Building your PC:
Installing internal cards and case cables

The case I'm using for this build has front panel audio inputs. These have to be attached to the rear of the motherboard in a place indicated by the red box to the left. This lies between the AGP slot where the graphics card will go (right-hand arrow) and the ISA slot where my modem card will go (arrow to the left). Because of the location it will be essentially inpossible to get to the audio connectors if both the graphics card and the modem ar in place. As a result I have a little bit of a problem; and this is where some forethought comes in.

Connection points for the other case cables are located near the bottom left hand corner of the motherboard and thus are far away from the problem areas and need not be considered until later. Looking at what I need to do I think the easiest way to proceed is to install the graphics card first, then the audio cables and then the modem card.

With this plan in mind, I could proceed with the installation.

All add-on cards (such as the graphics cards) bring new functionality and connectivity to your PC. As a result they need to communicate with the outside world. To achieve this the communication ports of the cards project through specially-designed ports at the back of the case; ports that are shown in the image to the left. These ports also have screw holes in them that allow the expansion cards to be affixed firmly into place, as will be demonstrated below.

The image on the left shows the MSI GeForce FX5200 graphics card that I've chosen for this particular build. The card is an 8x AGP card that fits into the AGP slot on the motherboard. Notice the tang on the base of the card to the right. This is used to securely hold the card in place and is an important part of the card's design. You should also just be able to make out the ports on the front face of the card. It is these that project through the back of the case, with the metal bracket being used to support and affix the card to the case.

The image to the left shows the AGP slot (top). Note the tilt lever on the right hand side of the slot. This attaches to the tang on the graphics card and you should make certain that it's set in the downwards position. Inserting the card will eventually push this switch up and lock it into place. Note also that the slot is assymetric so it's only possible ot insert the card one way (though the way to insert the card should be obvious because of the case's rear ports!).

Inserting the card into the slot is simply a case of aligning the card with the rear slot and easing it into the AGP socket. The bottom image on the left shows the card in position, but not yet secured. Once this is done, simply push down on both sides of the card and it should easily click into place.

The image on the left shows the graphics card inserted into the motherboard. You should be able to see that the metal bracket of the card sits flush against the back of the case with the connection points on the card projecting from the back of the case. By this point the card should be sitting securely in its slot and the next stage is to affix it in place.

Once the card is seated securely in its socket the next stage is to affix it it properly to the case. This is done with a screw (which is usually the same size and shape as the screws that affix the case's side panels to the case body). Simply align the hole or notch in the card bracket with the hole in the card hole at the back of the case and then screw this into place. The screw shold go in easily. If it doesn't then your card is probably mis-aligned. Once the screw goes fully home then your graphics card is securely attached.

With this done, you have now securely attached your graphics card to your motherboard.

As already mentioned above, because of the relative positions of the sound headers, the AGP slot and the IDE slot, after installig the graphics card the next task is to insert the cables from the front of the case that attach to the audio connectors.

The image on the left shows the front pannel conectors of the case. As you can see there's an audio out jack for headphones or speakers, an audio in jack for a microphone and two USB connectors for easy access to removable devices such as cameras.

This means that there are two audio cables to attach to the audio headers on the motherboard.

The image on the left shows a schematic of the pin configuratinon for the external audio header (top left) as well as the way the pins actually look on the motherboard (bottom left) and it also shows the two audio cables to connect the stereo output jack and the microphone input jack.

You can see from the schematic that the connection pins for the microphone input are all clustered on the top of the audio header (these correspond to the lower of the two cables above. As a result it's easiest to attach these first and then to attach the audio output (speaker) cables.

The leftmost image here shows the microphone input cable attached to the motherboard. This only leaves the audio output cable to be attached. On this the long flyleads to the Left and Right channel backout leads. The image to the right shows the audio header with both cables attached. This completes the installation of the external audio connectors.

As previously discussed, the IDE headers on the motherboard (white above, left) lie to the very left of the AGP card into which the graphics card has already been inserted. You can see the modem card to the left. It's really only included here as it was a card that I already had and it's easier to insert now whilst I'm putting the entire machine together rather than having to tackle it again later. As you can see, the IDE header on the motherboard is assymetric so that it's only possible to insert the card one way.

Though, as with the AGP card it should be obvious which way the card fits as the metal plate on the back of the card must fit against the back of the case so that the telephone sockets are available at the back of the computer.

The use of a modem card may well be more than a little dated these days. However, it can sometimes be very useful in an emergency and it also demonstrates how to insert an IDE card (which are still fairly common peripheral card types).

Inserting the card is a question of fitting the metal plate against the back of the case and seating the card loosely on top of the IDE header.

If seated correctly then inserting the card should be a relatively simple matter of pushing down on top of the card so that it drops firmly down into the slot of the IDE header. Once the card is seated properly, then attaching it to the case is just a matter of inserting a retaining screw and securing it firmly in place.

In the image to the left you can see how the cables for the case sound sockets go under the modem card, which was one of the reasons for the assembly sequence chosen above.

With the IDE card in place, all the internal components of the PC build have now been installed and we can return to the remaining connections from the case.

The image on the left shows the remaining motherbaord headers (boxed in red). On the left lies the main motherboard header whilst on the right is the blue header for the front panel USB sockets. First I'll attach the USB cables (mostly as these are easier).

The image to the left may be a little busy, but in concept it's fairly simple. The image to the bottom left shows the USB headers on the motherboard and the image top left shows a schematic of these connectors indicating what each pin does. Basically the top row is for one USB connectoin and the bottom row is for another. The image top right shows one of the two USB connectors that connect to the front of the case. You will see that each of the little plugs is labelled with GROUND (corresponding to GND on the pin diagram), VCC (corresponding to USB_PWR on the diagram), and +D and -D, respectively (corresponding to P+6 and P-6 on the diagram). Fixing the cables is simply a matter of attaching the correct cables in the correct sequence. With a little care and attention this is actually fairly simple to achieve and when done correctly you will have the cables for both USB connections attached correctly as in the image on the bottom right.

With the USB cables connected we now only have the system panel headers to attach.

The final stage of attaching the various case cables is to attach the standard front panel connectors to the motherboard. These are the connectors for the case's power switch, its reset switch, the case's power LED and the LED which shows that the hard drive is being accessed. Depending on your case you may also have a system speaker cable (though this was not present on my system). The image top left shows how the cables attach to the pins on the motherboard and the motherboard header itself is shown bottom left. The cables and connectors that need to be attached are shown top right. For my case the white cable on each connector represented the negative lead (marked - on the schematic). Once I'd identified the cables it was a fairly simple process to match the cable to the description of it on the schematic (such as POWER SW matching to PWRBTN#) and then to plug it into the motherboard in the appropriate position so that I attained the image on the bottom right. I tend to work from the left hand edge of the header to the right as it's then easier to see what's going on and more difficult to make an error as a result.