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2.The Motherboard

3.Buying Parts4.Building5.Assembling the Case6.Installing the Hard Drive

Introduction

Have you ever thought about building your own computer? Actually buyinga motherboard and a case along with all the supporting components andassembling the whole thing yourself?

Here are three reasons why you might want to consider taking the plunge:

1. You will be able to create a custom machine that exactly matches yourneeds.

2. It will be much easier to upgrade your machine in the future becauseyou will understand it completely.

3. You may be able to save some money.

And, if you have never done it before, you will definitely learn a lot aboutcomputers.

We'll take you through the entire process of building a computer. You'lllearn how to choose the parts you will use, how to buy them and how to putthem all together. When you're done, you will have exactly the machinethat you need. Let's get started.

Decisions, Decisions

Where do we start? Actually putting the machine

How to Build a Computer

1. Introduction to How to Build a Computer

7.Powering Up and Troubleshooting

Page 1 of 12How to Build a Computer

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together is pretty easy, but picking the parts andbuying them takes research.

The first step in building a computer is decidingwhat type of machine you want to build. Do you

want a really inexpensive computer for the kids touse? A small, quiet machine to use as a mediacomputer in the living room? A high-end gamingcomputer? Or maybe you need a powerful machinewith a lot of disk space for video editing. The

possibilities are endless, and the type of machineyou want to build will control many of thedecisions you make down the line. Therefore, it is

important to know exactly what you want themachine to accomplish from the start.

Let's imagine that you want to build a powerful video editing computer.You want it to have a dual-core CPU, lots of RAM and a terabyte of diskspace. You also want to have FireWire connectors on the motherboard.These requirements are going to cause you to look for a motherboard thatsupports:

l Dual-core CPUs (either Intel or AMD)l At least 4GB of high-speed RAMl Four (or more) SATA hard drives

l FireWire connections (possibly in both the front and back of the case)

Then it all needs to go in a case with enough space to hold multiple harddisks and enough air flow to keep everything cool.

With any computer you build, knowing the type of machine you want to

create can really help with decision-making.

Determining what type

of machine you want tobuild is the first step in

building a computer.

The MotherboardChoosing a motherboard is the most interesting part of any building project.hundreds of motherboards to choose from and each has its own advantages

One easy way to think about motherboards is to break them up into a few ca

l Cheap motherboards: Generally in the $50 range, these are motherboinexpensive machines.



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l Middle-of-the-road motherboards: Ranging in price from $50 to $10motherboards. In many cases you can find motherboard and CPU combto build a cheap machine or an inexpensive home/office computer.

l High-end motherboards: If you are building a powerful gaming machyou the speed you need. They range in price from $100 to $200. They

l Extreme motherboards: Falling into the over-$200 range, these mothFor example, they might have multiple CPU sockets, extra memory slo

You need to decide whether you are building a "cheap machine," a "high-enthen choose your motherboard accordingly. Here are some other decisions t

l Do you want to use an Intel or an AMD processor? Making this choice

of motherboards in half. AMD chips are often cheaper, but lots of peopfans.

A middle-of-the-road moth



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Buying Parts

Once you have chosen your motherboard, you are ready to choose

l What size motherboard do you want to use? If you are trying to build ayou may want to look at micro ATX cases. That means you will need tmotherboard. Otherwise you can use a normal ATX motherboard and c

smaller motherboard form factors like mini-ITX and even nano-ITX ifsmall.)

l How many USB ports do you want? If you want several, make sure the

l

Do you need FireWire? It's nice if the motherboard handles it (although

l Do you want an AGP orPCI Express graphics card? Or do you want tthe price and size down? If you want to go the cheapest route, make sur(easiest way to tell is to see if there is a DVI orVGA connector on thething, but if you want to re-use an AGP card you already own, that mig

l Do you want to use PATA (aka IDE) orSATA hard disks? SATA is th

l What pin configuration are you using for the CPU? If you want to use twill accept them.

l Do you want to try things like dual video cards or special high-speed Rmotherboard supports it.

If you don't care about any of this stuff (or if it all sounds like gibberish to ycheap machine. In that case, find an inexpensive motherboard/CPU combo



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everything else. Here's what you need to get:

l The CPU that's the right brand and the right pin configuration to fityour motherboard. Pick whichever CPU clock speed fits your budgetand intentions. (If you purchase a motherboard/CPU combo, you can

skip this step.)

l The RAM with the correct pin configuration that will match yourmotherboard. If your motherboard is using a specialty RAMconfiguration (normally to improve performance), make sure the RAMyou buy matches its requirements.

l If the case does not come with a power supply, you'll need to chooseone. Make sure its connectors match the motherboard. Three hundredwatts are enough for most machines, but if you are building a gamingmachine with multiple video cards or a machine with lots of disks, youmay want to consider something bigger.

l Choose a video card if you are not using the onboard video on themotherboard. Make sure the card's connector is appropriate for themotherboard (AGP or PCI Express).

A basic AGP-based graphics card



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l Choose an optical drive. If you are building a cheap machine, get thecheapest CD-ROM drive you can find. If you want to burn DVDs andCDs, make sure the drive can handle it.

l Choose a hard disk, making sure that it matches the PATA/SATAstatus of your motherboard.

l Choose an operating system: Windows XP (which comes in home,professional and media center editions) or Linux in its hundreds ofdifferent forms.

Buying Now that you have picked everything out, it is time to purchase your

parts. You have three options:

l Mail order on the Internet - All kinds of stores sell computer parts onthe Web. Visit a place like eBay.

l A big national chain - Places like Tiger Direct, Fry's, and CompUSAhave stores in most large cities that will sell you parts. They also have

people on staff who may be able to answer questions.l local parts retailer - Any big city will have a number of smaller, local

shops selling parts. Look in the Yellow Pages or online. I live in

Raleigh, N.C., and a typical shop of this genre in Raleigh is calledIntrex. The people working at a shop like this can often answer lots ofquestions, and they may also be willing to help you if your machinedoes not work after you assemble it.

Now that you have your parts, it is time to build. This is the fun part.

BuildingBut before we start building, we need to say one thing about staticelectricity. Most of the parts you will be handling when you assemble your



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computer are highly sensitive to static shocks. What that means is that ifyou build up static electricity on your body and a shock passes from your

body to something like a CPU chip, that CPU chip is dead. You will haveto buy another one.

The way you eliminate static electricity is bygrounding yourself. There arelots of ways to ground yourself, but probably the easiest is to wear agrounding bracelet on your wrist. Then you connect the bracelet tosomething grounded (like a copper pipe or the center screw on a walloutlet's face plate). By connecting yourself to ground, you eliminate the

possibility of static shock.

Each combination of parts is unique. But in general, here are the basic stepsyou will need to follow when you assemble your machine.

Installing the Microprocessor and RAM

First, you'll need to unwrap the motherboard and the microprocessor chip.The chip will have one marked corner that aligns with another markedcorner of its socket on the motherboard. Align the corners and drop themicroprocessor into the socket. You don't need to apply any pressure - if it'saligned correctly, it should fall into place. Once you have it in, cinch itdown with the lever arm.

Now, you need to install the heat sink. The CPU box will contain a manualthat tells you how to do it. The heat sink will contain either a heat sinksticker or heat sink grease to use when mounting the heat sink on the CPU.Follow the instructions closely to install it. To install our heat sink, all wehad to do was put it in place, cinch it down with flanges on either side andlock it with a cam. Connect the power lead for the heat sink to themotherboard.

Next, you'll install the RAM. Look on the motherboard for the slot marked"one" and firmly press the RAM module into it. It will probably take more

pressure than you'd think to get the RAM into place. Each side of themodule should also have a rotating arm that will lock the RAM down.

Now your motherboard is ready to put in the case.

Assembling the Case



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Next, you'll assemble the case. You'll need to install the power supply, themotherboard, a faceplate and standoffs to hold the motherboard in place.You'll also need to connect some wires to the motherboard.

Your motherboard should have come with a face plate for its back

connectors. The case already has a hole cut in it for the plate, so you justneed to put in the plate and press it until it clicks into place. Now you can

put in in the motherboard. It needs to sit about a quarter of an inch awayfrom the case's surface so that none of its connectors touch the case. You'llaccomplish this by placing spacers, which are also included with themotherboard.

Because each motherboard is different, you'll have to set it into the casefirst to see which screw holes on the motherboard match up with the pre-drilled holes in the case. Then you can take the motherboard back out, placethe spacers, and put the motherboard in on top of them. Make sure that themotherboard lines up with the faceplate and the holes line up with thespacers.

Find the screws that fit (these should have come with the case) the spacersand screw down the motherboard. Don't screw them in too tightly -- theyust need to be in snugly. Be very careful when putting in the screws. If you

drop them into the case, they could damage the fine wires on themotherboard.

Now you can install the power supply in the case if it's not alreadyinstalled. The power supply has two sides. The fan side faces outside the

Installing the power supply.



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case and the wire side faces inside. Slide the power supply onto its bracketsand secure it with screws (the case or the power supply should have comewith them).

Connect the power leads to the motherboard. There should be a large one

and a small one, and it will be obvious as to where each one goes.

You'll be left with about 15 more wires. Don't worry -- the manual has apage to tell you exactly where each one goes. Each of them has a label thatcorresponds to a label on the correct port.

Installing the Hard DriveThe last steps are installing the hard drive and the CD-ROM drive. The casehas a removable bracket with four rubber grommets on it, which line upwith four holes on the hard drive. It also came with four screws made justto punch through those grommets. Screw the hard drive into the bracket,then put the bracket back into its slot in the case. If you are usingIDE/PATA drives, be sure to set the jumpers correctly. Then connect thehard disk to the power using one of the connectors coming off of the powersupply. If it fits, then it's a match.

Now install the cables. One side of the cable has a red stripe on it, whichmakes it " pin 1." Look on the motherboard and hook the cable into the IDEconnector marked "1." Insert the other end of the cable on the back of thedrive. Now the drive is ready to go.

Install the CD-ROM drive next. Again, set the jumpers correctly. The drivefits in the front of the case, and you may have to pop out a faceplate tomake room for it. Slide it in and screw it into place, making sure that it'saligned with the front of the case. Just as with the hard drive, you can useany available connector from the power supply. You'll also use the cablethat came with the CD-ROM drive to connect it to the motherboard (alignthe red stripe for "pin 1") and plug the other end into the drive. Connect theaudio for the CD drive. Again, there's an obvious place for it to plug in onthe motherboard and on the drive itself.



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If you're using a video card, now you'll install it as well. Our motherboardhas an AGP video slot so we have an AGP video card. The motherboardonly has one video card slot, so you should be able to find it easily (you canalso use the manual). Line up the card with the slot and push it into place. Ifthe video card has its own power connector, connect it to the power supply.If the case has extra fans, make sure they have power too.

Now you can close up the case and add a monitor, keyboard, mouse andspeakers.

Powering Up and TroubleshootingNow, the moment of truth -- it's time to turn your machine on and see if itworks. If there's a switch on the back of the power supply, make sure it ison. Also make sure that the power supply is set correctly to 110 or 220volts (some power supplies do this automatically, others have a switch or a

slider).

Then push the power switch on the front of the case. In the ideal case, fourthings will happen:

l You will see/hear the fans spin upl You will hear the hard disk spin up.l Lights will light on the case.

l You will see something happening on the monitor to indicate that themotherboard is alive.

Placing the hard drive into its bracket.



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If you see/hear all of that happening, you are successful. You have created aworking machine. Using the manual that came with the motherboard youcan enter the BIOS screens and make sure everything looks OK. Chancesare you will need to set the machine's date/time, but that is probably all youhave to do. Everything else is probably automatic. All the drives will be

recognized and auto-configured. The default settings on the motherboardwill be fine.

The next step is to install the operating system. And presto, you have aworking machine of your own creation. Congratulations!

Troubleshooting What if you put it all together and it doesn't work? This is the one possibledownside of building your own machine. It is hard to describe the feelingyou get when you try turning on the machine and nothing happens. Youhave put in several hours of work and a significant amount of cash, so it'sdiscouraging to get no response.

All is not lost, however. Here are several items to check:

l Is the power supply firmly plugged in and turned on (many powersupplies have a small switch on the back)? Try a different outlet.

l Did you plug the power supply into the motherboard? Look at themanual for details.

Make sure that your motherboard is

connected to thepower supply.



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l Is the case's power switch properly connected to the motherboard? Ifyou have plugged the switch into the wrong pins on the motherboard, itwill not work. Check the motherboard manual.

l Are the drives connected to the motherboard properly? Do they havepower?

l Unseat and reseat the video card. If the motherboard has onboardvideo, try to remove the video card completely and boot using theonboard version.

If you have checked all of that and nothing continues to happen, it couldmean:

l The power supply is badl The switch on the case doesn't work.l Something is wrong with the motherboard or the CPU.

The easiest way to determine where the problem lies is to swap parts. Try adifferent power supply. Swap a different motherboard into the case. Playaround with different combinations.

If it is still not working, then you have a few options at this point. You cango back to the shop that sold you the parts. If you bought them from a smalllocal shop, they can help you debug the problem (although it may costyou). If they sold you a bad motherboard (rare, but possible) they willusually help you out. You can also try to find a more experienced builderwho would be willing to help you. There is a rational cause for the problemyou are experiencing -- either a bad part or a bad connection somewhere --and you will find it.

Now that you've seen how simple it is to build your own computer, wehope that you'll give it a shot. You'll have a computer that you understandcompletely and will be easy to upgrade. You can save money, and it's a lotof fun too. So the next time you need a new computer, consider building ityourself!


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