Building Your Own PC

This document is designed to help you assemble your own computer quickly and easily.

To build your own PC, you will need a Phillips screw driver, a small pair of pliers and a clean work surface. An anti-static wrist strap would also be advisable.

Once you have all the above requirements ready you can begin to assemble the PC.

The Case
Remove the case from the packaging and place it on your desk or work surface. Remove the lid of the case by undoing the screws on the rear, and put the lid back in the box to avoid scratches appearing.

Inside the case will be:
1. Power Lead
2. Box of accessories (screws, blanking plates, motherboard supports, drive rails and four rubber feet).

Stick the rubber feet on the base of the case first, to avoid it slipping on the desk.

Installing the components
You are now ready to install your components into the case. The motherboard should be the first item installed. You should make sure that you are grounded at this point as all components are static sensitive devices. Either wear your A-S wrist strap or ground yourself by touching the power supply in the case whilst holding the components.

Before installing the board, insert the memory DIMMS into bank 0 first, then bank 1 if applicable.

Seat the DIMM module as firmly as possible in the sockets. Align the module so the pin 1 marking and corner notch correspond with the DIMM socket pin 1 marking on the board. The module can only fit one way. Don't force it! Push the module against the clip arms with your thumbs until a "Click" is heard. The plastic tabs will lock into the holes on the DIMM and the clip arms fully grab the DIMM module.

The motherboard has mounting holes drilled in the printed circuit board which line up with the mounting holes on the case. The case comes with both metal and plastic fasteners which snap into the board and then lock into the slotted holes in the case bracket. The metal fasteners screw into the holes in the case and are used to ground the board to the case by using the screws provided.

Front panel connectors
These connectors extend from the front panel and have plastic female sockets attached. The connectors should be plugged onto the appropriate connecting pins on the motherboard. Each position is labeled on the board. The motherboard is now fully installed in the case, and now you are ready to install the floppy and hard drives in the machine.

Installing drives
Remove the drive blanking plate(s) from the front of the case where you want the floppy drives(s) to be positioned. Insert the hard disk first into the chassis in the case, in a position that will not obstruct the floppy drive(s) when the hard drive is in place, secure it with four screws, making sure they are small enough not to penetrate the circuit board on the bottom of the drive.

Then install the floppy drive(s) in the desired bay in the case and secure it with the screws provided. Once all the drives are in place, you can connect up the power supply leads to each device. If you are fitting a 3.5" floppy drive into a 5.25" bay, you will need to secure it into a 5.25" chassis prior to fitting it into the case. These power leads are polarized i.e. they will only fit in one way. Make sure they are firmly pressed in to each device.

Motherboard Power Leads
From the power supply, there are two six way sockets for the motherboard power, which plug into a single twelve way plug normally found near the keyboard connector. Arrange them so that the black wires are innermost (that is, together) and the red, yellow and orange one outermost.

Installing Expansion cards
The number of expansion cards you have will vary. More than likely, you will have at least one; that being a VIDEO card to attach your monitor. You can insert the expansion cards into any of the available slots on the motherboard. Ensure that the edge connector of the card is firmly seated into the socket provided, and screw it into the edge of the case with screws provided. When the expansion cards are in, cover up the spare slots on the back with the blanking plates provided and screw then in place.
Note there are different types of slots, 8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit(VESA) and PCI see diagram below

Floppy/Hard drive cabling
The cables that come with the IDE I/O Card should be connected between the motherboard ports and the floppy and the hard drives. Taking care to ensure that the red line on the cable mates with pin one on the controller and the drive, connect the 40 way ribbon cable between the controller and hard disk, and make sure it is firmly seated at either end. The cable to connect the floppy drives has multiple connectors for two floppy drives and should be connected as shown below.

You then need to set the Mhz LED display (if necessary) on the front of the case to display the speed of your processor i.e. 100Mhz/133Mhz/166Mhz, etc. The best way is to remove all the jumpers and replace them one by one until the desired figure is displayed.

Your PC is now prepared for configuration and your software supplied so you may now replace the outer case and replace the screws your removed in step 1.

CMOS Setup
Before the PC can operate, you must setup the BIOS information, to inform the PC what devices are in the machine. When you start up the PC, after it has checked the RAM it will prompt you to press (DEL) if you want to run setup. Press the (DEL) key when this message appears. Enter the (STANDARD CMOS SETUP) menu and using the PG/DN PG/UP and the cursor keys, set the time and date correctly (unless you have a winbios then using the mouse achieves the same thing). Then set the floppy drives A: and/or B: to the correct types.

Installing the Hard drive
Warning: Do not low level format and IDE drive it will damage it.
On the hard disk C: type, set the type to 47 and enter the parameters which are printed on the top of the drive or supplied with the kit.

CYLS HDS WPCOM LZONE SECTORS MB

Once you have entered the CYLS/HDS/SECTORS, the GB capacity will be entered automatically.
Press (ESC) and then move the cursor to (WRITE CMOS REGISTER AND EXIT) and press (RETURN).

You can partition and format the drive ready for use as specified in the MS-DOS Manual.