How to build your first computer - The easy way!!

You will get that sense of "I did it myself", a good achievement. Once again, SAVE MONEY, I can't emphasize this point enough, and you can make it any way you want, not everyone will have the same computer or parts. An original work of art.

Building a computer isn't as hard as it sounds. At first look, everything seems hard. This guide should help you along your way to building your first personal computer.

First off, make sure you have all the parts to do the job. I don't know how many times when I started out I forgot ram, or a hard drive, or any other pc component. We Need these to build a pc. Being organized is an important part of all this. So, let's get right into it.

Parts required: Case or Tower, Motherboard, Thermal Compound [required to transfer heat from processor to heatsink fan], Processor, Heatsink fan, Memory or Ram, Hard drive, Video card, Sound card Cd drive, Modem, Mouse, Keyboard, ATA/Sata ribbons for hard drives and cd drives, Monitor and OS - whatever version of Windows you choose.

Gather all components required to build the computer. Open everything and lay it down on a hardwood table. Carpet or cloth may generate static, causing a shock [as seen in the illustration] and kiss that 150 dollar ram or hard drive bye.

Start with the tower or case. Lay it down with the side off. Grab the Motherboard, we need to start with this as everything connects to this. The motherboard screws down to the case via 7 or so small screws. Be careful and line the motherboard up with the screw holes in the case, screw it down.

So far so good, hopefully. Grab the processor and the heatsink now. Carefully place the processor in the slot on the motherboard. There will be a small lever to push down and lock the processor in place. Get your thermal compound out and put a small dab on the top of the processor. Spread this around evenly across the top. Now gently line up the heatsink with the connections on the motherboard and put it down. Try not to slide it around on your thermal compound. One shot, line it up and push down. If all is good, lock it in place.

Next we will take the cd drive or drives, there should be a plastic piece covering the bays that the cd drives go in. Remove them and insert your cd drives. On the sides of them, after inserted, should be two small holes per side. Line up the drives with the holes and screw them in fairly tight so no vibration occurs from the drive spinning.

Now we can put our hard drive(s) in. There should be a few slots, depending on what type of tower you have, slide the drive in , line up the holes, and screw it in. The holes are in the sides.

On to our cards. Get your sound, video, and network card, also any other cards you have out now. Look at the motherboard and find the slot type that fits the cards you have. Put all cards in and screw them in the end at the case.

Almost done now. The ata/sata ribbons you have will be next. Depending on what type of hard drive you have, connect your ribbons to the hard drive, then connect the other end to the spot on the motherboard that says IDE 1 or 2, possibly hard drive depending on motherboard. Get the other ribbon and connect it to the cd rom drive, connect the other end to the unused IDE.

Now take the ram or memory that you have and slide it into the slot(s) on the motherboard, there should be 2 and this is the only place they fit. Once you push them in the sides should clip right in. All done with the building.

Close up your tower by putting the side back on and screw it in place. Now plug in your keyboard and mouse, and monitor.

Get out your Windows disc, whatever version you picked and start up your pc for the first time. Open the cd tray and place the disc in. It is possible that it will auto-boot the Windows disc. If so move on. If it didn't boot the Windows disc, reboot your computer. After it restarts, press the key specified by your motherboard manufacturer to get into the bios. It should be f5 or f1, but read your motherboard manual to find out. Once in the bios, find your boot options in one of the menus and make sure your cd or dvd drive is number one in the list. Then save changes and exit.