Assembling My Home Office PC

2

So this week, the real works begin. I start assembling this Home Office PC. It’s a fun job, one that I’ve done several times and don’t quite seem to get sick of. The way I see it, it’s a little like assembling IKEA furniture, except there aren’t any snazzy instructions. That’s what this series of articles is supposed to be. Without the snazzy, I guess.

I even made a little video for you guys, but I’m not sure just where my editor is going to embed it. Is it at the top? The bottom? Not sure, but YouTube videos are pretty easy to spot.

That’s me in my apartment giving you a 3 minute primer on what I’ll be doing. It includes getting rid of all my static electricity, securing the motherboard, changing the I/O panel, attaching the front panel wires, connecting the relevant power supply cables and installing the RAM.

Not so much text this time around as there are plenty of pictures to tell the tale. Only know the following: there’s no set way to assemble a PC. Just don’t have static electricity on you, stay organized, and try to install things in an order that makes some sense and won’t get in the way of everything.

Here you see the Power Up case opened, with cables from the front panel visible. These will have to be connected to the appropriate spots on the motherboard.

That’s the XFX GeForce 8200 motherboard. Notice the static bag. That helps in trying to prevent the chips from frying from static electricity.

Here’s the side panel of the case, with the cone-shaped air vent meant to cool the CPU.

Here’s another angle on that case.

And another.

Here’s a shot of that motherboard outside the static bag.

So, I’m moving forward with the installation. Here you see the back of the case, with the I/O panel removed. I’ll be inserting the XFX panel shortly.

To affix the motherboard to the case, you first have to screw in these support pegs.

That’s another shot of that peg.

Here you see a support peg, a washer and the screw that will secure the motherboard. First insert the pegs, put motherboard on top, and then screw securely in place.

That’s the board screwed into the case.

PC internal speaker goes there.

USB cable, will go into USB headers on the board.

Like this.

Same story for the font panel audio (headphone and mic jacks).

There’s the USB, internal speaker, Power LEDs, HDD LEDs, Reset switch and Power button all plugged into the board.

That’s 4GB of RAM.

Notice that notch towards the middle? Align that with the notch in the DIMM slots on the board, and you’ll have inserted your RAM correctly.

That’s the RAM in place.

Finally, that’s the ATX main power supply cable, that will be inserted into the board (slot visible in black just beneath it).

So, that’s it for now. I’ve screwed the motherboard in, replaced the I/O panel, plugged in all the front panel cables, installed the RAM and plugged in the ATX power supply cable.