How to Assemble a PC? (Lesson No 2)

 15 January 2022

In lesson 1,  we listed and showed the various components to be used to assemble a PC.  If we have already in our hands all the required components,  we can start assembling them together.    Lesson 2 will show how we could do that.  

The PC Casing

The casing is usually made of metal.   It has side panels that can be opened to fix the components such as motherboard, hard disk and other peripheral cards such as video cards etc.  It has also a casing fan for additional cooling.  There are also a bunch of wires for connection to the front panel control switches such as the on/off and reset switches, etc.  Here are the pictures of where are these wires and where one can install what PC components

a)  The Casing

Front and Back

Inside

Step By Step

1.  Installing Power Supply

The power supply has 4 screws for mounting to the casing.  It has 5 bunches of wires for various components as shown in the picture.  They must be connected to the respective sockets of the components.  The connectors are usually "keyed" such that there should be no wrong connection problem to be expected.

The close up view of the 5 types of power supply connection is as shown

2)  Installing the CPU 

If the motherboard has not been installed,  it will be much easier to install the CPU when the motherboard is outside the casing

Here is a good video on how the CPU could be fixed onto the Motherboard.   Note that there is always a dummy CPU or some sort of protection to prevent accidentally damage of the very delicate and flimsy pins located inside the CPU socket.  Any bent pins in the CPU socket will make the motherboard unusable. 

3)  Installing the motherboard

The motherboard usually have about 6 to 7 screw holes for mounting to the casing,  some of which has been marked in this motherboard.  The picture shown below has been labelled to show where the various PC components should be installed.  It would be good to check the manufacturer's manual to find out how to install the motherboard as different motherboards might have different installation requirements. 

To be continue