WARNING! Computer parts are easily damaged by electrostatic shock. It's easy to avoid static build-up by not doing computer repairs on wall-to-wall carpet or other static-inducing environments. Wear cotton, not synthetic or woolen clothing, while doing computer maintenance. Last, but most importantly, remember to frequently touch the power supply unit in the computer box to rid yourself of static electricity. As an extra safety precaution, you might want to use anti-static bracelets, found at any electronics shop.

Assembly Instructions, Page Two

Go to Part Two, Page One.

Go to Part One.

Remove face plates from the front and the steel frame of the chassis. Slide in the disk drive and secure it with screws to the steel frame. If you have an ATX chassis, you might be able to pop out the whole 3.5" bay assembly and do this outside the computer. (If you have a 3.5" hard drive, you might want to place the drive in this bay as well.)

In your motherboard package, you should find the floppy drive cable. The cable has a twist (to differ drive A: from drive B:). If you only have one drive, you should attach the connector after the twist to your drive. Among the different power cables you'll find a smaller variety that matches the connector on the drive.

In your ATX chassis, you may find some small sliders looking like the ones on the picture below. Secure these to the side of your 5 1/4" bay units. If you don't have sliders, you'll have to fasten the devices directly to the steel frame of the chassis.

On a normal system, you'll want a hard drive and a CD-ROM. Before you put these devices into the case, you need to set their IDE priorities. On the motherboard, there are two IDE connectors, one for the primary and one for the secondary IDE channel. One IDE channel can connect two drives, one as "master" and the other as "slave." The master drive has priority over the slave (naturally), so it will perform slightly faster and more reliably than the slave drive. The standard solution is to put your hard drive as master for the primary channel and CD-ROM as master for the secondary channel. If you have more units, you can add them as slave devices to either channel.

If you're installing a CD-R (CD recordable), you might want to set the CD-R unit as primary on your secondary channel (and switch the normal CD-ROM to slave) - check the documentation that came with the drive for details. Don't put two devices on the same channel too far away from each other or the cable will perhaps be too short. It's a good idea to use new IDE cables instead of recycling old ones, since the cables are subject to wear and can be damaged if they've been unplugged too much.

The jumpers are easily set: look on the top, bottom or back of the drive to see a schematic of jumper positions. Sometimes there's a special jumper for when you have a single master device on one channel. If you set a channel to two masters (or slaves), the computer won't start. Keep the jumper even if you don't need it. Usually there's a "rest" place or you can just hang the jumper over a single jumper pin.

Check the IDE setting (master or single master) and screw it into the proper place (sometimes this will be the 3.5" bay, other times beneath the power supply). Maintain good static hygiene! Attach the IDE cable - check which way the red cable is supposed to go (the red cable is cable #1 on the ribbon cable and there should be a marking somewhere on the back of the drive). Some IDE cables are keyed to prevent them from being inserted upside down, but it's a good thing to double check the red cable anyway.Tip: plug in the IDE cable to the drive before installing the drive and save yourself the hassle of doing this inside the cramped interior of the case. Don't put the hard drive upside down. The logic board should face down when positioned correctly.

After you've set IDE priorities for the CD-ROM, connect the IDE cable and remove the drive bay cover and slide in the cable and then the unit.

When the motherboard is secure and connected to the chassis, you can install your peripheral cards. The video card uses either a PCI or AGP slot. Remove the case insert corresponding to the socket you wish to install your card in and slide the card into the socket (carefully). Tip: put in one end first and then rock the card back and forth into place, fastening the card with a screw to the casing as required.

Installing the sound card is easy: locate the right slot (PCI or ISA depending on what type of card you bought) and remove the corresponding plate on the back of the computer. Then push the card into the slot, making sure it's down all the way and then screw the card into the hinged door that holds the cards into place. You need to connect the sound card with your CD-ROM drive. This small cable goes into one of the connectors on the sound card and onto the back of the CD-ROM. Make sure that the stereo channels aren't reversed. Usually there's a minuscule marking on both the CD-ROM and the sound card that marks which channel (L/R) is which.

Connect the IDE cables to the motherboard. The red wire on the flat cable is wire #1. On the side of the motherboard connectors are markings to identify on which side the IDE cable should go. The slots on the motherboard might be keyed so that you can insert the cable only one way, but even so, check the markings to make sure. The floppy cable also has a red wire on the side -- make sure that this is positioned correctly in a similar fashion as with the IDE cables.

Connecting up all the IDE devices and the disk drive is easy now that you've taken care of the more tedious things like configuring the motherboard. On the back of the units, there are connectors for power and for the IDE cable. Take one of the available 4-wire connectors and plug it into the matching contact at the back of the drive. The plug is keyed, so you can only insert it correctly. The power plug for the floppy drive is smaller and also keyed to fit only one way.

Now it's time to double check all your work and then close the chassis. Connect peripherals such as monitor, mouse and keyboard and then turn on the computer. This is the moment of truth. Does it work? You should hear the various computer components start, see the power diode on the front light up, etc. If anything sounds wrong, turn off the machine and try to isolate the problem. A good idea is to briefly start the computer without the cover plate, just to check that the fans are running properly. Always disconnect the power cord from the computer before working on it.

The first thing that happens after the video card is initialized and the screen starts to light up is that the computer runs a memory test. During the time the memory test runs, it is possible to enter BIOS setup by pressing the appropriate key as instructed on the screen (on my computer it's "hit DEL to enter SETUP"). The BIOS setup is where you set firmware parameters for the computer like what type of hard drive it has and what kind of graphics adapter you want to choose. "BIOS" stands for "Basic Input/Output System."

The first thing to do is to auto-detect the hard drive(s) and CD-ROM. There's usually an option to do this right away in the BIOS master menu. Auto-detect should return the correct number of cylinders and other data about the hard drives. Don't change this info (unless you know what you're doing). You might also find that you can auto-detect the IDE devices from the "Standard CMOS Setup" option, where you can also set time, date and what kind of disk drive you have. There are several other menus that you can access from the master menu, go through them all and make sure that you have set:

• Primary Display "VGA"
• PS2 Mouse "Enabled" (if you're using a PS/2 mouse)
• Plug and Play aware OS "YES" (If you're using Windows 95/98)
• Primary Graphics Adapter "PCI" or "AGP" (depending on what type of card you have).
• Virus Protection "Disable"
• External Cache "Enable"

  Save the settings and restart your computer. Now the computer should run the memory test, and say that it lacks a system disk. Insert a system disk and hit the "reset" button. You need to format your hard drive before you can store any data on it. To format, you need to run a formatting program like FDISK. If you have bought a retail hard drive, you are likely to have an extra disk with the formatting program. You don't need to use that. If you're installing Windows, you'll have an installation disk with FDISK on it. Just type FDISK on the command prompt:

A:/Fdisk

If you want a single partition of your hard drive, you can use the FAT32 file system, otherwise you'll have to do with good ol' FAT16, and have partitions no bigger than 2GB each. You have to be using Win95 OSR2 or Win98 to be able to use FAT32. If you want FAT32, you'll have to set "Large disk Support".

After having partitioned the hard drive, you need to restart (with the system disk in), then type format c: /s (the /s switch makes the partition a system partition - you only need one of these) at the command prompt, then format the other partitions (if you have any) by issuing format d:, etc.

Assuming that you want to install an OS like Win95 on your machine, you'll need to get your CD-ROM working, the installation disk (system diskette) that comes with the installation CD has a generic CD-ROM driver that'll work (hopefully). If it doesn't, or you have a normal system disk without CD-ROM drivers, you'll have to install the drivers first. You should be able to access the CD by typing the appropriate drive letter, followed by : For example, if you only have one partition on your hard drive, your CD-ROM will be d:, and then you'll type INSTALL.

You've finished the easy part of putting together the hardware and now comes the hard part of installing Windows :-). If this was the first time you've put together a system, it may have been a challenge at times, but hopefully, you had fun and learned a lot about how PCs go together. I can assure you, the next time you need to crack a case and upgrade or you get the bug to build another system, you'll feel like an old pro. I knew next-to-nothing about building PCs when I started and my computer actually works! I could have just bought a new machine, but it would have been more expensive than building my own and I would've gotten less performance for my money. And that's what it comes down to once you venture into building your own: It's the challenge of finding the best parts and making a machine as fast as possible while squeezing the most out of every penny. With the prices of computers falling so rapidly, many people would be happy to just buy an assembled system, but for computer hobbyists like myself, nothing can match the fun of brewing one up yourself. >hick<

- Joel Westerberg [6/4/99]

DISCLAIMER: Street Tech is not responsible for any damage or injury caused by the application of the material printed here. This information is for educational purposes only and we make no claims about its accuracy.

Go to Part Two, Page One.

Go to Part One.

Other DIY resources reviewed on Street Tech:

• Tom's Hardware Guide
• Upgrading and Repair PCs

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