J.Christie wrote:Now I'm into ICT, but not knowing how to build a PC isn't a good thing.
I was hoping that one or some of you could help or tell me what the basics procedures into building a PC (i.e. What do you need, where does it go etc.)
Thanks
At a very basic level, it's quite hard to get the various bits in the wrong places.
In all honesty, there's only one place the motherboard can go. Typical downfall is not putting the metal standoffs in the right place beforehand; they can and often do kill the board.
The optical drive (CD/DVD) usually goes at the very top in the bay and sticks out the front. A second drive can go two down from it, case pending.
Floppy disks usually go in the smaller bay about halfway down and again sticks out the front.
Hard Drives usually go about halfway up from the bottom in the same bays as the floppy and have no need to be accessed from the front of the case.
Everything else plugs into the motherboard. Graphics normally into the grey rectangle halfway up (AGP), though the trend is that these are on the way out and newer boards have PCI Express, which is separate.
Expansion cards (sound, modems, firewire, TV cards, LAN, Wireless, etc) go in the white slots (PCI). Add extra functionality, this is where it'll go, in one of these slots. Most often you only add what you don't have already though it's possible to have multiple LAN ports (onboard and a separate one) on your computer if you really want.
There's also a long black rectangle which you'll see on older boards called ISA.
This has long been phased out.
On the board itself is usually obvious where everything goes if you refer to the manual. Front panel connectors and lights just don't work if they're not wired up correctly, nothing damaging. Same with front USB and front firewire. Front panel audio wired up wrongly disables all sound.
Hope this helps. Do ask again if you want more clarification/help.
