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Installing the components on the board

Once you've secured the motherboard to the case, you'll find power, audio and other connectors that need to be connected from the case to the motherboard. Depending on the motherboard you've purchased, the location of these connectors will be different. Very simple installation though, usually range from 2, 3 and 4 pin connectors. Most motherboards only include 1 on board serial port and there may be a need to install a second one. You need to pop out one the slots at the back and once it's installed, the cable will go on the motherboard, usually a 3 pin connector. The motherboard manual will show you were to connect it on your board.

Not necessarily in this order but now we can connect the ATX power connection to the motherboard. There's usually a little notch on the ATX power connection to secure it to the connector on the board.

We can put the processor and the memory next. Let's start with the memory, it's very easy to put in. Here's an example of how to insert the memory.

Memory purchased in today's systems is called SDRAM, RDRAM or DDR. SDRAM comes in varying speeds also: 100Mhz otherwise known as PC100 or 133Mhz also known as PC133. RDRAM is Rambus memory. This memory stick goes as high as 800Mhz, for motherboards that support this standard. DDR is Double Data Rate RAM these are available in loads of different speeds PC2100 (266Mhz), PC2700 (333Mhz) and PC3200 (400Mhz). The speed of memory you should buy depends on your motherboard and what it will support. Most motherboards that support SDRAM today will give you the option to run on 66/100/133Mhz bus. The 66Mhz bus setting is used for Celeron processors. You get a good price but you pay for it in speed that the CPU will send to memory. Pentium III processors usually work on the 100Mhz bus and the faster generation of PIII's go one step better and run on the 133Mhz bus. We won't be discussing the AMD Athlon processor which runs at a bus speed of 200Mhz cause i dont like them, an INTEL processor a runs on a 200Mhz bus, if you put PC133 RAM in, it will drop to a 133Mhz speed once the data hits memory. Depending on the speed your processor runs at, this is the optimum bus speed your memory will work on. Always try and match your memory to your CPU for maximum performance.

Processors can be purchased as Slot 1, FC-PGA or Slot A for the AMD Athlon. The Slot 1 chip sits on a mounting bracket on the motherboard. The FC-PGA chip sits directly on the motherboard and so does the Slot A chip. The chip usually has one corner that is a bit different so it can be installed on the socket on the motherboard. Most processors have a fan which needs to be plugged into the motherboard usually a 3 pin connector. This provides another way to keep the CPU cool along with the other fans in the system.

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