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Before you beginning
Plan ahead, know what you're going to do and how you'll do it before you even open
up your tool kit. You will be working with expensive equipment that can be easily damaged
if you aren't careful.
Where the component will be placed.
Where power will be drawn.(telephone jack, too)
Find a comfortable, bright, sturdy, spacious work place .
You might need few cups or empty egg box for screws.
You will need 2 screw drivers Phillips, Slotted and 1 nut driver.
 | Step 1: Opening the
System Unit Case Be sure, power is off. Pick up the right
screwdriver. You are going inside the case, get rid of static. The manufacturers of cases
have made efforts to make cases "screwless". With this design, you usually take
hold of the bottom of the front of the case and give it a nice solid yank. The front then
pulls off. Then, the sides lift and slide off. And you just lift the top off. Your case,
then, comes off in four pieces.
Clean Case: If the case is new, this should be no big deal. But, if the case has
been used before, it could probably stand a cleaning. Clean out the inside with a rag and
compressed air. Make sure the fan in the power supply is free of furry dust. Also take a
rag and wipe it off.
Inspect Power Switch : Make sure the power switch is securely tightened and
correctly connected to the power supply. With most AT cases, the power switch is already
connected to the power supply by four wires. In ATX cases, the power switch will have one
loose wire coming off of it. This wire will then connect to the Power Switch connector on
the motherboard.
Install Feet : These are little tabs inserted into holes at the bottom of
the case. The case sits on these tabs when on your desk. If the case has been used before
or it is a more expensive case, this may not need to be done.
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| Step 2 : Install
Floppy Drive
1) Choose which drive bay you want to install the drive and remove the face plate off of
that bay. Save the face plate for future use. Pick a bay that will fit the drive. If you
have to install a 3.5" drive in a 5.25" bay, you'll have to use a special front
panel to adapt it. This panel usually comes with a new floppy drive.
2) Fit the drive into the bay without connecting anything. Just make sure it fits. Choose
the best possible fit.
3) Connect the ribbon cable and the power supply to the drive. Red color side of cable is
always #1. Look for available connectors. You should have a ribbon cable with a twist on
one end. The end without the twist is attached to the floppy controller. Then, attach the
connector after the twist to floppy drive A:. If you have only one floppy drive, then it
is Drive A:. You may have two available connectors after the twist. Use the one that fits
your drive. One is for 5.25" drives, the other is for 3.5" drives.
4) If you are using brackets to hold the drive in place, secure them now. You may need to
temporarily disconnect the cables. Once in, tighten the drive in place. Double-check the
connections, also checking the connections for other
drives to make sure you didn't bump one out of place.
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| Step 3 : Configure
Hard Drive & CD-ROM
It is much easier to configure these drives before you actually install them in the
case. If you install them first, having enough room to actually set the jumpers can be a
problem. Before doing this, you must decide what type of drives and how many you want in
your system. The basic system has one hard drive and one CD-ROM. You may want more than
this. In this case, configure the drives to suit your preferences.
In the basic system with one hard drive, make sure the jumper on the back is set to
"master". This is usually labeled on the drive itself. Many drives have a
setting for "single". This setting tells the drive it is alone on that
particular IDE channel, and it works the same as a master. In a one HDD system, use this
setting if available.
CD-ROM's are very simple to configure. Their jumpers are located in different places on
each drive, and are labeled differently, but they are easily found in most cases. Most
systems only have one CD-ROM. So, configure this CD-ROM as a master. It is best to have
this CD-ROM alone on the second IDE channel of your motherboard.
Jumpers can be set with a pair of needle-noses pliers. Many are capable of grabbing the
jumper with their fingers or nails. This is fine, too. If a particular drive does not need
to be jumpered at all, it is best to hang the jumper over one pin. This is the same as
being unjumpered, but make sure the jumper is there for future use if needed.
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| Step 4 : Mount Hard Drive
1. Slide the hard drive in any empty drive bay.
2. If you need a separate controller card, install it now into any unused motherboard
slot. Most of today's motherboards have two built-on IDE controllers. It is easiest to use
these controllers when available, and it saves a slot for something more fun.
3. Attach the cables to the hard drive. Just like a floppy drive, connect the ribbon cable
and the power cable. The ribbon cable goes from the controller to the drive. Make sure the
red edge of the ribbon cable is in line with Pin 1 on the
drive. If you place the cable on backwards, you may get strange errors that make your new
drive sound like it has died already. If you are adding a second drive, simply choose a
connector on the same ribbon cable that is not used.
most ribbon cables come with two connectors: one on the end and one mid-way. In this case,
it doesn't matter which plug goes in what drive. The computer looks at the master/slave
jumpers to see which one is C. Make the second hard drive the slave. The manual should
show you how to do this on your particular drive, although many drives have the jumper
settings conveniently labeled on the drive itself.
4. If you have not yet done so, replace the screws. First double check your work, though.
Also, make sure you use screws short enough not to damage the drive when tightened. Do not
force the screws to tighten. It is now time to install the hard drive into the case. You
should, though, spot Pin 1 on the drive and make reference to its location so that you can
correctly install the ribbon cable when there is more equipment in the case.
Make sure the drive is installed right side up, with the logic board facing down. Make
sure the logic board is not touching anything. Also, make sure the cable connectors are
facing the back of the case.
When performing this physical installation, you'll find that it differs from case to case.
With some cases, the drive rack is simply part of the case. With this setup, you simply
push the drive into the case and screw it in. In other cases, the drive rack may be
removable. Some have many separate racks, and some have one removable rack that can hold
many drives. With this setup, remove the drive rack. this is usually done by squeezing two
metal tabs to together to release it. Then slide the rack out. Screw the drive into the
rack. Then, slide the rack back into place where it was. When you are done, you should
have a hard drive properly screwed into the case.
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| Step 5 : Install the CD-ROM
Now, you need to install the CD-ROM drive into one of your drive bays. If you have not yet
removed the drive bay cover, do so now. This is usually done by pushing two tabs together
and pushing the plate out from the front of the case. Once the cover is removed, you can
slide the drive in from the front.
You can now screw the drive into place. You might want to just place the screws in but not
tighten them. This is done so that you can slide the drive out again later. When
installing the cables later, you may need to slide the drive out a few inches so that you
have enough room to work behind the drive. In many cases, especially mini-towers, one can
have a hard time working behind the CD-ROM because it is pinned up against the front of
the power supply.
Just like in the previous step, the physical installation depends on the case. Some cases
come with a bunch of drive rails. What you do is screw a drive rail in the correct
direction to each side of the CD-ROM drive. Then, you slide the CD-ROM into the case from
the front and the drive rails follow a guide until they click into place. This design, one
you get used to it, it really much easier, and leads to very quick installations in the
future.
When tightened into place, make sure the front of the drive is flush with the front of the
case. Also make sure it appears straight.
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| Step 6 : Configure Your
Motherboard
Configuring your motherboard usually requires setting jumpers on the motherboard according
to the CPU you plan on putting on it. I say "usually" because not all boards use
jumpers. Some make use of DIP Switches. Other newer boards are jumperless, in which the
settings that are normally set with jumpers or DIPs are set in a special CMOS type
program. If the motherboard you are installing is jumperless, you can basically skip this
step because it will have to be done later. You might want to read through it, though,
because even the "jumperless" design has a few jumpers and you will need to know
what you are doing even with the jumperless design.
You need to have the manual for your board available. If you do not have the manual, log
on to the manufacturer's web site and see if you can find this info there. You can also
try their tech support via phone. In some cases some of the jumper settings are printed
onto the surface of the motherboard. If you don't have any of this info, you are just out
of luck. Unfortunately, you must have some form of documentation available simply because
motherboards have so many settings to adjust.
Motherboard manuals come in two main formats. Some are friendly for hardware buffs by
listing a separate jumper or DIP switch for CPU core voltage, I/O voltage, multiplier, and
system bus speed. They then tell you the settings for each of these. This format is better
because of the increased control. Other manuals list the settings next to a list of
commonly used CPU's, showing the common settings for each. While this format is easier for
the end user for easy setup, it is tougher if you like increased control of the settings,
for overclocking for example. The best manuals do both: list the jumper setting
individually as well as provide a list of processors and the jumper settings for each.
When playing with the board, be careful with it. And always ground yourself before
handling the board. When handling the board, handle it by the edges only when at all
possible.
Here is the basic procedure:
Read the Manual. Always. Read the listings for settings and locate all jumpers on the
motherboard itself and what settings they control.
Set the voltage settings. Most older chips use one single voltage. The newer chips we use
today use a split voltage. Most newer motherboards provide jumpers for the core voltage
and I/O voltage. Set them to match your intended CPU. If you are using an older chip with
one voltage, just set both voltages to be the same. Some board are designed to detect the
voltage automatically and then use the correct voltage. In this case, you will not have to
worry about it.
Set the processor speed. This is not usually done with a single jumper. It is, instead,
done by setting the system bus speed and a multiplier. The multiplier is the number which
when multiplied by the system bus speed gives the processor speed. There is a separate
jumper for each of these settings. Configure these to match the intended CPU. If you know
what you're doing and would like to overclock the chip a tad, set these jumpers a little
differently. If your manual lists settings by CPU, just do what it says. You can sometimes
infer from the manual which switches control voltage, multiplier, etc. Also, watch for
chips that use different multiplier settings than they actually use. For example, many
233MHz chips use a 3.5x multiplier, but since some boards don't offer this option, they
interpret the 1.5x multiplier to be 3.5x. So, set the bus speed first. Most CPU's are
designed to operate on the 66MHz bus, although many choose to operate higher than this.
After this, set the multiplier. This will depend on the CPU you are using. For example,
let's say you are installing a Pentium II-266. You set a bus speed of 66MHz. In order to
run the processor at its intended speed of 266MHz, you must set a 4.0x multiplier. 66MHz X
4.0 = 266MHz .
Some boards make use of a jumper to set the cache size and type. Set this now, if need be.
If you have on-board cache, which most do, you won't need to bother.
Older boards often had a jumper setting for telling the system how much memory it had. If
yours has it, set this now. Pentium-class or higher boards don't have this jumper.
Most of the configuring is done. Now you want to double-check the other settings that were
set my the manufacturer to make sure they are correct. Make sure the CMOS-clear jumper is
set to normal so that you can change the BIOS settings later. Make sure the battery jumper
is set to onboard battery instead of external battery. If you have a jumper enabling FLASH
BIOS, make sure this is disabled. Also, check to see if all jumper enabling or disabling
onboard controllers are set correctly. All these settings are usually set correctly by
default, but you need to make sure.
  
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