Make your own PC

Make Your Own PC

by BHARGAV

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Introduction

In this tutorial I will try and teach you how to successfully build your own computer! There are many benefits to building your own computer.

#1 You get hand's on experience learning how a computer works

#2 It’s a hell of a lot less expensive then buying one from a retailer

#3 Its a hell of a lot more reliable than buying one from a retailer being that you hand select QUALITY parts and put it together yourself

#4 You can do your own tech support no more relying on stupid Best Buy Tec’s that don't know the difference between their ass and a hard disk jumper (don't worry I'll tell you what those are later)

Section #1 (What Your Going To Need)

Here we will discuss a list of the parts you need and the best place to purchase them. If you want the best prices on computer hardware you will definitely want to go in the market and look for yourself. Below is a general list of the devices you will need...

1. A Computer Case (Something To Put All The Computer Parts Together In) - Beware the cheap ones with cheap power supplies they will die in a year

2. A Mother Board (Everything Will Be Plugged Into The Mother Board)

3. A Floppy Drive and a CDROM (Should Be Obvious)

4. A Hard Disk (Come In Many Different Flavours and Quality Levels, Stores All The Information In Your Computer)

5. A Video Card (Cheap Stuff, Its What Your Monitor Plugs Into)

6. IDE Controller Ribbon

7. Miscellaneous Accessories

Next we'll take a look at many of the different options you have when buying these pieces of equipment. Your choice may vary depending on which Operating Systems you plan on running.

Section #2 (Which Brand And Model Should I Buy?)

We'll let’s start with your computer case and move all the way down to Miscellaneous Accessories.

1. Computer Case

You will most certainly need an ATX style case with a quality power supply. How do you tell? there's a pretty good chance it’s a crappy power supply, and besides it looks good. Later its your choice.

2. A Mother Board

I suggest a quality ASUS (ATX style to match your computer case) / INTEL but not the integrated ones or the MERCURY ones that come in the market. The reason is that they come with pretty less features and some of em don’t work at all, well in any case about motherboard it’s up to you ask your friends. I've had bad experiences personally with MERCURY and Integrated motherboards.

3. A Floppy Drive and CDROM

Pretty inexpensive stuff, I’d suggest a Sony Floppy drive and a generic CDROM. Doesn't make too much a difference if you’re concerned about getting the best price.

4. Hard Disks

Gets a little tricky. If you want reliability, high speed transfers, and are willing to run Windows I suggest a Western Digital or a Seagate ULTRA DMA-66. If you’re not to concerned with speed and want to run a server with Unix I’d go with a Fujitsu or a Western Digital. They’re fairly inexpensive but only transfer in 33-megabit bursts as opposed to the DMA-66, which transfer in 33-megabit bursts. I don't believe Unix currently supports ULTRA DMA-66, but don't quote me on that. Now there's an even faster transfer rate available via SCSI Hard Disk Controllers, but I’m not about to go into setting up SCSI controllers in this tutorial. For now we will stick with IDE Hard Disk controllers.

5. Video Cards

Video cards are cheap and if you’re not a gamer a plain OLE gener Cirrus Logic or STB / SIS video card will do fine, even Intel 810 will do better. In case if you are a gamer then I’d suggest you to have VIPER TNT.

6. IDE Controller Ribbon

You'll need 2 different kinds of IDE Ribbon 2 40 pins for your CDROM and Hard Disk and Another with less pins for your floppy. You can buy these at any local computer store or order them off the web.

7. Miscellaneous Stuff

You may be interested in adding a sound card, Ethernet card, and/or 3DFX card to your system. These are relatively easy to do and I will explain how to add cards to your motherboard later.

Section #3 (Where do I buy all this crap!)

Well if your looking for the best prices online for computer hardware (and this is my unbias opinion) I’d suggest going to http://www.pricewatch.com again ask your friend’s maybe they know a better place. Pricewatch.com researches the best prices on computer hardware.

Section #4 (Lets Assemble!)

This next part is very important so read carefully...

#1 First things first get yourself a clean desk to work on.

#2 Place your ATX style computer case on the desk and slide/lift the top off. Inside should be a bunch of wires coming out of the power supply in the back and a bunch of wires coming out near the face of the box.

#3 The next thing your going to want to do is place your mother board inside the case and fasten it in. Their might be metal coverings covering the holes in the computer case were the parallel ports and serial ports on the mother board should poke through, go ahead and poke those out with a screw drive so you can fit the mother board in snugly. Every Case fastens motherboards in different ways. Some use plastic pegs, some use metal screws. It will hopefully be obvious which you have to use.

#4 Once the motherboard is mounted properly you will need to fasten the floppy drive and CD-ROM into the computer case. All computer cases store floppy drives differently there maybe a slide out container that you screw them into. You’ll have to make sure that the floppy drive is right side up (duh!) and that the pins are facing towards the back of the computer. Installing the CDROM is pretty much the same in all computer cases. Some mounting rails should have come with your motherboard. You need to fasten those to the sides of the CDROM and you should be able to slide it right in to one of the top bays.

#5 Insert your Video Card. There are presently about 3 different forms of slots on your motherboard. PCI, ISA, and AGP. Video Cards are presently made for all 3 of them. AGP stands for "Accelerated Graphics Port" Video Cards made for this slot is generally more high tech/performance. PCI's work and so do ISA (Although ISA is more Old School). Gee how do I tell the difference? Well AGP slots more than likely is the only small, brown slot on your motherboard. PCI you probably have the most of these their white and little longer than AGP. ISA, these are long and black, ugly. Insert your Video Card and snug it in there firmly. Don't force it (duh).

#6 Time for that evil Hard Disk installation. We'll Hit hooking up the power supplies and Installing the Hard Disk at the same time just for fun. Insert the Hard Disk In a very much similar way to the way you inserted the floppy disk. But before you do make sure that the jumper settings are correct on the back of Hard Disk. Most hard disks are shipped in single mode, but if you want to run multiple hard disks (which we won't discuss) you need to set the jumpers differently. Jumpers are little metal prongs connected with little jumpers that complete a connection. You figure it out. Anyway you got your hard disk in now its time to hook up the power supplies. The hard disk and the CDROM have similar power supplies. 3 or 4 prong. Hook those funny looking cords coming out of the back of the power supply into your CDROM and Hard Disk. There’s a smaller one that hooks into your floppy it should be obvious. Theres a big power supply (the biggest one in the lot usually made of white plastic) It fits into a slot on your mother board, it is the main power supply to your motherboard. Its kind of tricky to get in so be careful.

#7 Now that you have your Power Supplies hooked up you'll need to connect your Peripherals to your Mother Board. Use the IDE Controller Ribbon I know you all have. Hey one end goes to your CDROM (make sure the red line on the ribbon "pin 1" is matched up with the first pin on the back of your CDROM) and the other end goes to your motherboard (same deal). The same goes for your hard disk and your floppy. Figure it out its not that difficult. You'll know you did something wrong when you get a floppy disk fail on boot.

#8 Finishing touches. Don't forget to connect those nasty wires coming out from behind the face of your computer case to your motherboard. They control the on, off, reset, hard disk activity, and power switch. Every motherboard is different so I hope you have a manual with your motherboard. Most specify with 2 or 3 character paraphrases that make no sense. For Example "PWR SWT" = Power Switch "RST SWT" = Reset Switch. Or even more vague than that.

Section #5 (Testing 1, 2, and 3)

Ok your ready to give it a whirl, you'll need to get in your system bios. The "DEL" key should usually get you in. Get it to autodetect your hard disk. Accept the Setting and Save your Configurations. Install Your OS and your ready to go. That easy!! Ha! you'll probably have lots of trouble there's a million resources online to help you. Get to it.