Building your PC:
Installing Fans and Configuring

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.

The auxilliary case fan I'm going to use is a 9cm aluminium fan. The metal construction means that the fan asembly makes good thermal contact with the case. I'm also using this as a blower fan to suck colder air from the outside across the surface of the drives. As you can see the fan comes with fixing screws that unite the fan with the case. The fan also comes with a power coupler that allows it to be plugged into the main power loom of the case's power supply.

This fan will actually drive a fairly large volume of air across the hard drives which will significantly aid in their cooling and will increase their lifespans. The fan itself is also held by a number of free-rotating bearings which should mean that this fan is comparatively quiet in use.

The front panel of the PC is simply a plastic fascia attached by six split clips. These clips compress to allow them passage through their retaining holes then expand to hold the front panel itself in place (one of these is shown on the left). With the pop panels compressed and the fascia removed the plates for holding the fan in place are thereby revealed. On all four corners of the fan plates you can make out screw holes. The fan should fit exactly over these and the screw holes on the fan's outer rim (above) should fit precisely over these.

The fan simply fits over the fan plate and the screws fit through the case from the inner side to hold the fan in place. With the screws tightened the fan sits firmly against the inner surface of the case (as in the image on the left).

With the fan secured in place, the next stage is to attach the power. As shown in the image above the fan comes supplied with a female power coupler that can be attached to a standard power connector from the case's power supply.

In fact there is a hole in the case just below and to the left of where the fan lies.

This hole is shown in the inset image to the left and it is through this that the power cable for the fan should be threaded. Once this is done you will have something that looks like the main image to the left.

In this image the exposed cabling represents the cables for the front panel connectors as well as the front panel switch cables. As you lift the front panel fascia to put it back in case make sure that you carefully thread these cabels back into the main body of the case (ensure that they are not damaged and pinched as you do this. Now lift the fascia into place, align the compression connectors with their locking holes and push the front fascia back into palce.

The fan has now been installed and all that remains is to connect it to the power supply.

As shown in the image to the left, attaching the front fan to the power is simply a matter of marrying a free power connector from the power loom to the power plug on the fan's power lead.

With this done, the ancillary fan is now attached and connected and should work as soon as the power to the case is turned on.

With everything now installed into the computer it's time to attach the side panels of the case once again. For my case the side panels themselves bear a series of six tangs on the top and bottom (botom image, left). These slip into slots in the main body of the case (left, top) and aid in locking the side panel securely in place.

Attaching the side panel is a case of matching the tangs with their corresponding retaining holes before sliding the entire panel into palce. If done correctly, the panel will fit snugly against the main body of the case.

Once the side pannel has been pushed securely home it's now possible to fix it securely in place. This is usually done by means of retaining screws which generally have a series of radiating strations incised into them so that they grip the case securely (see inset image below).

Fixing the side panel in place is now simply a case of using the approprate screws to secure the panel to the back of the main carcase of the case. For my case three of these screws were needed and once inserted the panel was secured. The right-hand panel was easy to affic, but the left-hand panel was a little more complicated as it had a built-in fan that needed to be connected to a power supply.

The integral fan is directly attached to the left hand side panel and protected from outside by a wire mesh screen (left). Attached to the fan is a power connector that simply plugs into the main wire loom of the case (above, righ) and which also has a flying lead emerging from it so that it can be used to power another peripheral.

Once the power to the case fan has been attached then the side panel itself can be attached to the case. This is done in precisely the same way as for the right-hand panel, though in this case it must be ensured that all cables are securely within the main body of the case before attaching the panel.

With both side panels in place the assembly phase of building the PC is now done and you should end up with something looking like the image shown here on the left. With the case entirely closed and the external drives visible on the front fascia.

As far as the hardware goes your machine is now complete. You can move the case from your build area to the location where it's to be permanently installed. At this point make sure that the main power switch on the case is turned off then attach the keyboard and mouse to the back of the case (mine were both USB devices). Attach speakers if desired, then attach your monitor to the graphics card.

Make sure that your monitor is turned on, then attach the power cable to the back of your case. If all is well you can now turn on the main switch at the back of the case and nothing should happen. If the computer turns itself on, switch it off imediately at the main power switch. What's happened is that you've incorrectly attached the power switch cables to the motherboard. Simply disconnect from the mains, open the case and swap the power on cables round.

All being well, you can now turn on the power again (and with any luck nothing should happen!). Push in the main power switch and the computer should whirr into life. Your main (usually green) power LED should light up. Now is also the time to test your reset switch. Push thisin and make certain that the machine restarts. If it does then you've connected the front panel switches correctly. If not turn off the power again, open the case and check the reset switch connector.

Again, if all is well, you can move to the next stage of installation: setting the appropriate values in the BIOS.

As the computer starts up you will see a splash-screen something like the one shown here on the left. This is generally called the POST (Power On Self Test). At the bottom of the screen you will see a message like Press DEL to enter SETUP this is what leads you to the BIOS setup application, which is the next thing you need to do. Simply press the key as soon as this message appears.

The next series of screens will vary depending on your particular version of the BIOS, though the options are boradly similar and this is where you configure the time and date of the machine as well as setting the various variables for the peripherals.

As you enter the BIOS setup utility you will see a main screen, one that is very similar to that shown on the left. The fist thing you will have to do on this screen is to change the System Time and System Date to the correct value. The remaining information should only be there for information and should tell you about the installed CPU and installed memory. However, you can use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move along the tabs on the top of the BIOS screen and you may have to check some of the details presented on these screens.

Next is the 'Advanced' tab (as on the left). This offers several options for changing the CPU configuration, chipset configuration etc. Most of these are set correctly by default. However, as I have both IDE and SATA drives in my PC the first of these that I need to change is the IDE configuration. It's posible to navigate through the options using the up and down arrow keys and using to select the settings to change.

On the screen shown to the left I need to set the SATA1 drive as my primary drive and the primary IDE master drive as my second (slave) hard drive. My DVD drive bein my secondary IDE master drive on a separate IDE channel. Once the settings are changed appropriately which is done using the up and down arrow keys to select the option to change and the and keys to change the options it's possible to move to the next screen that needs changing.

Most of the remaining options were correct, though I did need to change some of the USB options to enable the USB controller and to enable USB 2.0 support for external hard drives and cameras. I also discovered that the PC needed the 'Legacy USB' option set to 'Enabled' to provide for the auto-detection of USB keyboards and mice.

The final setting to change was that of the 'Boot Deivce Priority' (as on the left) where I wanted the SATA drive to be my primary boot device, the DVD drive to be my secondary boot divice, the floppy drive to be my tertiary boot device, and if all else failed I wanted my IDE drive to be my quaternary boot device.

With everything set I used F10 to save my new BIOS settings, which returned me to the boot-up sequence for the computer. Of course I couldn't do very much as I hadn't formatted my hard drives as yet. So the next step was to format the hard drives and then to load both Windows and Linux operating systems.