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PC BUILDER TUTORIALS

by Remix

 

These tutorials are guidelines for building an awesome gaming computer. The computers will come in two varieties: The Ultimate Gaming Machine and The Budget Gaming Machine. Both will serve your gaming needs, with the difference that the UGM will be able to handle more powerful games, longer (Half-Life 2), and the Budget Gaming Machine will require that the video card be upgraded before you will be able to play any game with all the effects at maximum.

NOTE: The assembly of these PC's requires basic knowledge of what most things are, some mechanical knowledge is required.

WARNING: I am not responsible for any damages to your PC hardware from using these instructions. Follow them at your own risk!

Good. Now that there is no more legal mumbo jumbo to be dealt with let's get to...

 

THE PARTS

Ultimate Gaming Machine

 

Budget Gaming Machine

 

So thats that. Regardless of which setup you chose, the instructions will remain the same, when differences arise I will be so kind as note them and edit the instuctions accordingly. And remember, if you chose the Budget Gaming Machine, you can always upgrade it to the caliber of the UGM when more funds arise. Now...it's time to take the plunge....

 

Equipment

 

The last notes...For any prolonged tweaking of computer parts, e.g. building a computer, an anti-static wrist-strap is the only way to go. Static electricity, created whenever friction occurs, can fry that oh-so expensive CPU you just bought; that's why all computer parts come in anti-static bags. (If you find that a part you have purchased is not in an anti-static bag, return it to whatever store you bought it from and ask for a replacement.) Be sure to purchase a wrist strap that clips on to your computer's case, not one that plugs into a DC outlet unless you have a few of those handy (Professional PC manufaturers use the DC kind due to the aesthetics of an assembly line.) So anyway, kiddies, remember that static (or magnets, which are just as destructive to digital circutry) are baaaaaaad.

 

STEP ONE: THE CASE AND MOTHERBOARD

Okay! First, grab that giant cardboard box that has your LANBOY case inside. Open it and remove the case and the powercord. Plug the cord in to the case and the wall, making sure that the power switch on back is left in the ON position--this keeps the case grounded. Grab your handy Philips screwdriver, NON-MAGNETIZED, unscrew the screws holding the primary cover on (the one on the left when viewing the case from the front), and pop it off using the lever. Put the cover somewhere, taking care not to scratch the pretty lucite window, put the case on its side, and let's get familiarized with everything. At the top, in the left corner, is a box with a couple of thousand cords hangin' out of it. That's your power supply, complete with a nice blue light to make your system look pretty. To the right are some 5 1/4 inch bays, this is where you'll put your optical drives (DVD and/or CD drives). Check for a little baggie of purple rails with little jagged teeth on the side, these are the drive rails. Instead of having to screw every drive in with a million screws, you just screw this rail onto the drive and you can slide drives in and out at your leisure. Below the big drive bays is your 3 1/2 inch drive cage. This is where you'll put your floppy drive and your hard drive. Instead of having to have someone hold the drive in place while you screw it in, this cage is removable so that you can position it to your will. Yay! On your left is the I/O shield, a piece of aluminum that has all sorts of funnily shaped holes in it. These holes are to accomodate the Input/Output devices on your motherboard. (I/O, Input/Output, get it?) Now, let's get to the motherboard

Clip your anti-static wrist strap to an unpainted surface on the case (on the outer edge) and slip the other end around your wrist, making sure that the case is plugged in and the power breaker in back is set to the on/line position. Good. Open the motherboard packaging and remove the motherboard, leaving the anti-static packaging on it. Take six of the hexagonal motherboard mounts and screw them into the holes on the bottom of your case, putting them in an arrangement that would provide maximum support to the motherboard. The reason for this is to secure the mobo to the case, without letting it touch any of the unpainted metal surfaces. Think about static and magnets and such here. Once the mounts are in place carefully align them with the holes in the motherboard (make sure the proper side is facing upward) and use the screws supplied with the mobo to secure it. Make sure that the I/O devices are fitted into the shield. Very good. Let's take some time to note crucial components here. On the left are a row of slots, the top one is black and set out from the others a little bit. This is the AGP slot. Your video card goes here (don't plug it in yet!) Below are five other beige/white slots. These are PCI slots for sound cards, modems, etc. Look up and to the right and there will be 3 black slots with white tabs on either side of them. These are the RAM slots. And to the left of the RAM slots is the...CPU slot!

 

STEP TWO: THE CPU

Most AMD processors have thermal compound already applied, but if your processor isn't fresh out of the box you'd best apply goof-off to the old compound and follow the instructions at Artic Silver's website for applying the compound (http://www.articsilver.com). Now locate the CPU slot (it's the white square with all the holes in it and the gold looking indent in the middle) and lift the ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) lever on the right of the slot. Now, being veeerrrrry careful not to touch any of the gold pins on the bottom of the CPU, remove it from it's packaging. Look at the side with the pins on it and match the layout to the layout of the slot (there are two corners without pins on them that match with the slot). Now carefully drop the CPU so that all of those pins fit in the holes. DON'T PUSH DOWN ON IT. Now lower the ZIF lever slowly but firmly. If it won't go, DON'T FORCE IT! Instead, remove the processor and try placing it again and lowering the lever. If it still won't go, contact the AMD people at the number on the packaging. It is better to call tech support than to have a $389 dollar or so chip broken. If your ZIF lever lowered properly--which it normally will, don't get all paranoid--great! Now, remove the strange contraption that looks like a big chunk of metal with a fan on top of it. This is your heatsink/fan combo! Normally thermal compound will already be on there, but if it isn't, again refer to the Artic Silver website for application instructions. Look at the bottom of the big metal heatsink. There will be two metal hooks coming off of the bottom. Carefully lower the one over the hooks on one side of the slot and very carefully take the one on the other side and hook it around the other hooks. This may take some time because the brackets are kind of hard to get on to the hooks on the first try, but keep trying, making sure not to damage the processor. Be warned, if your processor doesn't have a heatsink, within one or two seconds it will fry due to cooling problems, possibly shorting out your entire mobo. That would be bad. Bad. (If you are queasy and worried that you may break the processor, you can invest in a little $4.00 piece of plastic called a sham. This goes on top of the processor before you put on the whole heatsink thing. It will prevent damage to the CPU from heatsink installation. By the way, cooling is not hampered in any sort from this contraption.)

 

PART THREE: MEMORY

Now the beauty of the ASUS A7N8X Motherboard is it's dual-channel feature. It allows you to optimize the performance of multiple sticks of memory. If you have two, insert them in slots 2 and 3 (the ones closer together). If you have just one, put it in slot 1. If you have three, then you would use slots 1, 2, and 3. Hmmm. Memory requires a LOT of force to put in. To insert it, make sure it is going the right way, push away the little plastic tabs at either end, and very firmly, without any lateral force, PUSH. You will know that you have them inserted properly when the white tabs snap back automatically. If any of the sticks aren't pushed in all the way you will just get the Windows XP start up screen at bootup, and then the computer will shut down and restart automatically, get to the Win XP screen again, and shut down again. ENDLESSLY! The RAM is about the only thing that you can't break by forcing it, so don't be scared. You may have to lean on it or even jump on it to get it to go in, but make sure you don't put any lateral pressure on it, that may snap it. Maybe.

 

PART FOUR: SYSTEM FANS

The front fan is easy, just look for the little assembly/cage/holder thingy and pop it off using the tabs, slip the fan in there, and replace the holder thingy. The rear fan requires our NON MAGNETIC screwdriver to be applied. Mount it over the vent in the back and screw in the four long screws that came with it. Make sure that it is positioned for outflow, not inflow.

 

PART FIVE: 5.25 INCH BAYS

Thankfully, on the LANBOY, the covers can be removed from the front. For the UGM, expose three of the 5.25 inch bays by opening the front cover and popping off the plastic tabs and using the screwdriver or similar implement to snap off the inner metal coverings. Be sure to throw away the metal coverings, but keep the plastic covers, if you ever remove a drive, you will want to put the covers back so it looks nice and pretty. Now, take the drives and using the screws supplied, attach one drive rail to each of your optical drives (CD and DVD) and the control panel that came with the Audigy 2 Card. Now you can just slide the drives in from the front until they lock in place. Simple. For the BGM, only one drive cover need be removed so pop that sucker off and remove the metal covering as before, attach the drive rail, and slide your single drive in until it locks. Then, from the inside of the case use screws (two is all that is required) to lock each drive in place.

IMPORTANT: For the UGM builder, be sure that the DVD-R/W drive is on top, then the CD-R/W Drive, then the Audigy Control Panel.

 

PART SIX: FLOPPY AND HARD DRIVE

To install the Floppy Drive, pop off one of the smaller covers and metal coverings on the bottom. Then, remove the 3.5" drive cage. Place the floppy drive on the very top of the cage, and attach with screws on both sides. Place the Hard Drive on bottom and secure the same way. Reinstall the drive cage and that is that.

 

PART SEVEN: WIRES, WIRES, AND MORE WIRES

Here's the fun part. Using your Motherboard's documentation, use the supplied IDE ribbon connectors to connect all four of your drives. Follow the instructions carefully, with this exception. Plug the end of the optical drive cable to the DVD-RW drive, and the mid-line connector to the CD-RW drive. If you have the BGM, nothing of that sort to worry about. Make sure that the jumpers on the DVD drive are set to master, and the jumpers on the CD drive are set to slave (refer to the handy diagrams above the jumpers on how to do this). Tweezers come in handy when working with the jumpers, due to their size. Take one power connector that matches the power outlet on the rear of each drive from the power supply and attach it. Finally, take the cords that came with the optical drives and attach them as specified to the Audigy Control Panel (If you have it, if not, forego the cables.)

 

PART EIGHT: ALL THE CARDS

Now it is time to install all the cards. Take your fancy video card out of the box. In the wall next to the black AGP slot, there is a metal covering secured with a screw. Similar coverings (5 more) continue down the wall. Unscrew the screw from the proper covering and remove it. Press the video card down into the slot, making sure that the metal hook on the side and the bracket for the screw all line up. Screw in the bracket where the screw originally stood, securing your video card in place. Attach a power supply cable to the card in the appropriate slot if it is the 9800 Pro, otherwise that's it. Next, put the Audigy 2 card in another slot, keeping in mind the aesthesics of airflow, e.g. that the cards should be as far apart as possible. Connect the wires from the card to the control panel as specified in the Audigy documentation. Lastly, throw that modem in there in the same manner with all the other cards. Note that a 56k modem is optional, if you have broadband service, you may want to skip this one. Lastly, attach the proxy USB and Firewire ports as specified in the motherboard documentation, as well as the proxy sound output if you have the BGM. 5.1 Sound courtesy of the motherboard. Ingenious. Use twisty-ties to tie off cords and such to increase airflow and to avoid them getting caught in fans. Read the Case Documentation or the Mobo docs to see how to plug in the power button/ LED light connectors. Check everything one last time, and install the....

 

PART NINE: PERIPHERALS

Attach the monitor into the blue monitor output on your video card's I/O, and the keyboard mouse into the PS/2 Ports. These will be on the motherboard and will say things like keyboard or mouse.

 

PART TEN: SOFTWARE!!!!

Once you have everything connected, hit the power button. Your POSTs will run and then you will get a message that there is no OS installed. Just insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the DVD drive, reboot the computer, and you will get a nice little query asking you if you would like to install Windows! Now, there is a slight problem. You must obtain a floppy with Serial ATA drivers for the motherboard. These can be downloaded from the ASUS website from another computer, in which case you will turn the computer off, remove the Windows XP CD, and insert said floppy. Upon reboot press F6 to install the drivers on the floppy.. Go to www.asus.com and download Silicon Image Serial ATA drivers, throw them onto a floppy, and do it! Afterwards, pop the Win XP CD back in, reboot, and go ahead and select install Windows. Come back in about 30 minutes or so and it will be done. Now that that's done, it's time to partition. For all you people who don't really do much tweaking, all you need to do is make a main partition for primary files and a secondary for Games and data. Same goes for the BGM, where on a 80 GB HD all you can fit is two partitions. However, I suggest that since you UGMers out there have a whopping 1/3 of a terabyte of diskspace, you can go ahead and make 4 partitions. To do this start up windows, make a Login password for yourself (don't want anyone sneaking around on your computer) and go to start/control panel/administrative tools/computer management, then go to storage/disk management. Select the first partition (C:\) and partition it to 30 GB, NTSF for file system. Create another one in the next available letter for your Windows Page file of size 5 GB, another of size 30 GB (as backup), and another of 255 GB (this is where all your games will go). After all this partitioning is done, rename your three other partitions(by right-clicking on them) to be D:\ as the page file, E:\ as the backup, and F:\ as data/games. You will need to reassign your Floppy drive as A:\, your DVD-RW drive as G:\, and your CD-RW drive as H:\. Complicated as it sounds, it is pretty self-explanitory in process. Install the drivers for ethernet, firewire, and USB from your motherboard disk, as well as any other drivers there may be. Download the latest BIOS for the mobo at www.asus.com. Finally, install any works suite or other main software (not games) to the C:\ drive and then copy the entire thing to the E:\ drive. You can use a program such as drive partition if you wish. Now create the Windows Page File on the D:\ drive and install any games you have onto the F:\ partition. Reboot the computer and then go to programs/accessories/system tools/disk defragmenter and defragment the entire thing. Thats it. You're done. Congratulations.

 

Ooooops. We forgot one thing. Windows requires that you activate it or it will become unusable in 30 days. This is an anti-piracy measure. Follow the instructions, activate it, and now........

YOU'RE DONE!!!!!!

For questions of any sort contact me at Jkslimjim@aol.com