First, it's a good idea to start with all new parts, which I didn't.  I tried to patch a system together, which if your just starting out, you should not do, but hold on a second.  Even new parts, sometimes, do not work.  Let's review some troubleshooting.

A troubleshooting check list  to check to get your system together.
1. Are all the cables connected properly?  Sometimes when you put one cable in, you can knock a previously connected cable out of its socket.  When your done connecting everything, recheck all your cables.
2. Plug all your mouse, monitor and keyboard cables in, and turn on the power to the monitor.
3. Plug the computer power cable in and turn on the switch on the back of the power supply.  Depending on the board, a light will illuminate on the motherboard to indicate you have power to the motherboard.
4. Press your computer start button on the front panel and your computer should start.
5. When your computer comes up you should see the motherboard logo screen on the monitor, if the monitor is blank, you have problems.

Sometimes you will get an error message, like I did.  No disk, or the disk is not recognized or something along those lines.  If its not the cabling, then you have a hardware problem.  Not recognizing a disk, can mean many things,
1. The disk is bad.
2. The disk controller on the motherboard is bad.
3. Some other part of the motherboard is bad.
4. The computer chip is bad.
5. Or simply, you bios software is not configured properly to recognize the disk.

No video, usually means the graphic cars is bad, but that could be the motherboard, or monitor.

Since most memory is tested on start up, memory problems come in the form of programs that don't operate properly, because a part of the memory is faulty.

Another trick you can use is simply to see if a part you suspect is bad, is making noise, or is not cold to the touch when it should be warm.

If you have a problem, all you can do is return the parts one at a time, until you find the problem.   This can be very time consuming.  To do this:
1. You have to call or email support at the manufacturers website.  And trade several emails.
2. Work with their tech support to run tests on your system until they say you should send the board back to them, because all their tests have not worked.
3. Ask for an RMA number (Return Materials Authorization) to mark the package, so they know its your board that is getting sent back.
4. They usually test the board or component on their tester and if its good, the send the same part back to you.
5. You go nuts when this happens, and move to another part that could be bad.

You get the idea.  Then you have the pain of packaging the part for shipping, taking the part to the shipper, paying for the shipping, waiting for a part to return in a return shipment.  Very time consumming and frustrating until you find what is causing  the problem and preventing your computer from running.  It's quite common to send a motherboard back to the manufacturer.  They usually test it and send it right back to you.

Long story short, disks are cheap now, so to short circuit a lot of the above headaches, I just purchased a new motherboard and disk.  That did the trick, and I'm up and running, and have installed Ubuntu on my system.

Ubuntu 9.10 is loaded on my disk, stable, and the computer runs fine.  More on loading Ubuntu and the software in my next post.

Just because you get the system to come up and "Post" does not mean that everything is connected and operating properly.  And that is the case here.

When I started putting this system together, I used parts from previous systems, instead of purchasing all new components, and now it seems I'm paying the price in terms of delays.

First initial troubleshooting, when I went to put in the operating system disk, I uncovered the first problem.  The DVD drive drawer would not open and the drives disk access light was always on.  The drive open button did not work.  If you using newer IDE cables this will not happen. I wasn't, and I got unlucky.  The newer IDE cables have a blocked off pin, so you can visualy see which way to plug in the cable.  The older ones do not.  I had a 50-50 chance of getting it right.  And of course, I put the cable in the wrong way.  Simple solution is to pull out the IDE plug, turn it around and reconnect it.  Problem solved and the DVD drive now works properly.

Next, I put the operating system disk in the drive, started loading, and I got an interupt error which halted the process.  It turns out the SATA disk drive is not recognized.  This may mean, I have a bad motherboard, disk drive, or computer chip.  In no particular order. So I am in the process of troubleshooting the problem or problems.

The ultimate solution is to purchase a new motherboard, chip, and disk drive and make sure I have all new components.

So I beg your patience. I may need to order components, which means shipping and delay.  When I get back to the stage where the operating system loads, because all the hardware works properly.  I will fill you in on how things worked out, and we'll pick up loading the software.  In the meantime, we'll blog on some other topics until we're ready to go again.

Get out the monitor you want to use.  Preferably a monitor you have tested on another computer that you know works.  Attach the video connector to the back of the graphics card.  Plug in the monitor power cord.

Your mouse if its a PS2 connector attaches to the green colored plug and your keyboard attaches to the purple PS2 connector.  If they are USB connectors, just plug both of them into any available USB port.

First, turn on the monitor.  On your computer connect the power cord to the back of the power supply, make sure the switch is on "0", which means "Off."  Connect the power cord to your electrical outlet.

Here we go.  Switch the power switch on your power supply to "1," or "On."  You should see the power light on the motherboard.  All is well.  Turn the power off by using the front case on-off switch.  Hold it in until the system shuts down.  Push the front panel power switch again to turn the system back on.  Your front panel power light should come on as well as your system.

If all of the above works fine, you've tested you case hook ups, and your power supply.  Let the system run for awhile and an image with the motherboards name should appear on the monitor.  This is called "posting."  If it doesn't post initially, try it a couple of more times, before panicing.  Sometimes on a new board it takes a couple of cycles to get everything in sync.  You'll see people complain on forums about not being able to get their system to "post."   What there saying is they don't get an image on their monitor.

Posting

If your system posts, has an image on the monitor, you'll see an instruction to hit a key to enter "set up."  Usually it's either the "delete" key, F1 key, or the F8 key, depending on the manufacturer.  Go ahead and enter set up.  By the way, Congratulations! You did a great job putting your system together.

Set up is a system of menus that configures your bios settings, and where you tell your computer how you would like to configure the computer and let's you set some settings.   You do not have to go into every menu choice, for now, all we want to do is make sure we boot from your DVD drive first and your hard drive second.   This lets you load your operating system from the DVD drive, which is the first thing we'll do when we start the software installation.

In the set up menu, you can look around and make changes if you understand what the choices mean.  They should be explained in your motherboard Users Guide.  The way you change a setting is with the arrow keys on the keyboard, you pick the top menu and hit the return key on the keyboard.  This will open that menu, go to the choice you want to change, and hit a return to see your choices, you change with the arrow keys and the return key.  When you done hit F10 to exit and save your changes.

Use your arrow keys on your keyboard and move to the boot menu page.  This is where you change your boot configuration.   Look for a choice called "Boot Device Priority" or something like that.  Hit the return and you'll see your devices.  Set the DVD to boot first then your hard drive that your going to put the operating system on.  Hit the F10 key.

Bios Setup with Boot Device Priority shown

If you don't post, something is wrong, obviously.  No display means your monitor is not working or your graphics card is not working.  Plug your monitor into another computer to check it out.  No motherboard light can mean either you have a bad motherboard or power supply.  Check your power connector plugs.  You get the idea.

That's it for this post, pun intended.  Congratulations again, on getting the computer to post,  great job.   Put the sides back on your computer case, and let's get ready to load some software on this puppy.   I will pick the rest of the build up under a new category, software installation.  See you there.

When you consider that each DVD drive, your hard drive, maybe your graphics card,  and the motherboard requires power and that power has to arrive at the device needing power via a power cable, then all of a sudden you've got twice as many cables running all over the inside of the case.  But there is a method to the madness, so let's get started.

Power Cables

Unwrap your power supply from its packaging, and take it out of the wrapping material.  If you didn't get a modular power supply you'll see a bunch of cables coming out the back of the power supply.

Modular Power Supply

If you got a modular power supply, you won't see as many cables coming out the back, but you'll still see some.  You'll also see ports on the back for the modular power cables.  I like modular power supplies because it reduces the number of non-useful cables in your computer.  You only use the cables you need.   If you have a modular power supply, make sure the extra cables snap into the power supply ports with a click so it won't come out inadvertently later when using the computer.

Let's install the power supply in the case.  The power supply fits into its own notch in the case.  Fit the power supply into the case so the on-off switch comes out the back of the case, and the power supply fan is pointed toward the open air on the inside of the case.  Do not block the fan by having the fan pointed at the case side.  Also make sure none of your previouse wires are trapped by the power supply.

The power supply is held to the case with four Phillips screws attached from outside the case.  Make the screws tight, but not super tight.  The cables should come out the back of the power supply inside the case.

There should be at least three cables coming out the back.  One is a big wide 24-pin ATX connector that is the main power to your motherboard.  You should easily find where that goes on the motherboard.  It has a latch on the side that matches with a hook on the plug so you put the plug in the correct direction.

There should be at least one 8-pin ATX 12v and one 6-pin PCI express coming out the back of the power supply.  One of these will go into the second power connector on your motherboard.  This may be a 8, 6, or 4-pin socket, and usually the 8-pin power plug can be broken in half to make two fours.  Check your motherboard, or your motherboard diagram to find this connector.

Your graphics card may take a 6-pin power cable.  Some graphics need additional power and some don't.  Look for a power connector plug on the graphics card, if you don't see one, the motherboard will power the card.

Molex Connector

Each drive needs power.  The IDE drives use a 4-pin Molex connector.  The Molex connector is rounded on two edges to match the connector which is also rounded on two corners, so you can't put it in the wrong direction.

SATA Power Connector

The last power connectors you will need is the SATA power connector.  This is a 15-pin slim connector with an L-shaped appendage on the end, like the data cable had, so you can't hook it up the wrong way.  Make sure they're pushed in tight to the disk drive.  You'll need one power connector per drive, one power cable usually has two connectors.

Congratulations!  You've installed all your hardware inside your case.  Before we put the covers on the case we'll will want to test things out, which we'll write about next.

The first is the old version which is called IDE or EIDE, or ATA.  This is a 16 bit wide bus that transfers data from anywhere between 16 Mb per second to 133 Mb per second depending on which version your using.  Each IDE connector on the motherboard can hook to two IDE storage devices, a master and a slave.  Remember when we installed the DVD drives, we put a jumper wire over two of six pins to designate master or slave drive.  IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics, just a little tidbit.

IDE cable

IDE cables look like flat ribbons 2" wide with three connectors attached to the ribbon.  The cable is normally 18" long, but you can get round cables that go up to 36".  Round cables are nice, because they do not get in the way of other cables in the case, are more flexible, and do not redirect or impede air flow.

The three connectors on the IDE cable are spaced two close together and one at the othe end of the ribbon.  The stand-alone connector at the end goes to your motherboard.  The other two cables go to the master and slave drive.  There are 40 holes in the connector consisting of 2 rows of 20 holes.  One of the holes in the middle is blocked to let you know which way to insert the cable into the socket.  So do it.  Put the cable in the motherboard and the other end in your DVD drive.  If you do not have a 2 rows of 20 pins to put the cable into, then you probably have a SATA drive.  Read on.

SATA data cable

Starting in 2007 a new horse rode into town for both power and data cables, called serial ATA, or SATA.  This is gradually replacing all the IDE ribbon cables, as you can get SATA DVD drives now.  SATA cables transfer data anywhere from 1.3 Gb per second (first generation) to 3.0 Gb per second (second generation) to 6.0 Gb per second (thrid generation), with the most common SATA hard disk drives transferring at 3.0 GB per second, at present.  Almost 22 times faster than an IDE cable, you can see why they are replacing the old technology.

SATA cables are much smaller than the IDE cable, although they are a little stiff.  The data connectors have only 7 pins with an L like notch on one end, so the connector will only go into the interface one way.  There is a slightly different SATA power connector which will talk about when we get to power cables.

SATA connector showing notch

Let's hook up the data cables.  There should be one SATA cable per drive to one socket in the motherboard.  Go back to your motherboard diagram and look for your SATA connectors.  They should be labeled SATA1, SATA2, SATA3, etc.  Your main drive, the one with the operating system should be connected to SATA1 and so on.  Go for it.

You should now have the data cables to all your drives attached to your motherboard.  Now that wasn't so bad.  Now all we have to do is get power to the system, something we haven't written about yet and the topic of our next post.

You might be asking why are you hooking up wires when you don't even have the power supply in the case yet.  Well, there's a method to my madness.   These wires are difficult to get in place, I like to put them in before any other wires get in the way to make the job a lot easier.  So we'll start with the computer case wiring.

What are all those wires attached to the case?  Most of you have seen the front lights on the computer when the disk drive is accessed.  You've turned the front power switch on and off, and you've hit the reset button when your software hangs up.  Well all that is controlled by the motherboard, the lights and switches on the front of the case are hooked to the motherboard through these wires.  If you have any USB or Firewire ports on the front of the case they'll have to be hooked up also.

Let's get started.  Get out your motherboard user's guide that came with your motherboard.  Look for the diagram of the motherboard.  What your looking for is where the ports are on the motherboard.  Keep this page open as we proceed so you will know where plugs and cables are connected to the motherboard.  Most User's Guides also show the connector pins in a diagrams so you know which pins are for what.

Look for a block of pins usually called "panel," or "front panel connector."  The power on/off switch plug and the reset swith on/off plug usually are two-pin plugs.  They should slide over their respective pins which should be labeled "PWRSW" and "RESET."  You'll find a four pin plug which is your system warning speaker for beeps and warning signals when something is wrong, slide that over the four "SPKR" pins.

Computer Case Wires

We have two lights on the front panel.  One lets you know there is power to the system, the power on light, and the other is when the disk drive is accessed.  Each are two pin plugs.  The system power is usually labeled, "PLED," and the disk drive light is usually called, "IDE_LED."  After you slide all these small pins over the posts on the motherboard, the hardest wiring is taken care of.

Most of the current cases, have a USB port on the front panel.  These USB port(s) are different from the USB ports in the back of the computer.  The ones on the back are already hooked up directly to the motherboard.  So we're hooking up the front USB ports.  Look for a connector on the motherboard labeled "USB58" or "USB76" or just plain, "USB."  The plug from the front panel should be labeled, "USB."  This is a 10-pin plug with one pin plugged up so there is only one way to install this on the motherboard.

The next cable is the audio cable, usually labeled "HD AUDIO," or "AUDIO."   There may be another plug on this wire labeled, "AC97."  Ignore this, and use the "HD Audio" plug if you have digital audio on your motherboard.  If you  don't the motherboard diagram will give you the AC97 port.  The HD Audio plug is a 10-pin plug with a different pin blocked than the USB plug had.  On the motherboard diagram is usually called "Front Panel Audio connector."  This connector usually just looks like 9 pins sticking up in the air.

Audio Cable

The last front panel cable you may or may not have.  This is for your 1394 "Firewire" port, and this depends if you have a Firewire port on the front of the case or not.  The plug is usually labeled "1394" and the motherboard diagram is usually called an "IEEE 1394a connector, or simply, "Firewire header."

That should be it for the computer case front panel cabling, except there's still a wire, or maybe two, floating in the case.  These are for the case fans.  Most motherboard have a couple of connectors for fans called "Fan header," or "Pwr Fan2", "Pwr Fan2," etc.  These are three-pin connectors.  Hook up your case fans.

You should now have all the loose wires in your case hooked up to the motherboard, congratulations.

Graphics Card

Before you hunker on down.  Let's take this a step at a time.  Graphics cards usually come wrapped in an anti-static bag and are susceptible to static, so ground yourself to the computer case before you start and handle the board by the edges.  Take the card out of the packaging and anti-static bag.  There should be an instruction booklet and DVD disk.  Put them aside for now.

Look at the motherboard in the case, you'll see the slots the graphics card can be plugged into, but before you can do that, you'll have to remove a panel in the bag of the case so that the outout ports on the back of the graphics card will come out the back of the computer.  That way you don't have to open the case to hook up your computer monitor.

There are two ways to remove the back case panel and mount the graphics card.  One is to unscrew the panel screw, slide the plate out, mount the graphics card on the motherboard, and screw the motherboard down by replacing the panel screw and catching the metal outcropping on the  graphics card with the screw to lock down the graphics card.

The other is to lift a handle that lifts up and is hinged on one side, like a door.  You can then slide the back case plate out, put the graphics card in,. and close the hinged handle, which also catches the graphics card outcropping to secure it in place.

If there are any other cables supplied with the graphics card, look at the instruction manual to see how their hooked up.

If you have purchased two graphics cards, install the second like the first one, and you'll need to install a cable connecting the two graphics card together which comes with the graphics card.

That's it, your done with the graphics card for the moment.

What it does say is that hard drives are not as wide as DVD drives, which means there has to be two cage sections in the case one with a small width for the hard drives, and a larger width cage for your DVD drives.

The problem with installing drives is that there are several different methods of installing drives in the computer case depending on the manufacturer and the size of the computer case.

Some basics, if you look at your hard drive, you'll see 3 screw holes along each side.  Most of the mounting methods consists of screwing screws in these holes through holes in the case, which holds the drive.  Some cases have pull out cages that make drive installation relatively easy.  You install the drive in the pull out cage and then slide the cage into a slot in the computer case.  I recommend you check out the installation booklet that comes with the case to see the recommended method of installing hard drives in that particular case.  Each case is different.  The screws you got with the computer case are the screws you will use to install the hard drive.

DVD drives install slightly differently.  The front of the DVD drive has to go through the front of the computer case so you can load the DVD.  To do this install, some cases require you remove the front panel of the case, which is usually held on with plastic latches.  You'll have to remove a plate in the front of the case for the DVD drive to come out the front.  You don't have to do that with hard drives, since they are entirely internal. Because of this, there are different methods of installing DVD drives.   Some DVD drives require you screw in slider rails that you can move the DVD drive back and forth to align it with the front of the case.  Some slide in from the front and are locked in place by a sliding brake mechanism.  Others have the same screws in the side as with the hard drives.  Again check your installation guide that comes with the case for you case particulars.

Let's talk about the connectors on the back of the drives.   If you purchased SATA drives, your all set.  Just install the drives in the case with the interface connectors on the back of the drives facing the motherboard so we can hook up cables.

If you did not, that means your hard drives and DVD drives use an IDE interface.  If you have IDE drives, you have to be aware of the jumper on the back.  This is a 6-pin connector on the back consisting of two rows of three pins.  There is a jumper over two of the pins.  If you have more that one DVD drive one of the jumper should be connecting the "Master" pins on the connector panel, and on the other DVD drive, you'll have to move the jumper to the "Slave" pins.  If you have only one drive, the pins should cover the "Master" pins.  The pins are usually labled, if not check your drive installation manual.  The same goes for the hard drive.  The good news is with SATA drives, you don't have to worry about that anymore and you shouldn't see any jumpers at all.

Jumper to select Master and Slave Drives

Install your drives, will do the cable hook ups in another post.

When you unpacked the motherboard, it came with a thin 1 3/4" x 6 1/4"aluminum plate with a bunch of stencil like holes cut in it.  Sometimes the holes are labeled.  The aluminum panel has one side of the plate with a raised, curled border around the edges.  This snaps into the back hole of the computer case, the holes correspond to the ports on the edge of the motherboard.

The aluminum panel mounted in the case

You want to orient the motherboard so the ports on the edge of the motherboard will be toward the back of the computer case, but first the panel.  The aluminum panel mounts from the inside of the case.  You'll find that the raised rounded, curved side of the panel will snap into the hole in the case.  But first orient the panel so the holes are aligned with the motherboard ports, and then snap the panel into the case.  You'll find the panel snaps in place like a soda paper cup lid.

Next the motherboard slips into the case against the aluminum panel.  The aluminum panel has small strips that are around the holes.  These go around the ports of the motherboard.  Make sure when you slide the motherboard in to the aluminum panel ports that there is no metal strips in the way of using the ports.

Make sure there are no wires between the board and the bottom of the case.  They should be above the motherboard.

If you look closely at the nine holes going through the motherboard, you'll find they align, or almost align, with the copper stand off posts you put in the case earlier.  In the bag of screws that came with your computer case, there are at least nine or more Phillips screws with flat polished heads.  Get out your trusty Phillips screw driver and fasten the motherboard to the case by screwing nine screws through the nine holes in the motherboard and into the top of the copper stand off posts.  The screws should be tight, but not super tight.

Motherboard in case

Congratulations, your motherboard and case are one.

Most desktop memory is on 240 pin memory boards, and most motherboards either have two or four  240 pin memory slots.  The 240 pin slots are keyed so you can only mount the memory card in one direction.

240 pin memory cards

My recommendation was to maximize your initial memory.  That translates to 4 Gb of memory for a 32 bit system.  That usually comes on two 2 Gb memory cards.  The memory cards are sold together as a pair and are a matched set.   The idea is that memory storage is interleaved between the two cards to improve performance.  It turns out the slots on the motherboard also are matched to take advantage of the matched memory cards.

On those motherboard that have two 240 pin slots, there isn't a problem as the two cards will plug into the two slcts.  Most motherboards have four 240 pin slots, so you need to be careful about which two slots you use for the two memory cards.  The motherboard user's guide that comes with the motherboard will tell you how the memory should be installed in the memory slots.   Usually, this is slot one and slot three.  If you don't find how your slots are set up in the provided user's guide, there is usually much more extensive documentation on the motherboard manufacturer's web site.   Once you determine which slots to use, your ready for the install.

Take the memory chip out of the packaging.  It should be enclosed in a static free bag.  Memory chips are very susceptible to static electricity.  Before removing the memory from the bag, ground your self on a metal surface.  Handle the memory cards by the card edges.

Place the memory card in the slot in the right direction and push down evenly to sit the card.  The card should go in fairly easily and latches on the end should pop up to catch the card and show its seated properly.

That's it.   You now have your memory mounted on your motherboard.