CAVEAT: The information provided herein is most likely exactly correct, HOWEVER use it at your own risk: we assume no risk or liability. Do your own evaluation and make your own choices.
Once the parts have been received from the warehouse, they must be assembled to form a usable computer system. This is similar to any other assembly task, simpler than assembling IKEA furniture, but you must insure you are not harboring static electricity, which can damage or destroy the electronic parts.
Protecting from static electricity is referred to as anti-static protection, and includes anything which guarantees you are not holding an electrical charge on your body (think, walking across the library carpet in the dead of winter, and you draw a long and painful electrical arc when you touch a door knob). There are anti-static mats for desktops (roughly $20 
) but common sense is usually adequate: work on a bare floor, not a thick shag carpet, touch a metal sink faucet occasionally while working to bleed off any charge that has built up on your body as you move around, and so forth. If you were assembling these regularly it would be worth your trouble to just buy an anti-static mat and wrist strap, but for a few units once every 12 years it’s not worth it. Just be sure to touch grounded metal often so no charge builds up on you while you are handling sensitive parts such as the main board, the CPU chip, and the RAM Memory. Once installed onto the main board these delicate parts are less likely to get shocked.
The simplest order is to open the case first, then put the main board on the case, insert the CPU and RAM on to the main board, connect the front panel wiring to the main board, fit the shield that came with the main board into its rectangular hole in the back of the case, then fit the main board down into the case up against the shield and screw it to the case.
Case
Unpack the case, and place the main part of the case on the counter by the sink, sides removed, bottom side down, front of the case to your right with the wires that go to the front inside the case at your right. When I say “bottom” here I mean the part inside the case where the main board will eventually be mounted with screws. The easiest way to get the case out of the box is to open the flaps on one end, turn the open end DOWN against the floor with the flaps out of the way, then pull the cardboard box up and off of the contents. It’s messy but easy.
Main Board
Open the main board box and touch the metal sink to bleed any charge off your body. Rest the main board still inside its anti-static bag on the bottom right corner of the case, open the end of the anti-static bag, touch the sink again, slide the main board out of the bag and balance it on top of its anti-static bag, resting on the near corner of the case. It should not be inside the case yet, but resting on the corner, overlapping the bottom and front of the case, but firm so that you can insert parts without the main board flopping around when you press on it.
On the main board is a large socket where the CPU chip will be installed. Along one side of the socket will be a lever – gently unhook that lever from the edge of the socket and rotate it up to open up the socket. Leave the socket open so you can insert the CPU chip.
The socket is square – it has four corners. ONE corner has a mark on it that makes it look different from the other three, usually a small triangle. This is “pin 1”. Note which corner is “pin 1”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_socket. If you are using an AMD CPU with the AM4 socket it will look like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_AM4.
CPU Microcircuit
Open the box with the CPU and cooler, set the cooler aside, and before you open the plastic containing the actual CPU chip, touch the sink again. Open the plastic that is holding the CPU chip and gently but firmly grab the CPU on its edges (not its pins or pads!). If the CPU has pins then look at the bottom of the CPU chip to see that all the pins are still exactly straight, none of them bent at all. One bent pin will become MORE bent when you try to socket the chip. Fix it before you try to put the CPU into the main board!
If a pin is slightly bent you might be able to save it by slipping a mechanical pencil (with the lead retracted) over the bent pin so that the bent pin is inside the opening in the pencil where the lead comes out. GENTLY move the mechanical pencil to straighten the pin. If pins are too badly bent they’ll usually break off and then your CPU is unusable. This is a strong argument for CPU design that uses “landing pads” instead of pins.
I tend to hold one hand on the sink at all times while handling the CPU chip. The CPU chip is square: it has four corners. ONE of those corners will have a mark, usually a white or gold triangle or dot, that makes it look different from the other three corners. That is “pin 1”.
Hold the CPU chip about 1/4″ above the CPU socket so both of the “pin 1” corners are aligned, then gently let the CPU chip settle down into its socket. There should be no difficulty and never press hard on the CPU to push it into the socket. If the CPU does not easily drop down into the socket a pin is misaligned – look at the “pin 1” marks on the chip and the socket to be sure they are together, then lift the CPU chip slightly and release it again. The CPU must drop down into the socket and be flat against the socket to work. When the CPU is flush against the CPU socket, then rotate the locking lever back down and let it clip into place.
Time for some alcohol and fans
Swab off the top of the (now installed) CPU chip with alcohol to clean away any grease or grim. If the cooler that came with the CPU has (it should) a little white or gray square of greasy stuff on the bottom of the cooler, it is “thermal compound”. If there is no thermal compound on the bottom of the heat sink, then clean the bottom of the cooler with alcohol and apply a SMALL amount of thermal compound to the TOP of the CPU or bottom of the heat sink and spread it to completely cover with your finger. Less is more – a tiny bit that just covers the entire top of the CPU will help move heat away from the CPU chip into the cooler but too much thermal compound will trap heat in the CPU chip.
Now place the cooler onto the top of the CPU, move it back and forth a bit to smear around the thermal compound (like a hen settling down onto her clutch of eggs in her nest), and secure the heat sink (cooler) to the CPU socket. There are many different ways this is done, depending on the CPU socket, so just figure it out.
On the cooler there is a fan, and a wire comes out of the fan. Plug that wire into the (three or four pin) connector marked “CPU Fan” on the main board. There is a clip on one connector and a ridge on the other – you’ll recognize them when you see them.
Install the RAM Memory DIMMs
Once the CPU is installed, install the RAM Memory DIMMS. There are either two or four DIMM sockets for the RAM Memory. Find the ones marked DIMM1-2 for the first two Memory DIMMS. More DIMMs later will going into the DIMM3-4. They might be labeled DIMM0-1 and DIMM2-3.
Frequently the sockets for DIMM1-2 are a different color than the sockets for DIMM3-4. If there are only two DIMM sockets it’s a non-issue now but you will have to replace rather than add to memory when you upgrade in the future.
Push the retaining tabs out to the side to open the sockets. If you get the RAM into the DIMM3-4 slots you won’t break anything but it may not work either – just push the retaining tabs out again so the DIMMs pop up and move them to the correct sockets.
There is a slot in the bottom edge of the DIMM that slides into the DIMM socket. This slot is in slightly different places depending upon the type of the DIMM (type DDR4, DDR3, DDR2 or whatever) to prevent accidentally installing the wrong kind. The slot MUST exactly fit over a tiny ridge inside the DIMM socket – look at the socket, then the DIMM, and turn the DIMM so it properly lines up with the socket, THEN firmly press it down into the socket so that the retaining clips on the sides of the socket click up into the locked position.
Connect the Front Panel wiring
Now pick up the main board together with the anti-static bag upon which it has been sitting, and move them together enough that you can bring the wires from the front panel up to the connectors where they belong on the main board. You might need to look in the book that came with the main board to find the place.
Each connector from the front panel is labeled to show where it should be connected to the main board. Modern main boards have (somewhat more cryptic) matching markings. Simply plug the front panel connectors onto the appropriate pins sticking out of the main board.
Power to the PC
Before you install the main board to the bottom of the case, first install the power supply. It is easier this way. The power supply fits into a rectangular hole in the back and is secured to the case by four screws. The power wires coming out of the supply are usually against the back piece, the part to which the main board will be secured using small screws, provided in a little plastic bag with the supply. If the case is designed so that the power supply will be in the bottom there may be a cut out in the case bottom intended to be aligned with the cooling fan on the bottom of the power supply case. Move the power supply wires up out of the way and you are ready to install the main board to the case.
Install the Main Board
Now install the thin rectangular metal “shield” (not the same as the Marvel Comics S.H.I.E.L.D. property) to the rectangular cut out on the back of the case. Pay attention to where the holes are in the shield and what they are supposed to match up with on the back of the main board. It is easy to get the cutout in backwards. The shield just snaps onto the cutout hole FROM THE INSIDE of the case, and if you get it in upside down poke it back out and snap it in right side up. The holes in the shield must match the connectors on the back of the main board so you can plug in your network, speakers, and such. Wikipedia has some good information to help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX.
If there are not already screw posts installed to the bottom of the case then find the little bag of screws and things which came with the case, and install posts in each of the holes that match holes in the main board. Do NOT put a post anywhere that there is not a hole in the main board or the main board could be damaged by the back of the main board shorting to the case through the extra post. Look at the placement of holes on the main board, and the holes on the bottom of the case. Install posts appropriately, one post in each case bottom hole corresponding to a hole in the main board: no more, no less – one each.
Center the main board over the posts, and verify each hole has one post and there are no extra posts. Try not to use the CPU cooler as a handle – it can break.
Slide the main board slightly into the shield, aligning main board connectors with the holes in the shield, and press back into the shield so that the holes in the main board are aligned over the posts in the case. Put a screw into one of the holes and turn it in a bit but not tight. Put another screw in cattie-corner to help better hold the main board.
After you get two or three screws in then you will not need to hold onto the main board to keep it from springing away from the shield. The little metal fingers coming off the back of the shield are for electrical grounding to connectors on the back of the main board. Put in the rest of the screws, gently tighten them all, and look it over to be sure everything is neatly aligned.
If there is a fan mounted to the case (top, front, or where ever) connect its power cord to the main board connector marked “System”. It is similar to the power connector for the CPU cooler.
Open the video card box and install the video card to one PCI slot. Read the book that came with the video card to see any details. If the video card needs a separate power cable connect it now. I normally install the video card to the first long PCI slot, the one nearest the middle of the main board.
Connect Power to the Main Board
Two cables coming from the power supply must go to the main board: the long connector and the small CPU power connector. The 24-pin connector goes to the 24-pin connector on the front side of the main board. There is a clip on the power supply connector that clicks over a bump on the main board connector to hold it in place. There is a 4 or 8 pin connector near the CPU socket. Connect the 4 or 8 pin connector(s) to this so that the CPU has power.
At this point, the computer will power up and go through P.O.S.T. (Power On Self Test), but not boot up, as a fixed disk or SSD and software is not yet installed. Connect a power cord to the power supply, if there is a power switch on the supply turn it to “on”, and press the power button on the front panel.
You should observe the fan on the CPU cooler start, the fan on the power supply start, and eventually hear a beep from the speaker. Turn off the power supply and remove the power cord. If it does not start up then turn it off immediately and find out why. Often a connector is not firmly seated.
Install other devices
Install any SSD or DVDs to the slots at the front of the case and connect them to the main board. Look in the book that came with the main board and SSD or DVD to find the proper locations. I like to connect the SSD to SATA0 and the DVD to the last SATA port (usually SATA3 or SATA6).
C’est Fin
It is actually assembled. Put the sides on the case and connect the video monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Remember to connect the monitor to the PCI video card HDMI connector, not the main board HDMI connector or you won’t see video. Connect the power cord, turn it on and watch the computer P.O.S.T. to be sure everything is working.
The next post will discuss installing the operating system and some configuring to keep your PC running. After that I will share scripts and software that I use to make the computers take care of themselves, display the most current available weather, and other niceties.
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