For information only, these are the keys as they would be stored and searched by searchBC: "computer building building computer building hardware software hard drive cdrom cdrom floppy floppy disk floppy disk drive motherboard ide pca cia ata atx shadow the first thing you should unpack your atx case take off the cover your case that you can access the inside place the case desk that you are looking down towards the open case your case should come with motherboard mounting screws your atx back plate not already fitted you can fit placing your plate near the atx back plate cut out and pushing the plate outwards should clip now place your motherboard top the mounting screw holes make sure your atx devices the motherboard such and parallel port are facing towards atx back plate cut out gently push your motherboard towards the cut out every devices should fit easily into its corresponding cut out the screw holes your motherboard should align with the screw holes your case place your screws that came with the case into the appropriate holes and gently screw using screw driver the motherboard now securely mounted the case you can now place the atx power connector the motherboard your atx case should come with power supply unit psu and should already mounted the case place the atx power connector top the power socket the motherboard push down the power connector and should clip onto the socket you try fit the power connector the wrong way round wont fit will only fit one way the power connector does not should the other way round locate the processor socket your motherboard installing intel piii processor socket the installation would slightly different you have different processor slot piii cpu cpu amd slot socket cpu etc cpu fan has power connector which needs connected cpu fan power socket your motherboard finally you have specify what frequency speed your cpu running this can done using jumper settings some modern motherboard can done the bios your motherboard may have automatic detection for your cpu frequency please refer your motherboard manual for more details the motherboard using abit has dipstick jumper setting and can setup the bios have left the jumper setting default will use the bios specify the cpu frequency the cpu runs the bus speed mhz therefore will use the settings multiplier under the bios which will the run the cpu mhz installing memory quite simple find the sdram banks your motherboard they should look similar the banks below notice the memory banks has white clip each side make sure you release the clips bends each side hold each corner the sdram placing top the bank you will notice that the sdram has cut the bottom side there prevent the memoy going the wrong way round you are holding the sdram the incorrect way you will not able insert gently push down the sdram and should clip the memory bank the two white clips will now become straight holding each corner the memory you have more that one sdram perform same steps above but placing the sdram memory bank and you look the rear side ide hard drive ide ata connector the left hand side which consists many pins next the ide connector the jumper setting for the drive the jumper should set master which the default setting for new hdd any other device sharing the same ide cable should set slave different hdd has different jumper settings please refer your hdd manual for more information the right hand side next the jumpers the power connector every device except fdd uses this type power connector the ata cable which also known udma cable advance ide cable which offers higher performance and data integrity than the standard ide cable ata cable consists conductor cable where the standard ide cable consists conductor cable using ata cable because the above hdd ata drive which requires ata cable place your hard drive into the hdd mounting slot your case make sure the ide ata connector facing outwards screw the hdd the case using screws provided with the hdd the atx case push the power cable into the power connector shown the power cable designed one way you shouldnt have any problems the black connector the left hand side the floppy disk connector different from the ide connector and uses different cable the small white connector the right hand side the power connector for the floppy drive place the floppy drive into the fdd mounting slot screw the drive securely into place insert the floppy drive cable into the floppy drive connector make sure the pin the cable connects the pin the floppy drive connector you already know now that pin the red pink strip the edge the floppy drive cable most floppy drive cables are designed that will only way you can not connect incorrectly push the floppy drive power cable the power connector this will only way finally connect the other end the floppy drive cable floppy drive connector your motherboard make sure pin the cable connects pin the connector the right hand side you have the power connector next power connector you have the ide connector the left hand side near the ide connector you have the jumper settings for the dvdrom the jumper set master default connecting the dvdrom separate ide cable therefore will leave the jumper setting master however you are sharing ide cable with another device like hdd then you would have set jumper slave your hdd would set master next the jumpers you have the audioout socket one side your audio cable connects this socket and other side connects the sound card cdin socket this would allow you listen audio cds your computer mount your dvdrom drive into its mounting slot use the supplied screws screw the drive into position connect the ide cable the drives ide connector make sure the pin the cable connected pin the drives ide connector pin the red pink strip the edge ide cable connect the other end the ide cable the ide socket your motherboard again make sure you conncet the cable pin the ide socket could your primary secondary socket depending which socket you choose your hdd the primary ide socket and your secondary ide socket free then better use your secondary ide socket for the dvdrom finally connect the power cable power connector and connect the audio cable the audioout socket find free pci slot your motherboard assuming your modem pci modem place your modem card top the slot and gently push down into position once the card has seated correctly into position screw the card the case using the screws supplied with the case now you have installed all the prerequisite hardware devices you can either proceed the finalising stage you may want install optional devices like zip drive cdrw drive tvcard you not want install these devices you can now proceed the finalising stage most modern graphics cards are agp based and connects the agp bus the motherboard agp bus slot looks like the following image the brown slot where you connect your agp graphics card all you need now screw the metal plate the front the card the atx case use the screws supplied with case and screw the card the case most modern sound cards are designed with the pci interface and connects the pci slot your motherboard finally insert the audio cable into the cdin socket the other end the cable should connected audioout socket your dvdrom drive find free pci slot your motherboard assuming your modem pci modem place your modem card top the slot and gently push down into position once the card has seated correctly into position screw the card the case using the screws supplied with the case now you have installed all the prerequisite hardware devices you can either proceed the finalising stage you may want install optional devices like zip drive cdrw drive tvcard you not want install these devices you can now proceed the finalising stage just like any other ide device zip drive connects ide cable and power cable place the zip drive into mounting slot and screw securely into position connect the power cable and the ide cable the corresponding connectors connect the other end the ide cable the ide socket the motherboard make sure the pin the cable connects pin the motherboard ide socket and the zip drive socket installing card more difficult than installing any other pci cards locate unused pci slot and place the card top gently push card down into the slot note that card uses two irq interrupt request one for video and one for audio best place your card into slot which does not conflict with irq another device although irq sharing possible some cards may behave abnormally you are sharing irqs now that you have installed all the necessary hardware there are still few more things you need before switching your for the first time your atx case has power switch which turns the reset switch for resetting the system power led which comes when the switched and hard drive led which flashes when data being written read from your hard drive you also have internal speaker every cable normally labeled they are normally named follows but could slightly different your system power switch power pwrsw reset switch reset power led power led pwrled hard drive led hddled ide led speaker spk speaker the connectors the motherboard are also labeled but may too small see instead refer your motherboard manual which would provide details which pins you should connect the cables once you have connected all the cables the correct pins the motherboard you are ready switch the this point you can close the cover your atx case but dont screw just yet you might have possible problems that needs rectifying connect all the cables back atx case these includes the main power cable that connects the power supply mouse and keyboard that connects the ports monitor cable that connects the graphics card port etc finally the moment has arrived switch your monitor first your atx power supply might have main power switch the back make sure that switched now switch the pressing the power switch the front the atx case you have performed all the tasks without any mistakes and providing that none the main components are faulty the should boot when the boots you should see the name the bios manufacturer such award bios displayed your monitor your cpu type speed and the amount memory should displayed shown image below your motherboard has plug and play bios and set automatic device detection default then you would see your ide devices being detected followed prompt complaining about missing operating system your motherboard does not detect the hardware then you need proceed the bios setup screen pressing del depending your motherboard congratulations you have completed building your own you now need proceed the software section which explains how setup the bios hard disk and install operating system things did not smoothly and your does not switch then the troubleshooting section for possible solutions bios softmenu softmenu iii where you can setup the cpu without setting jumpers the motherboard you can setup the cpu simply selecting the speed pentium iii from the list this ensures that the cpu bus multiplier voltage etc correctly set for that particular cpu however you can manually setup each feature required once you have finished with the setup press esc return the previous menu standard cmos features here you can setup the basic bios features such date time type floppy etc use the arrow keys move around and press enter select the required option you can specify what ide devices you have such hard drive cdrom zip drive etc the easiest way setup the ide devices leaving set auto this allows the bios detect the devices automatically you dont have manually the bottom also displays the total memory your system advanced bios features there are numerous advance settings which you can select required for most cases leaving the default setting should adequate you can see the first boot device set floppy this ensures that the floppy disk read first when the system boots and therefore can boot from windows boot disk the second boot device the hard disk and third set you want boot from bootable then you can set the third boot device dvdrom advanced chipset features here you can setup the contents the chipset buffers closely related the hardware and therefore recommended that you leave the default setting unless you know what you are doing having incorrect setting can make your system unstable you know that your sdram can handle cas then making changes can speed the memory timing you have sdram then the maximum amount memory the agp card can use inegrated peripherals this menu allows you change the various devices such ide controllers serial ports parallel port keyboard etc you can make changes necessary power management setup the power management allows you setup various power saving features when the standby suspend mode pnp pci configurations this menu allows you configure your pci slots you can assign irqs for various pci slots recommended that you leave the default settings can get bit complicated messing around with irqs health status this menu displays the current cpu temperature the fan speeds voltages etc you can set the warning temperature which will trigger alarm the cpu exceeds the specified temperature load failsafe defaults you made changes the bios and your system becomes unstable result you can change back default however you made many changes and dont know which one causing the problem your best bet choose the option load fail safe mode defaults from the bios menu this uses minimal performance setting but the system would run stable way from the dialog box choose followed enter load failsafe defaults load optimized defaults like the failsafe mode above this option loads the bios default settings but runs the system optimal performance from the dialog box choose followed enter load optimized defaults set password password protect your bios you can specify password make sure you dont forget the password you can not access the bios the only way you can access the bios resetting using the reset jumper the motherboard save and exit setup save any changes you made the bios you must choose this option from the dialog box choose exit without saving you dont want save changes made the bios choose from the dialog box this procedure explains how setup new hard disk warning you are setting hard disk which contains data the following procedure would completely erase your hard disk and the data would unrecoverable before new hard disk can used needs setup this involves partitioning and formatting the hard disk windows boot disk contains the required software perform this procedure fdisk exe and format com are the files required your bootable floppy disk start the partition and format procedure booting your using windows boot disk make sure you set the bios that the boot sequence set detect the floppy disk first your system has problems booting you will presented with windows boot disk menu this gives you the option start the system with without cdrom support this stage you not need the cdrom support choose the option boot without cdrom support you should end the dos prompt drive from command prompt type fdisk you will presented with following message choose enable large disk support you will now presented with the fdisk main menu shown below from the menu choose option create dos partition logical dos drive another menu will present the following options choose option create primary dos partition fdisk verifies the integrity your drive and will ask you want use the maximum available size your hard disk create the primary partition and set active keep things simple will create one large partition choose use maximum available space when the partition has been created successfully you will notified the system your drive now known drive press esc return the menu press esc again exit fdisk you need restart your system for the changes take affect leave boot disk the drive when the system reboots choose start without cdrom from the boot disk menu while booting from floppy disk you might get error message like invalid media type reading drive this for this stage the hard disk not formatted from command prompt type format you will get message saying warning all data nonremovable disk drive will lost proceed with format dont worry about the message you not have any data the new hard disk choose the format will proceed and would show you progress indicator the time takes format hard disk depends the size and speed the drive this could around minutes once the format complete you need reset your system you are now ready install operating system this procedure demonstrates how install windows operating system the procedure install windows very similar since windows the latest windows family operating system will used demonstrate the installation procedure boot your system with windows boot disk when the system starts you will presented with menu which gives you the option boot with without cdrom support select the option boot with cdrom support this would create ram drive and load device driver support your dvd cdrom the ram drive assigned drive and your cdrom should assigned drive place the windows into the drive command prompt type and press enter then type setup his stage windows runs dos based scandisk verify your hard disk has any problems there are problems windows proceeds with the setup and launches the windows setup wizard after agreeing the license agreement windows will ask you type your product key the default directory install windows windows recommend that you leave default next you would given four types installation options which are typical portable compact and custom choosing typical would install the most common components and suitable for most people you want specify which components install then choose custom you would presented with few other dialog boxes such entering your name and company name option create windows boot disk before file copy process begins after completing the copying process windows restarts and boots from the hard disk make sure you remove your floppy disk from the drive will detect your plug and play devices and would present few more dialog boxes just read the instructions dialog boxes and proceed required windows would restarts again after completing final setup stage this does not mean everything completely setup some your hardware device may have conflicts may not have drivers loaded windows does not contain those drivers from device manager you can check all the drivers has been loaded there are any conflicts from the start menu select start settings control panel click the system icon and then from the system properties window select the device manager tab this lists all the devices shown there are any yellow exclamation mark next any the listed device means that drivers incorrect drivers has been loaded for that device your hardware should come with manufacturer supplied drivers you need install these drivers using automatic setup program provided the manufacturer you need manually install these drivers you not have the drivers check the manufacturers website download them install driver manually use the following procedure from the device manager double click the device containing the exclamation mark this would open device properties window click the driver tab click update driver push button the wizard for updating device driver pops shown you now get two options the first option provides automatic search for the required driver the second option allows you specify the location the driver you dont know the location the driver choose the automatic search which would find the required driver from the manufacturer supplied floppy disk windows would install the required driver and ask you restart the system for the changes take affect use this procedure install drivers for all the devices that contain exclamation mark windows completely setup when there are more exclamation marks the device manager this procedure demonstrates how install windows professional the procedure install windows home edition very similar the professional edition since windows pro more advance operating system will used demonstrate the installation procedure the best way install windows clean install not difficult perform clean installation before you perform the installation recommend that you check windows compatibility list ensure that your hardware supported your hardware not the compatibility list you can check your hardware manufactures website download the drivers for windows save all the necessary drivers onto floppy disks before you start the installation all versions windows are bootable order boot from cdrom you need set the boot sequence look for the boot sequence under your bios setup and make sure that the first boot device set cdrom you have older and your bios does not support boot from cdrom then you need create boot disks using floppy disks you can download the following program from microsoft which will create the floppy setup disks windows home edition http www microsoft com downloads release asp releaseid windows professional http www microsoft com downloads release asp releaseid your computer can boot from cdrom then you can perform the following steps install windows start your and place your windows your dvdrom drive your should automatically detect the and you will get message saying press any key boot from press key boot from and windows setup will begin windows will start copying preliminary setup files your computer you will asked you want perform new installation repair existing installation quit this case you will performing new installation you will presented with the end user licensing agreement press accept and continue select the partition where you want install windows you will have the opportunity create and delete partitions just allocate the available disk space one partition the next screen asks you wish use the ntfs file system this the recommended file system you choose use fat you will not have all the security and stability features windows choose format the partition either fat ntfs youll also see two additional choices perform quick format each option stick with doing full format when asked start the format press the key the formatting process may take quite bit time depending the size your hdd the setup program will automatically start copying files after the partition formatted and you will see setup progress bar after this complete the computer will restart leave the the drive but this time not press any key when the message press any key boot from displayed few seconds setup will continue windows setup wizard will guide you through the setup process gathering information about your computer choose the region and language type your name and organization enter your product license key name the computer and enter administrator password dont forget write down your administrator password enter the correct date and time choose workgroup domain name register windows youve installed all the current hardware your machine add users that will sign this computer log your for the first time you now need check the device manager confirm that all the drivers has been loaded there are any conflicts from the start menu select start settings control panel click the system icon and then from the system properties window select the hardware tab then click device manager this lists all the devices there are any yellow exclamation mark next any the listed device means that drivers incorrect drivers has been loaded for that device your hardware should come with manufacturer supplied drivers you need install these drivers using automatic setup program provided the manufacturer you need manually install these drivers you not have the drivers check the manufacturers website download them install driver manually use the following procedure from the device manager double click the device containing the exclamation mark this would open device properties window click the driver tab click update driver push button the wizard for updating device driver pops you now get two options the first option provides automatic search for the required driver the second option allows you specify the location the driver you dont know the location the driver choose the automatic search which would find the required driver from the manufacturer supplied floppy disk windows would install the required driver and may ask you restart the system for the changes take affect use this procedure install drivers for all the devices that contain exclamation mark windows completely setup when there are more exclamation marks the device manager driver drivers the first thing you should unpack your atx case take off the cover your case that you can access the inside hdd led led switch game server power power switch email modem agp video card video tuner tuner card cdrom dvdrom dvd dvdrom build own computer copy paste chad emig chad emig disk drive moniter"

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