Setting Up The System - Building A Computer

 

The first thing that we did was to check for safety. We had to be careful with sharp objects and to know that to get rid of a static charge in myself, we had to touch metal that is not attached to something like rubber, the inside of the computer would work well.

 

Then we had to check to make sure that we had all of the computer components to install into the computer to build it. Below this is some pictures of computer components that we later installed.



 Optical/DVD drive

 Hard drive

 RAM

 Graphics card

 Fan (CPU Cooler)

 The motherboard

 The empty computer case

We decided that the first thing that we would install into the empty computer case would be the fan. This was very fiddly and annoying to do as there wasn't enough room in the holes to fit your fingers so we could hold the small screws in place. Also we needed a really small screwdriver for the small screws and it took a while to screw them in once we had the screws in place. Eventually we managed to screw all 4 screws in and the fan was in place.

After that we had to install the motherboard. We had to line it up to fit into the computer and then screw it in with the green screw to secure it in.

 Next we inserted the graphics card. To insert the graphics card we had to slot it in it's place. This involved raising a small metal bar and then lining it up with the holes in the motherboard. After that we push down on both sides of te graphics card but not too hard and we it clicked into the right place we flicked the small metal bar back so that it stayed in place.

 We also inserted the RAM which involved finding the right way to push it in, being only one way due to a little hole which shows you which way to insert it. We gently pushed down on it and it clicked into place.

 After that we inserted the hard drive which you have to do carefully as the hard drive is fragile. There is an obvious place to put in the hard drive as it is in the shape and size of the hard drive. All we had to do was make sure it was going in the right way, slot it into place and slide it in and then just check that you have done it right - with the side with the port on it facing inwards.

The next thing that needed installing was the Power Supply Unit. This sat just behind the hard drive and just slotted into place.

Now we could plug all of the wires into wherever they needed to go. It was easy to see which cables connected which drive to which just by comparing the size of the cable's insert point to the places that looked like they needed something inserting to and to make sure that all of the wires were connected to something in the right place.

Then we put in the optical/ DVD drive. For this we had to make sure that the front of the drive was facing downwards, the pins line up to the slots and then lock the drive in there.

Next we had to slot in the fan cowl. This was easy as we just needed to slot it in behind the main fan so that it could deflect the air flow to the right places. Now we had to put the PSU and optical drive down in place before we put the case on.

Finally we plugged in the computer and connected the monitor and the keyboard to it to check that it worked and functioned correctly and then we had completed the task of building a computer.