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Screwdriver A Phillips-head (cross-point) screwdriver is what is used in most PCs. Screw Extractor If you have surgeons fingers you may not need this. But, if youre human, it is likely you might drop a screw into your PC during this procedure and be too big-thumbed to get it out. A screw extractor can help you grab those screws and get them out without messing with the hardware. You definitely do not want to run your PC with loose screws in there. It could cause a short circuit.
Flashlight Unless you are in a fantastic lighting situation, you will likely need a flashlight to get a look of the landscape in your PC while youre working.
Tweezers May be helpful for you in switching jumpers later in the tutorial. Hardware Required PC Case Floppy Disk Drive Hard Drive CD-ROM Drive Processor Processor Cooling Fan Motherboard Memory Modules Power Supply Video Card Keyboard & Mouse
To build a basic PC, you will need at least a motherboard, a memory module, a processor with cooling fan, a power supply, a hard drive, a floppy drive, a video card and a CD-ROM. Most electrically sensitive hardware comes in a static bag which is designed to protect the electronics from static electricity shock. Leave your hardware in these bags until you are ready to install them. Software Required
System Disk Device Drivers (these usually come with the hardware above) Operating System (for the purposes of this tutorial, we will assume you are choosing Microsoft Windows as your
operating system PC Mechanic has lots of great information on Linux and other alternatives) Cables and Miscellaneous
Drive cables
Motherboard spacers (usually come with the motherboard, but are used to space the motherboard up off the mounting plate) Screws (usually a whole pile of screws will come with your PCs case, but if you are using a case you happened to have around, you will need to collect some screws) Power cords (for both your PC and your monitor. They usually come with the hardware when you buy it, of course) CPU Cooling Compound
Chassis screws this is the type used to tighten down cards, etc. Smaller screws just like the chassis screws, just with a smaller diameter. It is used to fasten the motherboard in. Standoffs these are screws that are used to hold the motherboard about 1/8 from the motherboard mounting plate. Their ends have a threaded opening in them that accept the smaller chassis screws. If you have an AT case, you may find small white standoffs. These serve the same function as the metal standoff, but are simply punched through the board and slid into slots on the case. They are rather clumsy to use compared to the metal standoffs, but they get the job done. Lastly, some cases use small metal clip-looking stand-offs. They are pinched together and slipped into small rectangular holes in the motherboard mounting plate and they snap in. These are, too, a bit awkward.
Washers. These are typically small, loose washers, not the metal kind youve seen in your toolbox. These will be used to cushion your motherboard from the screws you will be using to hold it in. Some motherboards have metal plates around the holes to keep the screws from shorting the circuitry, and in this case, washers are not
necessary and may not be included. Now, verify a few things have been done, if they need to be done. 1. 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 or compressed air. Make sure the fan in the power supply is free of furry dust. Also take a rag and wipe it off. 2. Inspect the Power Supply Make sure it is tightly attached to the case, make sure it is free of dust, and make sure it is set to the proper voltage of your area- 110V for U.S. and 220V for outside countries. 3. Inspect Power Switch Make sure the power switch is securely tightened and correctly connected to the power supply. 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. 4. 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. 5. Install Case Fan Sometimes, you may want to install a separate fan that screws onto a rack next to the vent on the front of the case. This helps increase circulation of air through the system. Many cases already have this installed, so you may not need to worry about it. Some like to put a little filter over the hole so as to prevent dust from being drawn in. An ideal and simple setup for proper airflow is to set the front, lower fan to pull air in, and have the higher, rear fan exhaust. 6. Free Up the Drive Bays Brand new (cheaper) cases sometimes have the drive bays sealed with metal plates. Its the most annoying thing. If you want to install any drives, and you probably do, youll need to remove these. Choose the drive bays you want to use (usually the ones at the top on tower cases) and remove the metal plates. These are attached by metal, so they take some cutting, prying and twisting to break them free. Be careful not to hurt the case or yourself. The plate will likely have sharp edges once removed. Better cases have these bays covered with plastic, replaceable plates which are a lot easier and make infinitely more sense. 7. Replace I/O Shield. The Input/Output shield is a piece of metal with various holes punched in it that allow for the motherboard connections, such as mouse and keyboard, USB and LAN to poke out the rear of your case. All cases will come with one but since all motherboards are laid out differently, youll need to install the one that came with your board. Remove the old one simply by pushing it from the rear of the case inward. It usually will pop out easily, if not
use a flat-head screwdriver to pry the edges so it comes loose. Push the new one in from the inside of the case and allow it to pop into place. Check to be sure it is secure.
this slowly and dont force it. You dont want to break the socket. On the way up, you may experience a little more force. This is normal. The top part of the ZIF socket will slide over a bit. 3. Orient The Chip. This involves locating Pin 1 on both the chip and the socket. This is easy to do. The chip is always marked at Pin 1. The mark may be a little dot on one corner, a slightly notched corner, or a mark at one of the pins under the chip. On the socket, there is usually a notch on one corner, or a big 1. These corners will be matched up for correct installation. 4. Insert Processor. Bearing in mind the orientation determined in Step 3, insert the chip into the socket. With a ZIF socket, the chip should install very easily. It should almost fall into the socket with all pins lining up. Thats why they call it the Zero Insertion Force socket. If not, the socket is probably not open all the way. If you do not have a ZIF socket (God forbid!), you need to exercise extreme care. Lay the chip on the socket. Make sure all pins line up. Then, slowly push the chip into the socket. Use your thumb and push on one side of the chip until it starts to go in. Then proceed to another side and repeat. Do this around the chip several times until it is completely installed. 5. 6. When done, there should be basically no gap between the bottom of the processor and the socket. Close ZIF Socket. Just close the lever. You will probably feel some resistance. This is normal and it should close anyway. If you really need to lean on it, though, check to be sure the chip is installed correctly. When down, make sure the lever snaps into place. 7. Some retail processors come with the heat sink and fan already attached to the CPU, in which case you will need to attach the CPU fan to the socket at the same time as you close the ZIF socket. After you lock the CPU into place, take the retention clips on either side of the CPU fan (which should line up automatically for you if you inserted the processor correctly in step 4 above) and push them down until each side clips over the tabs on either side of the socket. Sometimes it takes using a screwdriver as leverage to be able to get the retention clips out and over the tabs, but if you do this be very careful not to slip and jab your motherboard with the screwdriver.
3.
If you are using a cooling shim, place it onto the top of the processor now. Not all processors require shims. In fact, no processors require shims; they are completely optional. But, some people like to use them because they help to increase the surface area of the top of the ship and spread the weight around evenly. See, some processors (such as the Athlon XP) actually have the core sticking up slightly from the rest of the processor. So, when the heat sink is placed on top, all of its weight comes down on the core. If the fan is a real tight fit for the motherboard, it could really create a weight load on the processor core, and some people have actually crushed their CPU core by accident. A shim is simply a thin piece of metal, especially designed for a particular processor, which fits over the processor and evens out the height and helps to alleviate the crushed core problem. When installing a shim, be extra sure you are aligning it correctly. They often have holes in them exactly placed so that the cache bridges on top of the processor can poke through. If the shim is not properly aligned, you could short out these bridges and actually burn out your processor if you run your PC that way. Additionally, a mis-aligned shim could cause the heat sink to not actually have full content with the CPU core, leading to overheating.
4.
Apply the Heat Sink Compound. Assuming you are not using a heat pad on your heat sink, apply a very thin layer of heat sink compound to the top of the processor core. If, as is the case with Pentium IV processors, the top of the processor is totally flat, then apply the compound to the entire top surface of the processor. Many heat sinks come with heat sink compound in a small little package, usually just enough for a one-time install. You can pick up better quality compound online. Arctic Silver is a very popular choice. Be careful not to get compound on any motherboard electronics. Apply only a very small portion to the processor. Only a very thin layer is required. The compound must be spread out evenly across the top of the chip, forming that very thin layer. When spreading the heat sink compound, do not use your finger. Use the edge of a credit card, or you can use a rubber glove or even just a plastic bag over your hand. Do not apply any heat sink compound if you plan to use a heat pad.
5.
Attach The Heat Sink. Place the heat sink/fan combo squarely on top of the processor, pressing down lightly. Do not do any twisting as you install the heat sink. Press down firmly, but straight down so as to preserve the heat sink compound layer you just applied.
6.
Secure the heat sink. Most newer heat sinks use a set of clips on each side to fasten itself down. These clips attach to a pair of tabs on each side of the socket. It will probably take a little bit of force to bend the clip down over the tab. Other heat sinks wrap around the processor, then just sit on top, the compound being the only real attachment. Pentium IV motherboards have a heat sink retention bracket around the processor socket. When you install the P4 heat sink, you will fasten each of the four retention clips into the retention bracket and then close the clip levers on top of the heat sink to fasten the heat sink down onto the Pentium IV processor.
7.
Double-Check. No compound should have oozed out from the sides. If it did then you applied too much and need to remove the HSF, clean both the heatsink and CPU and start over.
8.
Attach fan to power source. Unless your CPU fan is powered via a standard power supply plug, it is probably powered by a wire attached to a 3-pin power lead on the motherboard itself. You can attach this now. The CPU_FAN power lead is located near the CPU interface somewhere. The lead will have two small pins on each side, and these pins surround the power plug and the pins are inserted into the holes in the plug. It should be pretty easy and obvious.
CPU Voltage Setting Most motherboards in use today make use of the CMOS settings to configure these options. In this case, you can skip this step because you will need to wait until your new PC is powered up in order to configure these options. If, though, you are using an older motherboard in which these settings are controlled via the use of jumpers, then we need to tackle this here. Configuring a Board Which Uses Jumpers
You need to have the manual for your board available. If you do not have the manual, log on to the manufacturers web site and see if you can find this info there. You can also try their tech support via phone. In some cases, too, some of the jumper settings are printed onto the surface of the motherboard. If you dont 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. If youre dealing with an older board, you may need to spend some time trying to identify the manufacturer so that you can see if they do support it. You can many times use the BIOS ID numbers to identify the board online. 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 CPUs, 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 settings individually as well as provide a list of processors and the jumper settings for each. When playing with the board, be careful with it. Avoid placing the board on the static bag it came in, as this can cause an electro-static shock to build up, which may very well fry the motherboard. Always place the board on a flat surface, wooden desks work best, not carpet or anything like that. And always ground yourself before handling the board. When handling the board, handle it by the edges only when at all possible. Now, here is the basic procedure for motherboard configuration: 1. Read the Manual. Always. Read the listings for settings and locate all jumpers on the motherboard itself and what settings they control. 2. Set the voltage settings. Most older chips use one single voltage. The newer chips we use today use a split voltage. Most of these 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. Your best bet to choose the correct voltage is to see what is printed on the CPU itself. Most CPUs will have core voltage printed somewhere on it. That is your voltage. Some jumpered boards are designed to detect the voltage automatically and then use the correct voltage. In this case, you will not have to worry about it. 3. 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 youre doing and would like to overclock the chip a tad, set these jumpers a little differently. Generally, though, I would recommend actually getting the system working before trying to overclock it. 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. Generally, if your board is jumper-controlled, you will need to consult the manual for the proper jumper arrangement, use the motherboard layout in the manual to find the jumper on the board itself, and use either your finger or tweezers to adjust the jumper to look like the diagram in your manual. When the jumpers in question look like they should in the diagrams, then youre set. And, again, if your CPU settings are NOT jumpercontrolled, you will be taking care of all this later on. Some old boards make use of a jumper to set the cache size and type. Set this now, if need be. If you have internal cache, which most do, you wont need to bother. Likewise, some boards give you the ability to use either AT or ATX power supplies. Depending on which type you will be using, you may need to set a jumper to tell the board what type of power to use. If your board supports the asynchronous SDRAM clock speed, as most boards with Via chipsets do, you need to set the jumpers properly for this as well. This capability allows you to run the memory at a different clock speed than the rest of the system. This comes in handy, for example, when you want to use older memory yet run the rest of the
system at the higher bus speed. You can set the system bus speed at 100MHz and then set the memory to run at 66MHz or 75MHz, for example. The instructions for properly setting this up are in your boards manual. If youve done that, most of the configuring is done. Now you want to double-check the other settings that were set by 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 jumpers enabling or disabling onboard controllers are set correctly. All these settings are usually set correctly by default, but you need to make sure. Keep in mind that many boards control these feature via their CMOS and you will be setting them after the PC is up and running, not now with jumpers. Double-Check all of your own work. Better safe than sorry.
9.
If you were installing the board to a removable mounting plate, install the motherboard mounting plate back into the case. On some cases, the plate is installed from the side. On these, you insert the bottom edge of the plate into a guide rail on the bottom of the case and then rotate upward. The top edge of the plate will contact the case, at which point you can screw it in or a spring loaded handle will lock it in. On other cases, the plate may slide in a different way, from the rear for example. These plates are then easily removed later if you ever need to remove the motherboard.
10. Double check your work. Check to be sure that the back of the motherboard is not touching any part of the case or mounting plate. Make sure the slots and connectors line up with the holes on the back of the case. And definitely be sure that the board is rigid and tight. If you press down on the board at any point, it should not bend down.
7.
Connect the hard drive activity LED. Some come on a 2-pin plug. Others come on a four-pin plug, sometimes only two of the pins actually doing anything. Consult your manual, or play with it until it works. It is usually labeled HDD, HDD_LED, or something like that. If this is attached wrongly, the light may either never come on later or will stay on all the time when the PC is running.
8.
Connect the PC speaker. Most cases put this onto a 4-wire plug. Just plug it in to the 4 pins on the motherboard. Other cases put the speaker connector on two 1-wire plugs. In this case, plug them into pins 1 and 4. I never could figure out why they did that
9.
Double-Check your work, as always. Note that if an LED does not light up, its case connector needs to be flipped 180 degrees.
Hard drives generate heat, especially the drives with the higher rotation speeds. Therefore, it is best to place these drives as far from other hardware as possible. Give them room to breathe. If it is necessary to install a drive cooler, make sure you have room for it.
Some cases give room under the power supply to install a hard drive. Bad idea. A power supply is like a magnet, and magnets and your data do not go together. Dont install a hard drive anywhere near the power supply. Keep
your hard drive near the front of the case. Okay, lets install the actual drive: 1. Determine which drive bay to install the hard drive into. In most cases, the hard drive usually goes into a 3.5 slot toward the front of the case, near the bottom. These bays do not have a corresponding opening to the front of the case simply because there is no reason to see the hard drive from the front. Some cases use a removable drive rack to hold the hard drive. If your case uses this type of setup, remove the rack now. 2. Slide in the hard drive. If you are using a removable drive rack, just push the drive into the rack so that the screw holes line up. If your case has the drive rack as part of the chassis, then just lift the drive into the case and line up the screw holes on the drive with the drive rack. Be sure the drive connectors face toward the back of the case. 3. Fasten the hard drive into place using your screws. This is easy to do on removable racks. In non-removable racks, tightening down screws on the far side of the hard drive can be a problem, because the screws are not highly visible and thus it is hard to get to them with a screwdriver. It can take a little creativity to get at them. Most cases which have this problem have little holes where you can stick the screwdriver through and tighten the screw beneath. If the screw is not in there, Ive even had to do a controlled drop of the screw onto the hole and then use the screwdriver to position it into the hole. It can be a real feat to do it sometimes, and this is one reason some manufacturers went to the removable racks. If you have a magnetic screwdriver that can hold the screw, this might be less of a problem for you. 4. If using a removable drive rack, you can now install the rack back into your case. Some racks are fastened into place using a simple thumb lever. Others need to be screwed in. 5. If you have any other hard drives which you are installing as you build your PC, then repeat the 4 steps above for the other drive. 6. Attach the power cable. Choose an unused power lead from the power supply and plug it into the power plug on the hard drive. The plug will be keyed so that it will only go in the correct way. SATA power connectors are thin and black; they are obviously different from other white Molexes. 7. Attach the ribbon cable to the hard drive. The ribbon cable goes from the primary IDE controller of the motherboard to the drive, usually labeled IDE1. Make sure the red edge of the ribbon cable is aligned with Pin 1 on the drive ribbon connector. If you cant see Pin 1 marked, then it is almost always the pin closest to the power connector. If you place the cable on backwards, you may get strange errors that make your new drive sound like it has died already. As for the cable itself, usually you have two plugs closer together on one end of the cable and then a third plug on the far end of the cable. The far plug plugs into the motherboard. Of the two remaining cables, there are no requirements as to which plug to use on which hard drive. If you are only installing one hard drive, just use whichever one of those plugs reaches the drive best without stretching the ribbon cable out. If you are installing two hard drives, then plan it out so that you can use both connectors in whichever order works best. With SATA the ribbon cable goes to an SATA controller. Start with SATA_1 and move on if you have multiple drives. SCSI Drives If you are opting for a SCSI drive setup, then there are a few minor variations from the procedure above. First, you need to install a SCSI controller into one of your expansion slots (unless your motherboard has an integrated SCSI controller). Then proceed:
1.
You need to set any switches or jumpers that need setting on the new drive. In SCSI setups, each device gets its own SCSI ID, numbered 1-7. #7 is usually given to the adapter card. You may pick, then, any other unused address. You may need to take into account any little quirks in your adapter, such as special likings to other addresses that could cause problems a little later. Youll need the manual for this one.
2.
Check for the correct termination. In SCSI setups, the adapter can hold up to seven SCSI devices. These devices are hooked up in a chain, usually with the adapter at one end and another device at the other end. This ending device must be set to be the terminating device, therefore ending the SCSI chain and making a complete electric circuit. In some cases, the adapter is in the middle of the chain, therefore you must terminate at both ends of the chain. You may need to consult the manual for any special termination techniques particular to your brand of drive. In general, a certain jumper setting will enable internal termination on the drive itself, eliminating the need for a special terminating plug.
3.
The procedure for actual installation is the same as the procedure above for IDE drives.
7.
Attach the power supply to the drive. Just like a hard drive, just find a free 4-wire power plug and plug it into the power connector on the CD-ROM.
8.
Attach the ribbon cable. Connect one of the two available plugs on the ribbon cable to the CD drive. Just choose the plug which can reach the drive best. If you have two CD drives, use the plug on the end of the ribbon cable for the top most drive, and the middle plug for the next lowest CD drive. Attach the plug on the far end of the ribbon cable to the secondary IDE port on the motherboard (usually labeled IDE2). Just like connecting any other drive, you must ensure that Pin 1 on the connector is lined up with the red edge of the cable. Pin 1 is usually marked in some way on the drive and on the motherboard both. Sometimes, it is just a small mark on one corner of the cable connection port, and that indicates that that corner pin is your pin 1. Attach the Audio Cable. This small 3-wire connector goes from an Audio plug on the back of the CD-ROM to a 3-pin plug on the sound card. If you happen to have on-board audio circuitry on your motherboard, the CD-IN plug will be on your motherboard and you can connect this now. Since you likely do not have a sound card installed at this point, you can connect one end of this cable now to the CD drive and leave the other end free to connect once the sound card is installed. Some CD drives have both an analog and a digital audio out. Most of the time, people just use the standard analog audio, but if you wish, go ahead and use the digital. Your drive should come with audio cables for both options.
9.
4.
With the video card inserted into the correct slot, it will probably sit there with no support at all. It is still, though, necessary to tighten it in using a screw. The cards metal plate will have a notch for a screw and it will line up with a screwhole on the side of the expansion hole on the rear of the case. Just insert a screw into that hole and tighten it.
5.
Double-check your work. Make sure the card is securely in place and, if your video card has a cooling fan on it, make sure no ribbon cables or power leads are getting into the fan blades.
Drives properly connected to the power supply CPU fan attached to the power supply or to the power connector on the motherboard If this is an older AT machine, ensure the P8 and P9 main power connectors are installed properly, with black wires in middle. The 110/220 volt switch on the back of the power supply is configured properly for your area Ribbon cables attached correctly and securely. If using rounded cables, the arrow on the connectors indicating Pin 1 should be aligned with Pin 1 on all drive connections. On gray cables, ensure the red edge is aligned with Pin 1.
All connections tight, no connectors off by one set of pins If there are any key motherboard settings which are jumper-controlled, ensure these settings are correct No wires or ribbon cables protruding into fan blades Power switch connector on ATX machines properly connected to the PWR_SW pins on the motherboard. If this is not properly done, the machine may not even turn on when the switch is pressed.
1.
Stick your system disk into the A: drive. You should have prepared or gotten a system disk in the first step of this tutorial. If you are using a bootable CD-ROM (as is the case with Windows XP) then just stand by on this because the CD drive will not be openable until the power is on.
2.
Turn your monitor on and let it heat up a few seconds before proceeding. Heating it up for a few seconds ensures you dont miss any potential error messages because the CRT tube is not ready to display an image.
3.
Before hitting the power switch, take note of what to expect. If you notice something awry right away, you may need to quickly turn the PC back off. Heres what to look for: a. The power LED should turn on b. The CPU and PSU fans should start spinning c. The hard drive should power up. d. You will see the video BIOS screen first, then you will see the BIOS screen and it will proceed to count the memory. e. You may hear one beep from the PC speaker. It is possible you will get more than one beep, which indicates an error which we will address. f. You may also get a CMOS checksum error or another error saying the CMOS or time isnt set. g. Know what key(s) to hit to enter CMOS setup. This will be shown on the bottom of the screen usually during the memory count. You will want to press the stated key combination to enter setup immediately because CMOS setup is the next step. h. If you hear any weird sounds such as grinding, scraping, or loud whining, be ready to turn the system off immediately. i. Keep in mind that if you miss the stated sequence to enter the CMOS setup before the boot sequence moves on, there is nothing wrong with just hitting the reset button and rebooting until you do catch what it is. It will not hurt your PC to reset it immediately or turn it off quickly if you notice a problem.
4.
Press the power switch. If it powers up, observe the system closely. As soon as the BIOS screen appears, press the appropriate key(s) and enter CMOS setup. The correct key combination should be visible at the bottom of the screen. Sometimes it pops by too quickly for you to see which keys to press. No problem. Dont hesitate to just hit reset and try again, as stated above.
5.
If everything started up as expected and you successfully got into the CMOS setup screen, just let it sit there while you take out a flash light and inspect the system as it is running. Make sure all the fans are running. Make sure all the fans are operating smoothly and not generating any strange noises. Make sure the case power LED is on. Make sure the floppy drive light is not stuck on. If it is, the ribbon cable is not properly aligned with Pin 1 and you will need to turn the PC back off and flip it around. If any of the fans are not spinning, turn the PC back off immediately and plug the fan in. You do not want to run the PC for long without fans running, especially the CPU fan.
1.
Go into your Standard CMOS Setup screen. Ensure your video settings are correct (typically EGA/VGA) and that your floppy disk is properly set to the size you are using (usually 1.44M). You will see settings for IDE Primary/Secondary Master/Slave. If these items are not already properly set for the hardware you have, have the BIOS auto-detect your drives for you. Also, set the date and time to the correct settings.
2.
Unless your board has jumper-controlled processor and voltage settings, you will need to set these options in your CMOS now. In our Soyo board, the screen to go into is called Soyo COMBO Feature. It may be called SoftMenu or some other term on your board. Consult the manual to find out if you cant see it. Once in that screen, you need to set your system bus speed, CPU multiplier, memory timing speeds, CPU voltage, etc. Many of these options have an AUTO setting which is the safest choice if you dont know otherwise. Some other systems have a list of possible processors, in which case just choose yours from the list. On our testbed Soyo board, this screen was also used for enabling or disabling onboard sound, RAID, and 10/100 LAN and if your board has similar settings, you can set this to your liking. For example, if you will be using a sound card of your own, you would need to disable the built-in sound on your motherboard. If you have onboard SCSI or onboard RAID capability, then set these depending on whether you will be using them or not.
3.
Confirm your boot order. One of the screens in your CMOS (many times the Advanced Features screen) will have a boot order option. This controls the order in which the PC will look for a copy of something to boot off of, whether it is a full operating system or just a diskette or CD. In a little bit you will be installing your full operating system and will need to boot the system beforehand. If you are using a standard system diskette, make sure A: (or your floppy) is enabled to be first in line. In this case, you might want to also check to be sure that if there is a setting to disable seeking out the floppy altogether, that is set to indeed seek out the floppy drive (some people set this to off so as to make the boot process faster, but you cannot do that while building). If you are going to be booting from a CD (as is probably the case if you will be installing Windows XP) then make sure your CD-ROM is first in line. Those are the basics of what you will need to set in order to continue with this tutorial and have your PC set properly. Now, I will give a brief rundown of some of the other settings you may see. This is by no means meant to be a complete reference, as all boards are different. Your motherboards manual is your best reference to the settings you need to concern yourself with. Advanced BIOS Features This section controls some of basic operating settings of your PC. For example, you will enable/disable things such as on-board cache, determine the boot device, etc. Here are some of the common settings:
Virus Protection/Warning: Will scan your hard drive boot sector on startup for viruses and alarm you if anything attempts to write to the boot sector. Enable for increased security, but disable to avoid the annoyance. If you are using a third-party antivirus utility (or plan to) then this is useless.
Cache Settings: These settings control L1 and L2 cache, which in most newer systems resides on the processor itself. In almost all cases, this is enabled and should be. If there is an option to have ECC error checking on the L2 cache, go ahead and have it enabled.
Quick POST: This will allow the BIOS to skip some tests such as the memory test on boot-up, thus allowing the PC to boot faster. You can disable it for the sake of thoroughness, and this is fine if you leave your PC on most of the time. But, if you turn it on a lot, this is an annoyance and Id recommend enabling Quick POST.
Boot Sequence: This controls the order in which the PC looks at the drives for bootable information. Sometimes the BIOS will have one field for this and you scroll through the options. Other versions have separate settings for First Boot Device, Second Boot Device and so on. This was addressed above.
Boot Up Floppy Seek: Controls whether the floppy drive will be looked for at all. Set this to enabled, at least until you get your operating system installed Swap Floppy Drive: Allows you to control the assigning of the A and B drive letters to your floppy drives by swapping the order that is dictated by the twist in the floppy drive ribbon cable. Most of the time this is disabled. Fast A20 Gate: The gate A20 is a device used for addressing memory above the 1 MByte mark (dont really need to get into that here). This used to be controlled by the keyboard via a pin. Keyboards still play a role in this today, but you control it via the BIOS. Some BIOS have enable/disable, some have Normal/Fast. I would go ahead and leave it at the default.
Typematic Rate Settings: These options control the rate at which holding down a key on the keyboard will produce characters on screen. Just leave it disabled as it isnt very important. Boot Numlock: Enable to have Numlock on when you start the computer. CPU Serial Number: Enables or disables the serial number thing in some older Intel CPUs. Privacy buffs, disable it. Security Option: Some systems have an option to require a password every time the system boots up. Youll probably want this disabled. Video BIOS Shadow: Disable. OS Select For DRAM > 64MB: Set to Non-OS2. This is an archaic setting. HDD SMART Capability: Set to disabled. It is only useful if you have software running which monitors the status of the hard drives. Small Logo Show: Controls whether the little EPA logo is shown on your bootup. Disable. Sometimes there is a
small select option, too, for selecting which logo will be shown. Advanced Chipset Features This area of the BIOS allows you to control certain aspects of your motherboard which are specific to the chipset on your board. This would include bus speeds and memory issues. Some boards place their controls for processor, bus speed into this screen as well. I address that in more detail above. Most of the time, you dont need to worry about anything in here for the sake of this tutorial. But, a general outline:
Chipset Special Features: Disable. Not all BIOS have this. L2 Cache size: If this option exists, set it to match the size of your external cache. DRAM Parity Checking: Enable only if using parity memory Dram parity/ECC mode: Parity if using parity memory, ECC if using ECC memory Memory Timings: This area allows you to control the speed of the memory. On Via chipsets, it will usually also display the processor bus speed and the DRAM bus speed, allowing you to set the memory to operate on the Host Clock or BY SPEED. You can set the memory speed manually or have it run at the same speed as the system bus. If you are using SDRAM, you can also control the CAS latency, which is usually best left at default unless youre a real tweaker.
AGP Mode: Controls the AGP Mode, such as 1X, 2X, 4X or 8x. Set to Auto if available, or whatever it is set to already. AGP Frequency: Set to 66MHz. AGP Aperture: Controls how much of the PCI memory address range will be dedicated to graphics memory space. Usually, 64MB is fine, but you can set it to whatever you want. DRAM Frequency: Set to the speed of your memory
System BIOS Cacheable: Only valid when the system BIOS is shadowed. It can speed up access to the BIOS,
but because the OS rarely needs to look at the BIOS, enabling this does not cause much benefit. Disable. Power Management This section should be fairly straight-forward to even the novice user, and you should be able to use your manual to best describe the settings. I usually leave everything in here default and you should for now, too. Youre just trying to get the PC working at this point, not fine-tuning every little aspect of the BIOS. Integrated Peripherals
IDE HDD Block Mode: Speeds up hard disk access by transferring data from multiple sectors at once instead of using the old single sector transfer mode. When you enable it, the BIOS will automatically detect if your hard disk supports block transfers and configure the proper block transfer settings for it. Up to 64KB of data can be transferred per interrupt with IDE HDD Block Mode enabled. Since virtually all hard disks now support block transfers, there is normally no reason why IDE HDD Block Mode should not be enabled.
Master/Slave PIO Mode: This function allows IDE drive to transfer several sectors at a time. Several modes are possible. Mode 0 means one sector at a time. Mode 1 is no interrupts. Mode 2 means sectors are transferred in a single burst. Mode 3 means 32-bit instructions at up to 11.1 MB per sec. Mode 4 is 16.7 MB/sec. and Mode 5 is up to 20 MB/sec. Standard for most drives today is PIO Mode 4. But, many BIOSs offer an AUTO setting that will automatically make the best call for your drive. These modes must be set for each drive, including primary master, slave, secondary master, slave.
Master/Slave UltraDMA: Set to Auto. Enable if your drives are UDMA capable. Keep in mind that to use this feature also requires it to be set up via the operating system. On-Chip PCI IDE, or IDE Controller: Used to either enable or disable either of your on-board IDE controllers. You can disable one of these if you do not need it, freeing up resources. For example, if IDE-2 is unused, you can disable it, thus freeing up IRQ 15 so something else can use it.
USB Controller: Enable or disable your motherboards on-board USB controller. USB Keyboard Support: Many boards have a separate setting for USB keyboards, so you will need to enable this if you use one. USB Mouse Support: Same as keyboard, but sometimes you see one for mice, too. Onboard 1394: Enable or disable your onboard Firewire capability FDD Controller: Enable or disable your motherboards on-board floppy disk controller. You probably want this enabled. OnBoard Serial Port: Used to enable or disable the serial ports. Setting to AUTO will usually default to IRQ 4, and 3F8 (COM 1) or IRQ 3 and 2F8 for COM 2. Disabling will, of course, free up the IRQs. Onboard IR Function: If you have an infrared device connected to the motherboard, you can enable IR here. IrDA (HPSIR) mode, ASK IR (Amplitude Shift Keyed IR) mode, and disabled are the available options. Sometimes you might see an SCR mode, for smart card readers. Choose the mode used by your IR device. This setting is usually linked to Serial port 2, so if that is disabled, this option may not show up. Sometimes this option is called UART Mode.
Duplex Mode: This will determine full duplex or half duplex transfer modes for your IR port, if enabled. Parallel Port: There are four options. The default value is Normal (SPP) which will work with all parallel port devices but is very slow. Two faster bidirectional modes are available, namely the ECP (Extended Capabilities Port), used for devices with large data transfers, and EPP (Enhanced Parallel Port), for devices that switch
directions a lot. ECP uses the DMA protocol to achieve data transfer rates of up to 2.5Mbits/s and provides symmetric bidirectional communication. On the other hand, EPP uses existing parallel port signals to provide asymmetric bidirectional communication. There is usually an EPP+ECP mode for users who dont know which mode to choose, but this can also take up an extra IRQ.
ECP Mode use DMA: Controls the DMA channel used for ECP transfers. DMA 3 is default. You can set to 1 if there are conflicts. Init Display First: Used to control whether to initialize an AGP or a PCI video card first on start-up. Only relevant to users who use both types of video cards with one monitor. Power On Function: Some motherboards allow you to turn on the system via a variety of alternative ways other than the normal power switch. Examples include mouse buttons, button only (normal), or by keyboard. Select
whichever option you want. PnP/PCI Configuration This section controls some of the various aspects of plug and play and the PCI bus. Much of it will not need to be touched at this point, but a couple items bear mentioning:
PNP OS Installed: If all your operating systems support Plug & Play (PnP), select Yes so that they can take over the management of device resources. If you are using a non-PnP-aware OS or not all of the operating systems you are using support PnP, select No to let the BIOS handle it instead. Some say that it is best to leave this option set to No regardless of whether your OS is PNP-capable or not. The reason is that when it is set to No, the BIOS will attempt to resolve any resource conflicts. If it is set to Yes, even if a conflict is detected, the BIOS will ignore it. So, setting it to Yes provides a bit of a safety net, and it will not affect the ability of the OS to perform PNP on its own.
Reset Configuration Data (Force Update ESCD): ESCD (Extended System Configuration Data) is a feature of the Plug & Play BIOS that stores the IRQ, DMA, I/O and memory configurations of all the ISA, PCI and AGP cards in the system (PnP or otherwise). Normally, you should leave the setting as Disabled. If you encounter serious problems with the installation of a new PCI card, these settings can help bail you out. Such a conflict could be serious enough that the OS may not start. If this happens, you can go into the BIOS and enable this option. Next time the PC boots, the BIOS will go and re-configure the settings for all PNP cards. The BIOS will automatically reset this setting to DISABLED next time you boot.
Resources Controlled By: Normally, the BIOS controls the IRQ and DMA assignments of all of the boot and PNP devices in the system. When this option is set to AUTO, this is what happens, and the ESCD is the mechanism for doing it. If you set this option to Manual, you will be able to manually assign all IRQ and DMA information, usually via a sub-screen of the BIOS that will enable if you set this option to Manual.
PCI/VGA Palette Snoop: This option is only useful if you use an MPEG card or an add-on card that makes use of the graphics cards Feature Connector. It corrects incorrect color reproduction by snooping into the graphics cards framebuffer memory and modifying (synchronizing) the information delivered from the graphics cards Feature Connector to the MPEG or add-on card. It will also solve the problem of display inversion to a black screen after using the MPEG card.
Assign IRQ for VGA: Many high-end graphics accelerator cards now require an IRQ to function properly. Disabling this feature with such cards will cause improper operation and/or poor performance. Thus, its best to make sure you enable this feature if you are having problems with your graphics accelerator card.
Assign IRQ for USB: Assigns an IRQ to the USB controller. It enables or disables IRQ allocation for the USB (Universal Serial Bus). If you are using AGP, this should be enabled. If you are not, you can disable this to free up
an IRQ. PC Health This might be called by a bunch of different names, but it is the section of the BIOS (if it has it) that monitors things like fan speed, CPU temperature, voltage levels, etc. You may also be able to set a shut down temperature, so if the CPU gets way too hot, the system would shut itself down for safety. Defaults Many BIOS versions have pre-set sets of default values which you can pre-load. Some have fail-safe defaults and optimized defaults. If you dont wish to mess with any of the above, you can use these options to set the BIOS info up to certain sets of settings in one or two button clicks. Passwords Most BIOS versions have security options to allow for user or supervisor passwords. Most people do not use them. But, if you do, just make sure you record the password. If you lose it, youll have to reset your whole BIOS to get your system back. Save and Exit the BIOS setup program. This will reboot the machine. Make sure your system disk is still in Drive A:.
just let the PC run for a bit. If, after several minutes, the heat sink gets too hot or the temperature readouts become abnormally high, or if the PC Health screen freezes and you cannot do anything with the keyboard, then you likely have a cooling issue with your processor. You are either running a cooling fan which is not adequate for your processor or there is an issue with inadequate heat transfer between the processor and the heat sink, which means you might need to re-install the processor and do a better job of using heat sink compound this time. Okay, now that we are pretty sure the hardware portion of this tutorial is a done deal, lets move into setting your hard disks up.
extended partition. This is the space left over after the primary partition. Then, logical DOS drives are created within the extended partition, each having a letter by which you will refer to it. 5. 6. 7. First you have to setup a primary DOS partition. Choose Option 1 (Create DOS partition or Logical DOS drive). Choose Option 1 in the next menu. Now you can make your entire hard drive the primary partition or only a part of it. Many people just make the entire drive one partition just to stay simple. If you want to break from this norm, specify the amount of drive you want to partition in either megabytes or percentage of total drive. If you are using a percentage, be sure to follow the number by a % or the computer will think youre talking MBs. As a tip, I generally like to have my operating system(s) stay on their own partition, so I like to assign 2 GIG or so to the primary DOS partition, allowing ample room for a few versions of Windows. Thats just me. 8. Next, youll need to make this partition active. Return to the main FDISK menu and choose Option 2 (Set Active Partition). Follow the prompts. 9. If youre going to create an extended partition (and you probably will unless youre only going to use C), choose Option 1 again, but this time choose Option 2 in the next menu (Create Extended DOS partition). 10. Plug in the percentage of drive to partition for this one. You can use the remaining amount for simplicity. Do not make this partition active. Only one can be active. 11. After you create an extended partition, you will be given the Create Logical Drives option in the extended partition menu. Follow the on-screen instructions to assign drive letters to your partitions D: through Z:. 12. After all this is done, you can choose Option 4 (Display Partition Information) and check your work. 13. After the drive has been partitioned and all looks fine to you, press to exit FDISK. Youll be told you need to restart the machine and thats what youre about to do. 14. Reboot the machine with the system disk in Drive A:. If you try to do anything on the C: drive, you may get an error about Invalid Media Type. Dont worry about it. Its because you havent formatted it yet. Heres how to format your newly created disk partition(s): 1. At the A> prompt, type format c: /s. The /s tells it to make the disk bootable by copying some elementary system files to the C drive. If you booted from a CD and intend to install the OS right away, you do not need to copy system files, in which case you can leave the /s off. 2. You will get a warning saying that this action will erase all data on the drive. This is normal, and since there is no data on the drive, just press Y and move on. 3. 4. It will show the status as it happens. If you created additional partitions on this drive, format those volumes now. Type format d: or format e:, where the letter corresponds to the volume you wish to format. Do not type the /s since you only want the C: drive bootable. Do this for all remaining partitions you created during the partitioning process. 5. When you are complete, you should be able to do a directory listing to be sure it is formatted by typing DIR C: at the command prompt. Youll likely get a FILE NOT FOUND message, but thats normal. At least the drive is set up. When you have done both procedures above, reboot the system. If you copied the system files over you can do so without the system disk in the diskette drives. If not, youll need to leave the system disk in Drive A. If using the C drive, it is supposed to boot normally and go to the C: prompt. If you get an error like No boot device found or No ROM Basic, you probably forgot to make the primary partition active. Run FDISK again and fix that. If you get an error like No Operating System, you probably forgot to make the disk bootable. Make sure you typed /s at the format command.
Step 23 Tidy Up
Now you have a PC which you built and it is now running with a newly installed operating system. Great job! You are now ready to get the PC set up as you want it. With Windows set up as a virgin installation, there are a few things you need to do right at the start. Windows XP will seek to get you to activate your copy of Windows, but it is recommended you hold off on this until you get your drivers finalized. 1. Enable Windows XPs built-in firewall (if you are using XP). The firewall is not perfect and you can easily replace it later with a better option. However, you need to connect to the internet now to download the latest drivers for your PC. The Windows firewall will suffice for now. To enable the firewall, go to the Control Panel and click Network and Internet Connections, then click Network connections. Right-click on your network connection and choose Properties. Go to the Advanced tab and check Protect my computer and network by limiting or preventing access to the computer from the internet. 2. Next, connect to Windows Update by visiting www.windowsupdate.com using Internet Explorer. Scan for Updates and then go directly to the critical updates and service packs section. If there are any major service packs listed, install them now and reboot. 3. Install your motherboards chipset drivers. Most likely, your motherboard came with a CD which contained drivers for the chipset as well as any integrated hardware. You can install this software and drivers now from the CD. You should also check the motherboard manufacturers website and see if there is any updated driver software since the CD was created. After installing these drivers, reboot again. 4. 5. Re-visit Windows Update and install any other key updates, including DirectX. Now, visit the website of your video card manufacturer and download the latest drivers for your video card. Install them. You will likely need to reboot again.
6.
Lastly, you should install any remaining hardware and drivers for your new computer. Install the sound card drivers as well as the drivers for any remaining hardware. Visit the manufacturers website to see if there are more recent versions of each. You may need to reboot after each installation. Simply go through each until each component in your PC has the required drivers installed.
7.
Now, active Windows. If you installed Windows XP, there is an activation process which you must go through. This is Microsofts way of curbing pirated copies of Windows. Windows will give you a grace period of 30 days after installation to activate it. If you do not activate it within this timeframe, Windows will stop operating. Windows will remind you when you log in as well as at a regular internal until you do activate. To activate, you simply follow the wizard. It is easiest to activate via the internet. Doing it this way is very automatic and is done using a secure server. If your PC is not internet connected, you can activate it via telephone. Call the toll-free number on the screen, read off to the operator the number displayed on the screen and type in the confirmation number they give you. For future reference, if you make a major hardware change to your new computer at a later date, Windows may require you to re-activate. Simply follow the same procedure. Windows will also ask you to register your copy. This is totally optional. If you skip it, it will not ask you again. At this point, your new PC is now ready to go! Next, you can begin installing your software and customizing your new computer to suit your needs. Congratulations. Enjoy your new PC!