Building a Simple Computer

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Building a personal computer all comes down to personal preference; hence why it is called a personal computer in the first place right? Instead of using this instructable to analyze what kind of specifications each person needs to run a computer for themselves, It’s built around as more of a guideline to point you towards a direction for building your own personal computer; and exactly what key parts you need to do so with. Now with every computer, you need some key parts;

·A Computer Case

·Power Supply

·Memory

·Hard Drive

·Motherboard

·Processor with Heatsink (so the chip won’t overheat.)

·A Graphics card (On-board or a separate card)

·DVD/CD-ROM Drive

·Operating system software (in this case Microsoft’s Windows 7 32-bit Software)

Keeping in mind in this computer build will be running Windows 7, the parts used here are more than sufficient to run the operating system. Windows 7 requires;

·One Gigahertz (GHz) Processor

·One Gigabyte (GB) Ram (32-bit software) or two GB RAM (64-bit software)

·16 GB available hard drive space for 32-bit software or 20 GB for 64-bit software

·DirectX 9 Graphics device with WDDM 1.0 Higher driver.

Now before going on with each additional step and watching the video tutorials, I have included diagrams of each individual part being used in this particular build. Doing this will give you a little more insight on what is going on in the videos and hopefully give you a little more understanding on how everything on a computer works together. The Video’s are broken down into steps, and I have included what parts each step will require to complete the tasks.

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Parts and Tools for each Step

(Note: all screws came with the case and Motherboard)

A.Part One; The Motherboard

i.Tools needed

-Phillips Screwdriver

ii.Parts needed

-The Case, 6x Grounding Screws, 6x Motherboard Screws, Motherboard with Panel.

B.Part Two; Processor and Heatsink

i.Tools needed

-Flathead Screwdriver

ii.Parts needed

-Processor, Thermal paste (located on the heatsink in this case) and the Heatsink.

C.Part Three; Memory and Graphics Card.

i.Tools needed

-Phillips Screwdriver

ii.Parts needed

-1x Board Screw, 4x DIMM System Memory, Graphics card

D.Part Four; Case to Board

i.Tools needed

-None

ii.Parts needed

-Connectors from the case

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A.Part Five; Installing Bay Components

i.Tools needed

-Phillips Screwdriver

ii.Parts needed

-DVD/CD-ROM Drive, Hard Drive, Hard drive Bay Connector, Power Supply, 4X Board Screws.

B.Part Six; Power Hookup

i.Tools needed

-None

ii.Parts needed

-From the power supply; 24-Pin ATX power connector, 8-Pin Processor connector, PCI-E 4-Pin connector, Molex connector for DVD/CD-ROM Drive, SATA power connector for Hard drive

C.Part Seven; Connecting drives

i.Tools needed

-None

ii.Parts needed

-SATA Cord, IDE Cord

D.Part Eight; Finishing Build

i.Tools needed

-None

ii.Parts needed

-Molex connectors from power supply to case fans.

E.Part Nine, Windows Installation

i.Tools needed

-None

ii.Parts needed

-Power cord, Monitor with DVI Cable, PS/2 Keyboard, USB Mouse, Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System Software.