Assembling a PC
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SCL Cluster Cookbook Assembling a PC |
If you have purchased motherboards, memory, disks, cases, and video cards as separate components, you will have to assemble the PCs and test them fairly thoroughly. Be sure to read the manuals provided with each component and avoid doing anything that would void the warranty. If you are not familiar or comfortable working with PC hardware, be sure to read the manuals thoroughly and look through this guide before starting, or get assistance from someone with the required background.
Before touching any electronic components, attach a grounding
strap to your wrist and attach the other end of the strap to a
grounded piece of metal to discharge static electricity. Static
electricity easily damages electronic components. Merely touching a
grounded piece of metal to discharge static may be insufficient
protection against damage, so use a grounding strap.
Be sure
that all components are unplugged from line power before you remove
covers to avoid damaging yourself!
The PC-Guide's New PC Assembly Procedure is a very good place to look for PC assembly procedures. The guide is more detailed and informative than what I have written here.
The PCBUILD mail list is
devoted to questions and answers for people building their own PC
computers from components.
Installing the Motherboard in the Case
Tyan Tech Support has a good set of instructions
for installing a motherboard, with the exception that they
completely neglect attaching all of the case's connectors for the
Turbo LED, Keyboard Lock, and Reset button, so match your case's wires
for these items to the appropriate connectors on the motherboard. As
your motherboard may not have built-in hard disk and floppy disk
controllers, you may need to skip the part about connecting your disk
drives to your motherboard, but the rest of the information may
apply.
Installing Memory Modules
Installing memory is fairly simple, but one must be careful to
properly insert the modules in the connectors on the motherboard.
Don't remove the memory from its static-resistant bags until you are
ready to install each memory module. Read the guide for your
motherboard to discover the order in which the memory modules must be
installed. For each memory module that you are installing, carefully
remove the module from its bag, then install the module into the
appropriate slot on the motherboard. It is very easy to bend the
holding clips, so be very gentle. No excessive force should be
necessary to install the module. Be sure that the module is properly
seated and level with the motherboard, and that both retaining clips
on the sides of the module are fully set. Use a small mirror (like
a dentist's mirror) and a flashlight if necessary.
Installing Disk Drives
Installing hard and floppy disk drives in the case seems different for
every brand of case. You must put the drives in the appropriate
enclosure and secure the drives with screws, but every case has its
own peculiar installation method. Read the case's manual, if it has
one, to figure out the particulars for your case. Be very careful not
to drop the drives, force them too much, or apply any force to the
printed circuit board. Also be sure to use the correct screws for the
drive to avoid stripping the threads on the drive. Once the drive is
physically secured in the case, connect the four-prong white power
connectors to the drives (they are keyed, so they can only be attached
the correct way). Finally, attach the data cables to the drives and
controllers, paying special attention to keep the red stripe on the
data cables oriented to pin 1 of the connectors.
Finishing
Finally, install the video card and any other cards or optional
equipment. You can wait to install the network cards until you are
ready to test the interconnect, or you can install them now.
Testing
A new PC, whether built yourself or by someone else, should probably
be tested to make sure it works. In the past, the author has used
commercial programs like CheckIT for
DOS on new PCs for several days to test new systems. A quick
check of the Simtel MS-DOS archive showed that there are a couple of
freely-available system testing programs:
http://oak.oakland.edu/pub/simtelnet/msdos/info/pctestv1.zip
http://oak.oakland.edu/pub/simtelnet/msdos/sysinfo/drh4dose.zip
As it will be necessary to boot the computers with MS-DOS to run these
testing programs, it may be useful to format the hard disks with
MS-DOS. A simple MS-DOS boot disk with copies of the programs
FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM will suffice to
boot the systems. You can then run FDISK to
allocate space on the disk for DOS and (after rebooting) use
FORMAT C: /S to format the hard disk with DOS and make it
bootable.
The author has seen systems that will occasionally "freeze" during this "burn-in" period, but then work fine after a while. So, don't be too concerned unless a system barely works at all or consistently fails after a period of a day or two of operation.