Assembling a Computer Part 3 (Assembly)

Assembling a Computer Part 3 (Assembly)

After choosing your selected and desired components, its finally time to piece them all together.

Step 1: Mounting your motherboard

To start, open up your case's box, take out the case, and open it up. Usually this involves unscrewing a few thumb screws on the back of your case and sliding the side panels off. Take a good look around your case and get acquainted; note where the hard drive bays are, where your CD drive will go, whether the power supply mounts on the top or the bottom, and so on. There should also be a bag of screws inside your case; grab that now and set it aside because we'll need it in a few minutes.

Open up your motherboard box and take out the I/O shield, which is the metal plate that protects the ports on the back of your motherboard. You should see a rectangular space in the back of your case where this should go. Snap it into place. This takes quite a bit of force, so make sure all four sides are snapped in securely.

Next, pull out your motherboard and line up the ports on the back with the I/O shield. You should see that the holes on your motherboard line up with screw holes on the bottom of your case. There are probably more holes on your case than there are on your motherboard, so note which ones these are, and grab your motherboard standoffs from your bag of screws (they have a male screw end on one side, and a female screw hole on the other side). Screw the standoffs into those holes, and set your motherboard on top of them. Screw your motherboard screws into the standoffs so the motherboard is snugly mounted.

Step 2: Installing the CPU

Open up your processor's box and gently take it out. Your processor is one of the more fragile parts of the build, so this is one step in which you'll want to be careful. Find the comer of your processor that has a gold arrow on it, then look at your motherboard's processor socket for a similar arrowed corner. Line these two arrows up; this is the direction your processor will go into the socket.

Lift up the lever on the processor socket and put your processor in. Pull the lever down to lock it into place. Again, do this gently—it shouldn't require any feats of strength on your part, so if it isn't falling into place easily, something's wrong. Take it out and try re-setting it, make sure your two arrows are lined up, and of course, double check that your motherboard and processor are of the same socket type.

Once your processor's in, grab the cooler that came with your processor. It should already have some silver thermal paste on the bottom. If not, you'll need to pick some up from the computer store and put a very thin line on your processor—I usually use about the size of a grain of rice or two. Set your cooler on top of your processor. You'll need to press down on the four pins until they click.

Step 3: Installing RAM

Installing RAM is very simple. Find the RAM sockets on your motherboard, and pull the two clips on the side down. Line up the notch in your RAM stick with the notch in the socket, and press the RAM down into place. This might take a bit of pressure, so don't worry about being overly gentle. The clips should snap back into place when the RAM is fully in the socket.

Step 3: Installing the GPU

For your video card, find the topmost slot that fits your card and match that up with its plate on the back of the case. Remove that plate and slide the video card's bracket in its place. The card should then be sitting on top of the socket, and all you need to do is press down to lock it into place. Screw the bracket onto the case, and you're good to go.

Step 4: Installing the HDD

Every case is a little bit different in how they install hard drives. Generally, there are two methods: on some cases, you have to pull out a hard drive tray, put the drive in, screw it in securely, and then slide the tray back in. Other motherboards just require you to slide the bare drive into the bay and then screw it in snug after the fact. Check your case's manual for more detailed instructions on this particular step. If you're using multiple hard drives and a big case, it's usually a good idea to leave some open space between them—that is, putting them in the first and third bays instead of first and second. This allows for more airflow between them and will help keep them running cool.

Step 5: Installing the PSU

Once everything else is in, it's time to install your power supply and plug everything in. It should be pretty obvious where your power supply goes, as there will be a big rectangular hole on the back of your case. Some power supply's mount on the top, while some sit on the bottom of the case. Generally, they mount with the fan facing away from the edge of the case, unless that case has enough space in between the power supply mount and the end of the case to allow for airflow. Once you set it into place, you should see the holes on the back of the case line up with the screw holes in the power supply. Screw it into place and you're all set.

Step 6: Plugging everything in

This can be the most tedious and difficult part of the process, depending on your case and power supply. Separate the cords coming out of your power supply and plug them in individually.

 You should have:

A 24-pin Motherboard Cable: This is the biggest cable on the power supply, which gives the motherboard the electricity it needs to run. It has the very long plug with, you guessed it, 24 little pins in it. Most cases should have a 20-pin with a 4-pin on the same cable, so you can just put them together and plug them into the big 24-pin socket on your motherboard. It should lock into place, and might take a bit of strength to get it in all the way. Push it in until you hear the click and you can't pull it out with just a slight tug.

6-pin PCI Cables: If you have a rather powerful graphics card, you might have to plug it into your power supply. This requires the 6-pin "PCI" cable coming from your power supply, which should look similar to the 24-pin cable. Plug it into the end of your video card. Note that not all video cards require these cables, so if it doesn't have a socket, you can leave it be.

SATA Power and Data Cables: Your hard drives plug in via SATA, which contains two cables. One is the skinny black plug coming out of your power supply, which gives power to the drives. The other is a small red cable that should have come with your motherboard; this is the SATA cable that actually transfers data between your hard drive and everything else.

Molex Power Cables: Your Molex cables power other miscellaneous things in your build, like the case fans. Take the plugs connecting to your case fans and plug the male side into the female molex cable on your power supply. This takes a bit of force to get in, and even more force to get out.

Front Panel Audio, USB, External Port Connectors: Most cases have a few ports on the front, which can include but are not limited to USB, headphone, and microphone jacks. You should see some small cables coming out of the front of your case labeled things like USB, HD AUDIO. Plug these into their corresponding 8-pin headers on the motherboard—usually labeled USB, AUD.

Power Switch and LED Connectors: Lastly, you should have a few small cables labeled POWER SW, RESET SW, HDD LED, and so on. These connect the switches and LEDs on the front of your case to the motherboard, so you can actually turn your computer on. They all consist of only one or two pins, and all plug in on an 8-pin header somewhere on the motherboard. This varies from build to build, so you'll have to check your motherboard's manual to see how they all plug in. 

Note:  As you're doing all this, you want to be wary of where you're putting these cables. Generally, you want to keep them as out of the way as possible. The more they're tangled up in the middle of your case, the more they're going to block airflow from your fans, causing your computer to run hotter, louder, and possibly even overheat. Your case may have come with some zip ties to help you wrap them up and get them out of the way. Some cases even come with built-in cable management features, like clips or holes through which you route these cables to keep them out of the way.

Final Step: Turning It On

When you're done, plug in the power cable in the back, flip the power switch on, and press the power button on the front of your case. If all goes well, your computer should turn on and, if you plug a monitor into your video card, you should see what's called the POST screen. From there, you can head into your BIOS setup by pressing a key on your keyboard usually the Delete Key

Thank You for taking your time to read my final blog post! It's relatively long but I do hope its informative and beneficial.