Building A System from Scratch, Part 2 - Finishing up
(Page 6 of 6 )
Look around the board and have a quick check in the manual to see whether there are any additional components that need to be fitted. Often, modern motherboards will have fans on the chipsets, which will need to be plugged in or switched on.
Having successfully reached this stage, all that remains is to fit the side panel of the case back on, and connect the external peripherals (keyboard, mouse, and monitor). It’s best to leave any additional components such as printers, modems, digital cameras, and so forth until after the OS has been installed.
If, when you press the power button, nothing happens, don’t panic straight away as it will more than likely be something minor, like wiring the power and reset buttons the wrong way around. Open the lid again and go over all of the connections to make sure everything is where it should be and properly connected. It is unlikely, even if something is connected completely incorrectly, that when switched on the PC does absolutely nothing; you should still see the motherboard's boot screen, and will likely get an error message of some kind to work with in the event of an incorrect placement or connection.
One thing to be extra careful of is internal USB connections; as these supply devices with power, they will be live, and if they are not connected to the motherboard correctly, the board could be fried or a small fire could start. I have actually seen this happen to a Firewire cable that was mistaken for a USB cable and connected to the USB socket on the motherboard. Within seconds of the power button being connected the Firewire cable actually became a fire wire, literally!
When the PC begins to boot, press either delete or F8 on the keyboard when prompted to enter the bios, and go though the drives section to auto detect the drives and make sure they all appear. Check any other settings you feel necessary and proceed to installing the OS.
When fully installed, you will be glad that you decided to do it yourself and will have saved yourself money and gained valuable experience. Congratulate yourself and rest easy, safe in the knowledge that when necessary, you will be able to repeat the process again.
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