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Welcome! This guide will walk you through installing basic hardware components and the side-bys to get your own hand-made home computer up and running. You may be assembling your own PC or doing it as a profession or doing it just for the heck of it - this basic guide might be used as a quick-reference.

Assembling your PC is too easy, as a matter of fact. Just fetch the components and attach them together, and there you are.

Modern computer systems are designed to be easy to fit together. The majority of them are keyed so they go in only one way. And most components have standardized interfaces to communicate with each other. So there are not many ways you could go wrong.

Due to rapid technological advances, electronic components inside the computer frequently get updated with newer types of interfaces, sizes and shapes. Standard components and peripherals were used for illustrations in these pages during the writing of this guide. By now, the time you are reading this, you can expect most of these components to undergo radical changes in their shapes and interfaces. The basics, however, remain more-or-less the same.

 

Contents:

  1. Handling components correctly
  2. What you will need
  3. Unpacking the computer case
  4. The Power Supply (SMPS)
  5. Setting up the Motherboard
  6. The Processor (CPU)
  7. The CPU Heatsink & Cooling Fan
  8. Installing the RAM Modules
  9. Installing the Motherboard
  10. Installing the Floppy Disk Drive
  11. Installing the Hard Disk Drive
  12. Installing Optical Drives
  13. Installing the Video Card
  14. Installing PCI Expansion Cards
  15. Finishing it up
  16. Powering up
  17. Troubleshooting
  18. Standardized components

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