ASSEMBLING & DISASSEMBLING AIM: To disassemble and assemble the PC back to working condition.

PROCEDURE: Installing the hardware, Part 1: Motherboard, CPU, and Memory Choosing all the different brands and types of components can be very difficult and requires a fair amount of research, but once youve got all your parts, youre ready to get down to business and start building the thing.

This is the bay of your ATX case, the big open area into which most of the components will be installed

With a new case, a set of tiny screws or brackets are usually included. These are to keep the motherboard from coming into contact with the case and prevent any short that might thus occur

Insert them into the corner and side screw holes that you will use to attach the motherboard.

Then screw the motherboard into place.

Socket to install most current CPUs come in a socket form. You usually will have to lift a lever on the motherboards it.

The CPUs pins are configured in such a way that it can only be installed one way. Do not force it into the socket! Make sure that you have it turned the correct way, and then close the lever.

Clip the CPU cooler onto the processor socket and attach its power cable to the motherboards fan header.

These three long thin slots (called DIMMs) are for you memory modules. Different motherboards have different numbers and types of DIMM slots. These are for SDRAM.

Like the CPU, there is only one proper way of installing the memory modules. Align them with the slot but do not force them in.

When a memory module is properly installed, the clips on the slots sides will close into the its notches.

Installing the Hardware, Part 2: Graphics and Sound Cards

Now take a look at the different I/O (In/Out) slots on the other side of the motherboard. This board has three types of slots: AGP, PCI, and ISA.

When the card is installed, screw the cards bracket to the case to prevent it from becoming dislodged.

The white slots further down from the CPU are called PCI. Your motherboard may also have one or two black ISA slots at the very end that are for older devices. Insert your sound or other cards (i.e. modem) into the appropriate slots and screw them in place.

Near the other corner of the motherboards far end, you will find two rows of pins, called PN1 and PN2, that are used to attach the motherboard to the case's warning lights, speaker, and on/off switch.

The motherboards manual or indicators on the motherboard itself will provide information on correct attachment of these wries. In this picture, we have connected the wires of the cases on/off switch. Installing the Hardware, Part 3: Hard Disk and CD Drives

Take a look at these rectangular connectors on the side of the board (called IDE connectors) to which you attach hard disk and CD drives. Usually there are only 2, but more and more motherboards have 4. Also, they can be any color and in different locations. The slightly smaller connector is called FDC1. It connects to the floppy drive.

Each IDE connector supports 2 devices. The first is called the master, the second is called the slave. This motherboard, therefore, can handle up to 8 hard drives or CD drives.

This is an IDE cable. They are usually color-coded, but not always. The connector at the long end (blue here) attaches to the motherboard. The connecter at the opposite end (black here) attaches to the master IDE device. The connector in the middle (here gray) attaches to the slave device.

You are going to have to use little pieces of plastic called jumpers to tell your IDE devices whether they are masters or slaves. Most hard drives will have labels that indicate the various jumper placements.

Here is the rear end of the hard drive. That white spot to the right is the jumper. (The connector to the left goes to the IDE cable, while the connector on the right goes to the power supply.)

A close up on the jumper shows that it is at the rightmost position. That is the correct placement for master on this drive, but every brand's drives are different.

For example, here is the back of our DVD drive. (The IDE connector is on the right, the power connector on the left.)

We want to make this drive the slave on the same IDE cable as our hard drive. Therefore, the jumper is in the SL position for slave. (MA stands for master, and CS stands for cable select, which allows your devices position on the IDE cable to determine whether it it master or slave.)

Place the hard drive in the appropriate bay in the case and screw it into place.

Do the same for your CD drive.

Insert the long end of the IDE cable into the first IDE port.

Insert the other, master, end of the IDE cable into the hard drive.

Insert the IDE cables center, slave, connector into the CD drive. Installing the Hardware, Part 4: Internal Cables

Before we move on to the floppy disk drive, there is one small, very easily forgetable, detail to take care of: a cable that attaches the CD drive to the sound card.

It does not matter which end goes in which device one end goes into the CD drive

the other goes into the sound card. If you happen to forget this detail, your system wont play CD music.

Next, screw the floppy disk drive into its place in the case.

Floppy drives use a different kind of cable from IDE devices. This is what it looks like

It is similar to the IDE cable in that the long end attaches to the motherboard and the short end attaches to the drive.

Connecting the Power

Our next step is to install and connect the power supply. First screw it into place.

Most current power supply units have (at least) three different kinds of connectors. This is the main ATX connector

which attaches to the motherboard.

These are the peripheral connectors

which attach to the hard drive

and the CD drive.

This is the floppy connector, which attaches to the floppy drive.

Turning on the Computer for the First Time Now youre done with the easy part. Once you are sure that the computer turns on when you flip the power switch, you can close the case up and push it away under your desk. But before you start installing the operating system, you want to make sure that the computer's Basic Input/Output System ("BIOS") is set right and has detected all your components correctly.

Turn the computer on. You will see a screen something like this. It will prompt you press the delete key to enter setup. Press delete.

This is your computers BIOS, the computers basic set of information about itself. BIOS screens are all different, depending on the motherboard.

One of the BIOS screens (this one is called SoftMenu III) shows the the speed o f your processor.

Another screen (here called Standard CMOS Features) will show your IDE devices (hard disk, CD drives). Here, the IDE devices have not been detected yet. Well have to change that.

There are four selections: IDE Primary Master, IDE Primary Slave, IDE Secondary Master, IDE Secondary Slave. As in the picture, we will set all the values to Auto to allow the system to automatically detect these devices.

After doing so, our IDE devices have been properly detected. The hard drive is listed as the IDE Primary Master, and the DVD drive as IDE Primary Slave.

Yet another screen (here Advanced BIOS Features) allows you to change your computers boot order. This is the order in which the computer which check the different drives t o try to find an operating system.

For my first boot device, I usually choose Floppy, CD -ROM as the second device, and HDD-0 (the first hard drive) as the third. Choose to quit and save settings to restart your computer.