready to install the drives.
I then connected all the appropriate cables from the front of the PC to the motherboard, these control:
I also connected an audio jack on the front of the case using an audio cable that passes through the metal back plate to the audio port on the rear of the motherboard.
I first had to install the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) card which was an Ethernet card which was to allow the PC to have networking access. Following this I installed the PCI sound card and Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) graphics card by simply slotting them into their appropriate slots. To ensure that the card could be accessed (i.e. plugging a monitor into the Graphics Processor Unit) (GPU) I had to remove metal backing at the back of the case so as the ports on the card could be accessed. (See GPU installation pictured)
After I successfully completed that I had to insert the Intel 1.86 Core 2 Duo Central Processing Unit (CPU) chip onto the motherboard. (See processor below)
After that I had to attach a heatsink on top of the chip to conduct heat away from its source and "spread" the heat over a larger surface area. This will help to dissipate the energy faster, ensuring that the CPU is kept cool. (See heat sink installation pictured)
The next part to be installed was the memory. I used 2x 512 Mb sticks of Random Access Memory (RAM) for this system. The memory modules simply slotted into place in the RAM port/socket on board the motherboard, it is then held in by two clamps, one either side of the cards. (See RAM installation below)
The next stage was to insert the Hard Drive and CD Drive.
First of all I located the Integrated/Intelligent Drive Electronics (IDE) Configuration Pins on the Hard Disk Drive (HDD). These were found next to the power and data connections, and were in a group of six small pins with a small plastic 'jumper' attached between two of the pins. As this was the only HDD in the PC, then it had to be set to a Master HDD. Alternatively, if this was to be an additional HDD then it would have to be to Slave. (See hard drive installation below)
Following that, I had to insert the DVD-RW/CD-RW (re-writer). I had to use the IDE Configuration Pins and set this device as a Master. I slid the drive into the opening of the case backwards so that its front panel becomes flush with the front of the PC case
For the next process I had to stat attaching the internal cables. I first connected the CD/DVD drive to the Motherboard using a ribbon cable.
I took the wider, '40way Ribbon' cable and connected one end to the 40 pin connector on the drive. The Power connector on the drive was identified as a deep white socket with 4 big pins inside.The red strip on the cable was pin 1.
Once the connection to the CD /DVD drive was made, I located the specific connector on the Motherboard for Secondary IDE. The drive had to be connected to the Secondary IDE socket.
As the Hard Drive was an 'ATA66/100' type, then the connection procedure was still the same as installing the previous drives, but the ribbon cable had to be a special '80way' kind. '80way ATA66/100' cables look similar to their 'ATA33' counterparts, but have 80 wires instead of 40. They often have colour-coded connectors as follows;
I had to then make sure that the hard drive IDE cable as connected to the Primary IDE connector on the Motherboard so that it can run as the only/main HDD on the PC.
For the next procedure I had to connect up all of the appropriate internal devices to the PSU. For safety purposes I had to ensure that the PSUs connection to the mains socket was switched off at the wall, and gather up the collection of power cables from the PSU. Each device had its own power connector which received a cable from the PSU. The HDD and CD-ROM used a large connector each and the Floppy Disk Drive (FDD) used a far smaller connector cable. (See various internal power cables below)
Once everything else was connected up, I proceeded to make the final connection which was provide power directly to the Motherboard itself. Again, for safety purposes, I had to ensure that the PSU was disconnected from the mains wall socket, and then I located the main power connector cable from the PSU. I did this using an ATX power cable from the PSU. (See final look of PC interior pictured below)
Before I could boot up the system I had to plug in various external cables. I had to plug in the LCD monitor (Liquid Crystal Display) to the DVI (Digital Visual Interface) located on the graphics card. After that I had to plug a keyboard and mouse into USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports. Lastly I had to attach cables from the monitor and PC to the mains. (See exterior of PC below)
