Transcripts
1. INTRO: By learning how to build a
PC at pragmatic learning, you will learn components,
specifications, how they work, and
practical application. So you can take
your knowledge into the real-world for a life
changing experience. Wanted to build a PC
and don't know where to start. But look no further. In this course, the
following topics will be taught to get you up on going with the knowledge
you need to VR, system assembly, PC coolant on how to install
Windows from scratch. This course is for anyone with no prior knowledge or
anyone with knowledge, what needs an update on
the latest technology, the requirements before
beginning the course. Or if Philip screwdriver, needle nose pliers, anti-static mat and
rest drop a USB drive, 8 gb and above, under computer parts
required to build a PC for the class project, students are required to follow the steps necessary
to build a PC. In the end of the course, you will be able to build a PC of your dessert with confidence. So let's get started. Shall we?
2. CPU: The CPU, otherwise known as
the central processing unit, is the brain of the gaming PC. The CPU's responsibility is to calculate and process data. This component is one of the most expensive
components in the system, the other component being the graphics processing
unit in the gaming system. This can cost two
to three times more than the motherboard the
CPU is being inserted into The two types of CPUs available for the PC gaming
market are Intel and AMD. The speed of a CPU is
measured in gigahertz, which means billions of
calculations per second. This plays a huge part
in choosing a CPU for a gaming rig where
you will always won the fastest
available processor. This is important
where the CPU's role in gaming is calculating
the game's logic. Collision detection between
characters and objects, Loading, saving the game, keeping inventory
and held points. Artificial intelligence
or AI physics, such as armor penetration,
ballistic simulations, breakable environments,
and any number of moving props and input and
audio processing. The different types of mainstream cores for
CPU are two cars, four cars, 6810,
and up to 32 calls. These are called
multicle processors, where it contains two
or more processor cores in a single processor die. Why would you want more
calls in a gaming? To use an example, we shall
take a single core and a dual core to process programs
such as Microsoft Office, Firefox, your Outlook E Mail, and Adobe Photoshop that
are running simultaneously. For a single core CPU, less time is committed to each running application as more applications
are being opened. This will eventually slow down the PC big time unless some
applications are closed. With a dual core processor, the workloads are
divided among each core, causing the CPU to
perform faster and achieve the applications
tasks in a timely manner. With the dual core,
more applications can open and run simultaneously
without slowing. The PC Hyperthreaded cores are an extra thread or process
on the CPU core where it is applied to applications
where multiple tasks can be intelligently
scheduled so there's no idle time on the processor. Heavy multitasking is an example of where hyperthreading
can be utilized. It can help CPU
push light tasks, such as applications running in the background or your
favorite media player to one processor while
having applications such as your games goes to
another processor core. An example of a ten
core processor with no hyperthreading will
be listed as 1010, where the first number
states the number of cores and the other number is listed
as the number of threads. This is where one thread is allocated to one core
under processor. For a multicore processor which hyperthreading two threads are allocated per Co
under processor, a ten co processor
with hyper threading, It will be listed as 1020, where the second
number is doubled, stating each CPU Co
contains two threads. As CPU speeds increases
over the years, the memory speeds could
not keep up with them. In order to minimalize CPU
idleness and delay cache, memory was integrated
into the CPU cache. Memory is a high
speed memory buffer that temporarily stores
data the processor needs, allowing CPU
retrieval to be much faster as opposed to
retrieving it for main memory. A buffer stores random data. A cache, on the other hand, holds the data the
processor is most likely to need in advance of it
actually being needed. This enables the
processor to continue working at either full
speed or close to it, without having to wait for
the data to be retrieved from slower main memory cache. Memory is made up of static Ram or Ram integrated
into the processor. Low cost processors typically
include two levels of processor cache being L one
or level one and L two, level two, mid range and high NCPU's also have L three
or level three cache. A level one cache
is a memory cache that is directly built
into the microprocessor, which is used for storing the processor's recently
accessed information. Thus, it is also called
the primary cache. It is also referred to
as the internal cache or system cache L. One cache is
the fastest cache memory, since it is already built into the chip with a zero
weight state interface, making it the most expensive
cache among the CPU caches. However, it has limited size. It is used to store data that was accessed by
the processor recently. Critical files that need to
be executed immediately. And it is the first cache to
be accessed and processed when the processor itself performs a computer instruction. A level two cache is a
CPU cache memory that is located outside and separate from the microprocessor
chip core, although it is found on
the same processor chip, including L. Two caches in microprocessor designs are
very uncommon in modern CPU's, even though they may not be
as fast as the L one cache. But since it is
outside of the core, the capacity can be increased and it is still faster
than the main memory. A level two cache is also called a secondary cache or
an external cache. A level three cache is a
specialized cache that is used by the CPU and is usually built within
the CPU module itself. It works together with the L one and L two cache to improve computer performance by
preventing bottlenecks due to the fetch and execute
cycle taken too low. The L three cache feeds
information to the L two cache which then forwards information to the L one cache. Instructions are first
search in the L one cache. If the instructions are not
present in the L one cache, then it looks into
the L two cache, which is a slightly
larger pool of cash. Thus accompanied
by some latency. With each cache miss, it proceeds to the
next level cache, which is the LG cache. Until it finds the data
it needs four processors. The TDP stands for
thermal Design power, and it is used to measure the
amount of heat a component, this being the processor, is expected to output
when underload. For example, a CPU that
has a TP of 65 watts, therefore is expected to
output 65 watts worth of heat. When in use, look for a CPU cooler that has the minimum or greater
TDP of that standard. Be able to dissipate the
wasted heat properly to prevent overheating and an
immediate shutdown of the PC. The manufacturing process of a processor refers
to the size and line spacing of the
individual circuits and transistors on the
chip of the processor. With more recent processors, smaller manufacturing
processes have been also used to make space available in each
processor die for features such as multiple
processor cores. For each generation of CPU, the process gets smaller. Example of CPU processes
are 22 nanometers, 10 nanometers, 7 nanometers, and in the future, 5 nanometers. It makes all the difference in processor speed and considerable difference
in power consumption. The lower the process,
the more transistors can be stored within
the same space of die, which will equate to a
much faster processor with lower power consumption. The lower the process, the more transistors can be stored within the
same space of die, which will equate to a
much faster processor with lower power consumption. The same concept applies
for GPUs as well. Intel and AMD have created a set of circuit and slot designs
for the processors. Each circuit or slot
is designed to support a different range of original
upgradable processors. For Tel and AMD, they both use the LGA
or land grade array, where the pins are on the
motherboard and not on the CPU. The latest circuit type for AMD uses the AM five platform, whereas El uses LGA
1,700 platform. The number for El after the LGA abbreviation states the number of pins that
are situated upon the CPU. So an LGA 1,200 CPU will not fit onto an LGA 1,700
motherboard and vice versa. The processor number is one of the several factors along with
processor brand specific, system configurations,
system level benchmarks to be considered when choosing the right processor for
your computer needs. Processor numbers for the Telco and AMG
generation processors use an alphanumeric scheme based on generation and product line following the brand
and its modifier. For example, the Telco
93900 K processor, where Telco is the
processor brand, nine is the processor
brand modifier 13 is the processor
generation indicator, stating its 13 En 900 is
the skew numeric digits, and K is the product
line suffix, stating it's an unlocked
processor that can be used for
overclocking for Intel. A processor without this suffix
will mean it will not be able to overclock for
AMD's M five circuit. The following goes for
its rising architecture. For example, the rising
97950 X processor, where rising is the
processor brand. Nine is the segment where
three is entry level, five is mainstream, seven
is high performance, and nine is enthusiast. Seven is the processor
generation Indicator stating its seventh en. Nine is the performance level
where 2.3 is mainstream, 45.6 is high performance and 789 is enthusiast and Prosumer
50 is the model number. This leaves option for speed
bump or skew differentiator, and X is high performance with XR or extended frequency range, which means that the CPU will automatically boost higher
than the non X model. It should be known that all AMD rising
processors are unlocked. A PCI Xpress, or PCI lane consists two
differential signaling pairs, one to receive data and
one to transmit data, and it is the basic
unit of the PCIE bus. The number of PCI Express
lanes provided to the CPU is the total number
supported by the processor. Since we are only dealing
with building a gaming PC, we will only talk about GPU's
which uses 16 PCIE lanes. Look for a CPU that has
16 lanes or greater. The more PCIE lanes the CPU has, the more expansion
cards it can support, for example, network cards, sound cards, USB
hubs, et cetera. Depending on the number
of lanes they will need in order to function
at its maximum performance. Since the I 930 900
key has 20 PCIE lanes, it can support a GPU because it surpasses the
minimum requirements. Another form of processor
upgrade is to set the processor speed to run faster than the
rating on the chip. This is called overclocking. In many cases, you
can get away with a certain amount of
overclocking because Intel, AMD, and others often build safety margins
into the ratings. A chip rated for say, 3 gigahertz might in fact run
at 3.5 gigahertz or more. But instead, be down
rated to allow for a greater margin of
reliability by overclocking, you are using this
margin and running the chip closer to its
true maximum speed. I don't normally recommend
overclocking for a nervous, but if you are comfortable playing with your
system settings and you can afford and are capable of dealing with
potential consequences, overclocking might
enable you to get another ten to 20% or more
performance from your system. Overclocking is usually
applied to the processor, but it can also be applied to other
components in the system, including memory, video cards, bus speeds, and more. When the chips run
faster, they run hotter. Cooling upgrades
and modifications usually go hand in hand
with overclocking. Systems that run cool tend to be more stable
and more reliable. Even if you don't
overclock your system, ensuring that it runs cool is essential for
trouble free operation. Many systems are not properly designed or configured
for optimal cooling, even at the standard speeds, much less when overclocked. Intel's new performance
hybrid architecture integrates two core
families into a single CPU, keeping everything in your gaming universe
running smoothly. Cars are built for performance across single and lightly
threaded workloads. Enhancing activities like
gaming and productivity cares are optimized for multi
threaded performance, minimizing interruptions
from secondary tasks.
3. RAM: Memory is the work space
for the processor. It is a temporary storage area where the programs
and data being operated on by the
processor must reside. Memory storage is considered temporary because the
data and programs remain there as long as the computer has
electrical power or is not reset before the
computer is shut down or reset any data
that has been changed, memory should be saved in a more permanent storage device, usually a hard disk, so it can be loaded into
memory in the future. Main memory is normally called random access memory
because you can randomly, as opposed to, sequentially
access any location. This designation is somewhat misleading and often
misinterpreted. Read only memory, or Ram, for example, is also
randomly accessible, yet it is usually differentiated from
the system Ram because it maintains data without power and can't
normally be written to. Although a hard disk can be used as virtual
random access memory, we don't consider
that Ram either. Over the years,
the definition of Ram has changed from
a simple acronym to become something that means the primary memory work space the processor uses
to run programs, which usually is constructed out of a type of chip
called dynamic Ram. One of the characteristics
of Ram chips, and therefore most types
of Ram in general, is that the store
data dynamically, which really has two meanings. One meaning is that
the information can be written to Ram
repeatedly at any time. The other has to do
with the fact that Ram requires the data to be refreshed
every few milliseconds. Also, faster Ram requires refreshing more often
than slower Ram. A type of Ram called static Ram does not require
the periodic refreshing. An important characteristic
of Ram in general is that data is stored only as long as the memory
has electrical power. When we talk about a
computer's memory, we usually mean the Ram, or physical memory
in the system. Which are the memory chips or modules the processor
uses to store primary, active programs and data. This is confused with
the term storage, which should be
used when referring to things such as disk drives. Ram can either be referred to the physical
chips that make up the memory in the system and the logical mapping and
layout of that memory. Logical mapping and layout refer to how the
memory addresses are mapped to actual chips and what address
locations contain, which types of
system information. Memory temporarily stores
programs when they are running along with the data being used
by those programs. Ram chips are sometimes
termed volatile storage because when you turn off your computer or an
electrical outage occurs, whatever is stored in Ram is lost unless you save
it to your hard drive. Because of the volatile
nature of Ram, many computer users make it a habit to save the
work frequently. A habit I recommend many
software applications perform periodic saves automatically to minimize the potential
for data loss. Physically, the main memory in a system is a
collection of chips, or modules containing chips, that are usually plugged
into the motherboard. These chips or modules vary in the electrical and
physical designs and must be compatible
with the system into which they are being installed
to function properly. A dual rank them has two
complete 64 bit wide chips, logically stacked so that the memory module
is twice as deep. This requires chips to be on
both sides of the module. Therefore, the term double sided often indicates that a
module has two ranks, often shown as two
R on the Ram chip. Single rank modules,
often known as one R, have chips physically mounted on one side of the
memory module. Sdr Dems use a completely different
type of presence detect, called Serial Presence
Detect or SPD. The Serial Presence Detect is information stored
on a double Prom, or electronically
erasable programmable read only memory chip. When a computer is booted, it is located on the Ram module and communicates to the bias the module size data
with speed and voltage, which are used to configure the module memory controller for maximum reliability
and performance. Ram is a very important
consideration when building a gaming PC because it is an active participant
while gaming, while the processor
and graphic scar do all the calculations, the Ram stores needed
variables and content. The Ram is an active participant because once the game
is loaded into it, information is constantly
being read and stored. The processor and graphics card request information
from the memory, do the calculations, and store the results
back into the Ram. If you're wondering why Ram is being used instead of
the hard drive directly, it's because it is a lot faster and is meant to store
temporary items, that is, game files,
programs, et cetera. If you install one
stick of Ram in your computer and boot the PC, it will be running in a
single channel configuration. If two sticks of
Ram are installed, they will be running in a
dual channel configuration. Same goes for four
sticks of Ram. They could be running in a
quart channel configuration. Channel configurations
depend on whether or not the mode board chipset
supports quart channel memory. Typically, the modern
configuration is dual channel, even though two or four sticks
of memory is installed. Ddr five modules introduce local voltage regulation
on the module. The voltage regulation
is achieved by a Power Management
Integrated Circuit or PMIC. The PMIC provides the brains of a smart voltage regulation
system for the DDR five Dem, enabling configurability
of voltage, ramps and levels, as well
as current monitoring. Poor management has been historically done
on the motherboard. The introduction of PMICs allows additional features like
threshold protection, error injection capabilities, programmable power on sequence, and poor management features. The presence of the PMIC on the module enables
better Po regulation. And reduces complexity of the motherboard design by
reducing the scope of Ram, power delivery network
or PDN management.
4. GPU: A video adapter, otherwise known as a GPU or a
graphics processing unit, provides the connection between your computer and your monitor and transmits the signals that appear as images on the display. The image shown shows a GPU's
PCB as well as the Area. A Doc is invidious equivalent
to AMD's Stream processors. Invidious proprietary
parallel computing programming Remodel, or Coda, is a specialized
programming language that can leverage the GPU in specific ways to perform tasks with
greater performance. Each Vidor GPU can contain
hundreds to thousands of Cots. Cots are parallel processors. Vidor GPU's hold several
hundred thousand cares. The cores are responsible
for processing all the data that is fed
into and out of the GPU, performing game
graphics calculations that are resolved
visually to the end user. An example, something
a cout or might do, would include rendering
scenery in game, drawing character models, or resolving complex
lighting and shading within an environment like invidious could occurs. Mds Stream Processors are a more central component of
the GPU stream processors. And the cuticles
are not linearly comparable due to vast
architectural differences, but can be thought
of as similar. When it comes to the primary
function of each component. Stream processing is
focused intensely on parallelism of data sets to
ensure efficient processing. When performing tasks that are better suited for
parallel processing, the ray tracing performed
by the RT cause can be used to produce reflections,
refractions and shadows. Replacing traditional
raster techniques such as cube maps
and depth maps. The term giga Hays per second suggests how many rays can be traced in a
scene per second. The more rays that
can be traced, the more immersive a
scene will look and feel in terms of the retracing
effect on lighting and shadows. This is the operating
frequency of the graphics processing chip
found on the video card. This is the graphics
processor units boost GPU speed measured in
megahertz or gigahertz. The memory speed is the speed that the
memory operates at, measured in gigabytes
per second, otherwise known as V Ram or
video random access memory. It is the amount of memory
the GP has and it is used for storing
graphical textures and three D models temporarily. This is measured in gigabytes. This is the physical bit
width of the memory bus. Every clock cycle, data
is transferred along a memory bus to and
from the car memory. The width of this
interface, for example, 384 bit or similar, is the physical count of the bits that can fit down
the bus per clock cycle. A device with a 384 bit
memory interface would be able to transfer 384 bits
of data per clock cycle. The memory interface is also
a critical component of the memory bandwidth
calculation in determining maximum
memory throughput on GPU. Memory bandwidth is one of the most frequently showcased
starts for any new GPU, often rating in hundreds of gigabytes per second
of throughput. Potential memory bandwidth is a theoretical maximum
amount of data that the bus can handle
at any given time, playing a determining
role in how quickly EGPU can access and
utilize its via. This refers to the number
of pixels a video card can render to a screen and the right to video
memory in a second. Or in case of textafilurate, the number of Textuap elements. A GPU can map to
pixels in a second. They are given in giga
pixels per second. The textafilate of the GPU is representative of how many pixels the GPU can
render per second. This value is always represented as a
measurement over time. This is measured
in giga transfers per second render output units, also known as Raster
Operations Pipeline, which is more useful in determining the
application of error. A render output unit is a specific component
on a GPU that is responsible for
the processing of final pixel values prior to
drawing them on the screen. Rops, perform pixel
readwrite tasks that include processing
pixel and textile data. Render output units, interpret the final depth of pixels before rendering them
onto the screen. This is a low level GPU
component that operates with some independence
entirely dedicated to manipulating bitmaps
and texture filtration. Tmu, modify bitmaps, resize,
rotate, scale, skew, or fit for placement onto objects and filter
textures, video games. This would be represented as placing a texture
onto an object. This is a stream multiprocessor. In an AMDGPU reference
blower type cooler uses an impeller to
suck air in at one end, force it through the
length of the car that has heat sinks in
strategic locales, then exhaust at the
back of the car. The PCB is according to
AMD Veior specifications. Non reference PCB elements
can be moved and altered. One common tactic is to use higher quality components such that you have a
better moral bus, poor delivery subsystem to
help with overclocking. There is also a custom cooler that contains large heat sinks, large fans, and heat pipes. Reference cards are
comparatively cheap. Offers to crank out the
trade off is that a blow type cooler runs loud and is not the
best at cooling. Non reference cards have the course and
engineering delay of a custom PCB and custom coolers. The trade off is you get
a better performance at stock and overclocking
and quieter operation.
5. MOTHERBOARD: Several compatible form factors are used for motherboards. The form factor refers to
the physical dimensions and size of the board and dictates into which type of case
the board will fit. In general, you are safest
sticking with the ATX, or Micro tax form factors as
those are the most popular. And with that, you will have
the widest choices in cases, motherboards and power supplies. In addition to processor
support and form factor, you should consider
several other features when selecting a motherboard. The following sections
examine each feature. Aside from the processor, the main component on a motherboard is
called the chipset. This usually is a set of one or two chips that contain the main
model board circuits. The chip that connects to
the processor is typically known as the PCH or
platform controller hub. The chipset is typically
known by the name of the PCH. In a single chip chip set, the PCH or CU connects
all slower speed input, output ports and devices
such as USB ports, PCI Express times one
slot or times four slots, audio network and so on. The memory controller
and PCI Express times 16 slots are
controlled by the CPU, which will be Intel
or APU will be AMD. Because the chipset really
is the motor board. The chipset used in a
given motor board has a profound effect on the
performance of the board. It dictates all the
performance parameters and limitations of the
board, such as memory, size and speed, processor
types and speeds, supported buses and
speeds and more. Because chipsets are constantly being introduced and
improve over time, I can't list all of them
and their functions here. Clearly, you must base the selection of a
chipset largely on the processor you choose and the additional components you intend to install
in the computer. The chipset dictates which type of bus slots can be included
on the motherboard. Almost all recent
chipsets include peripheral component
interconnect or CI and PCIE slot support. If you really want in depth technical information
about the chipset in a given motherboard, I recommend downloading
it documentation, often called the databook, from the manufacturer's website. This documentation should
also help describe the advanced chipset set up functions in your
systems set up program. This information, you
might be able to fine tune the moderboard configuration by altering the chipset
features and settings. Another important feature
on the moderboard is the basic input output
system, or bias. This is also called
the Rum bias because the code is stored in a read
only memory or Rum chip. There are several things
to look for here. Most biases for
desktop computers are supplied by one of the major
bias manufacturers such as AM I or American Megatrends
International Phoenix Inside Software or Award, which is owned by Phoenix. The bias is normally contained
in a special type of reprogrammable chip called a
flash from or double Prom, which is electrically erasable, programmable read only memory. This enables you to download bias updates from
the manufacturer, and using a program it supplies, easily update the code in a bias before purchasing
a motherboard, check to see whether
the motherboard is well supported and that the manufacturer offers
downloadable bias updates. If you can't easily find
bias updates, drivers, and documentation for the board on a manufacturer's website, you might want to
choose a board from a different manufacturer that
provides better support. You also need to verify that the motherboard and bias support both the processor you
plan to install initially and the processor you might
upgrade to in the future. If the motherboard and chipset can handle
a new processor, but the bias cannot, a bias upgrade might be available to provide
proper support. The traditional bias
is being replaced by the Unified Extensible
Firmware interface, or UEFI, which enables booting from three terabyte hard disks and other features. Not possible with the
traditional bias. However, both UEFI and Bias firmware require you to select the correct settings
for your hardware.
6. CASE: These different
types of cases offer their own pros and
cons and are also capable of different
functions because they come equipped with
any number of features. Knowing the difference
between these computer cases will help you in deciding which one will meet
your building needs. Continue watching to find out which type of computer Chassis
will work best for you. When classified broadly, there are only two types
of computer cases, the desktop case
and the tower case. These classifications have
their specific uses which will help you to identify
which of these case types is best suited for You take
note that the tower case classification branches out to four other classes that
will be discussed later on. This type of computer case is considered the most
basic of cases. It is what is most commonly
seen in homes and offices and offers just the
most basic features you need in a computer case. Its main purpose is to keep all the internal
components of a computer inside the case to maximize the space provided. This type of computer case only works for people
who are not planning to expand their computers
or those who will only use the computers
for its basic uses. This means that builders
and gamers will probably find no joy with
this type of computer case. Tower cases are types of computer cases that are preferred by its
builders and gamers. These can be further
classified into four. The small form factor, the mini tower, the mid tower, and of course, the full tower. Here are some pros and cons for each of the
tower case types. This type of case is the smallest in the
tower case family. It can only support a
mini ITX motor board, which means you are very
limited in Orboard choices. It is very small and compact, a feature that has its own
advantages and disadvantages. Small means you only have
two expansion slots, but it also means it
is very portable, making it a preferred
tower case for gamers who like to
attend land parties, since more people want their
computers to be portable. But at the same time, they do not want to sacrifice
the expansion capability. The mini tower was created. It can support a mini ITX or a micro TX model board and
has four expansion slots. This gives it an edge over the small form
factor because it is still mobile enough but not
as limited as the latter. Probably the most common and
preferred tower case type is the mid tower design. It supports the mini ITX micro
ATX and ATX deboard type, and has seven to
eight expansion slots depending on the brand. This tower also introduces
the cable management option, making it a hit with
builders who naturally preferred to keep the
cases neat and organize. Although it is not as portable as the first
two tower types, this is the preferred
tower case type by many gamers because it can fit higher graphics cards and still leave room for
other expansions. This is the tower type choice
for competitive gamers. And silver almonds
all over the world. Because of its many features and its capacity to hold up
to ten expansion slots. It also supports four different
types of motherboards, Mini ITX, Micro TX, TX, and ATX. Making it very versatile. Due to its capacity to store a great number of
internal components, a full tower case tends
to be very heavy, making it difficult
to transport, although you can push the
limits of your computer. With this case, you will need to pay attention to its
cooling capability. Because a case this
big can easily overheat if the airflow
design is not well crafted.
7. KEYBOARD: There are many ranges of keyboards for many
different makers out there, most of whom are either
membrane keyboards or mechanical keyboards. Let's get down to business with the first type of keyboard
called a membrane. It uses three different
layers in its design, which are very flexible. The first layer is called
a top membrane layer. Under the top there is
a conductive trace. When the key is pressed, it moves through
the second layer, which is made up of holes, allowing the pressure
parts that are located under each key
to pass through and may contact with the
conductive traces on top of the bottom
membrane layer. There are two types of
design that are used. One is the flat key design, which is commonly used
in microwave ovens. The keys in this design are
printed on the same part. It still uses a pressure part, but because it provides no
notable physical feedback, it makes it hard to use
on a computer keyboard, which typists rely on physical
feedback to blink type. The other type called the
dome switch keyboard, which uses a dome with
printed letters on top. Sometimes they are printed
on or laser stretched. This type of keyboard uses a rubber or silicon keypard that comes with domes as the
top membrane layer. When the dome is
being pressed down, they collapse and the
graphite under the dome will complete the circuit
underneath the membrane pard, thereby sending a signal
of a key being pressed. The Dom switch keyboard
uses rubber or silicon Dooms to simulate the spring structure of
a mechanical keyboard, which gives this type of keyboard solid
physical feedbacks. Although there is difference between the typing experience of membrane keyboard and those of mechanical keyboard with
the advance of technology, the gap between them is
getting smaller while typing on any keyboard with
a high speed can be loud. Membrane keyboards have
better reputation than mechanical keyboards when it
comes to typing song volume. Some mechanical keyboard, especially the blue
switches, can be very loud. Although it may not be a bad thing as some
typists enjoy this song. Membrane keyboards are
usually made of plastic, making it lighter than
mechanical keyboards, which has a larger
proposition of metal gears. You can easily carry a light membrane keyboard and type on your
lap if you want to. As membrane keyboards
can be made with common materials
and matured technology. A membrane keyboard will
be more affordable than a mechanical keyboard that
comes with the same features. The keys require
more of an effort to type when you press
down on the key. Some typists found that
membrane keyboards are mushy to type on, which affect the
typing experience. If you're a fast typist, there will be times
when you're typing that the keys will not be
registered as a hit, as the key wasn't pressed down. All the way though, having a lifespan of millions of keypresses and
last for years, the membrane keyboard can still wear out quicker than
a mechanical keyboard. When they do wear out, the membrane will
start to feel mushier, which causes the keys
to lose feedback. While you can take
away key cups of mechanical keyboards
to clean the keyboard, it is harder to clean
a membrane keyboard as the key cups are
usually not removable. The mechanical keyboards use switches to send typing signals. There are more than one
kind of switches out there, each one performing differently. Each key has its own switch, which comes with a base, a spring, and a stem. The most common
switches are blue, red, brong, black, et cetera. Some require a certain
amount of force to be pressed tactile while making
a clicking song or without, and others can be easy to press. Mechanical keyboards usually provide exchangeable keycaps, which allow users
to wide a keyboard. The key caps can be removed, which allow you to
customize your keyboard to match the theme of your
case. Your desktop. Give a styles look
to your keyboard, since there isn't a membrane
inside the mechanical, they take a longer time than membrane
keyboards to wear out. Plus they stay the
same since day one. And do not change feedback, meaning you do not
have to get used to the keyboard again if
the field changes. Unlike membrane keyboards, typists benefit from the
keys as when you type, the letter is registered. And it does not require
a lot of effort to type, which is great for those
who are fast typists, including gamers who
need to hit one or more than quickly or often with
mechanical keyboards, you do not have to
press a key all the way down to the bottom
to make it register. Which means you can
press halfway and stop. This allows faster typing
speed and less fatigue. The weight of mechanical
keyboard can be pro con, depending on how you use it. Mechanical keyboards
tend to be heavy, which helps by stopping the keyboard from being
pushed around your desk. When you type,
mechanical keyboard usually allows you to press
many keys at the same time. Some even allows you to press
all keys at the same time. This will benefit
those who games with the keyboard and key rollover is supported with all of our mechanical keyboards
even with USB ports. As the key caps of mechanical
keyboards can be removed, you can clean a
mechanical keyboard easily by removing the key caps. Mechanical keyboards use more expensive materials
and technology, so you will need to
spend more than you normally would for a
membrane to get one. The song volume of mechanical keyboard depends on the switches that are used, such as blues, as
they can be loaded. If you're in a location
with other people, they will hear you
typing away unless you have the door closed or if
you're talking on a mic. Again, some typists don't mind the song and even
enjoy them for wait. While this is a pro, for some people this can
also be a con for others, those who move their
keyboards around while it's traveling or move from
different desktops.
8. MOUSE: Here are some things regarding most construction and
design that you will want to consider when picking a mouse shape and
ergonomic feel. Choose this based on your
grip style, mouse size. Choose this based
on your grip style, most weight and
weight distribution. Choose this based on your grip style and how you will like to move
the mouse around. Some mice have removable
weight plates, so you can adjust the mouse
to your preferred weight. As a guideline, here are some generalized
recommendations based on grip type that most
people tend to prefer. Plastic versus metal, smooth or glossy,
textures versus rough. Some mice can get undesirably
slippery with sweaty hands. Choose this based on how you will like to
move the mouse around. How much friction do you prefer? The bottom surface or
feel of the mouse will determine how much drag there is when you move
your mouse around. This quality is specified as
a coefficient of friction. The lower the number, the
more frictionless it will be. The surface or mouse pad you use will also
play a role here. Choose this based on the
type of games you like to play or if you need extra
buttons during gameplay. Pay attention to
the positioning. You don't want to
be clicking buttons without meaning due to
the poor placement. Choose this based on the functionality that
you desire are wrong. The scroll wheel, some have ratchet stops or can free wheel, or horizontal and
vertical motions. Choose this based on how intensive your clicking
is during gameplay. Some may prefer a more rigid
and tactile button feel. A wireless mouse can be
less reliable and may add lag as the input signal
needs to be broadcast over. Wireless wired mice seem to be more popular
for gaming purists, but there is also hybrid
options available. These are purely aesthetic, but may be an important selection criterion
for some people. Specifications, gamers
should consider when buying a mouse sensor type, laser or optical DPI determined by a sensitivity
and screen resolution. Sensor position usually
preferred to be centered so as not to exaggerate movements based on how
you may move your mouse. Maximum tracking speed,
AKA perfect control speed. Any settings the mouse has and if they can be configured
and turned off, which is angle snapping or LOD, if the mouse has
any known flaws, which is jitter,
acceleration, et cetera. There are two different
classes of sensors. Laser and optical Information in this area is a
little confusing. Both types have
the pros and cons, and selection seems to come
down to personal preference. Laser type sensors have a high accuracy when
it comes to tracking, but need to be used with
smooth hard surfaces. They can issue with
a lift of distance that may affect mouse
tracking for some users. Optical type sensors seem to be more forgiving
when it comes to the type of surface
used and also track reliably enough
for gaming purposes. In short, sensor type comes
down to user preference. Though none, laser mice seem to be preferred in
the industry as they are more suited to
general use and have good performance
on many surfaces. Dpi relates the number of pixels your screen cursor
will move per inch of movement of the mouse itself. Therefore, the screen size
you use will affect the DPI after those with a large screen will more likely need
a higher DPI mouse. A higher DPI will result in a larger mouse
movement on the screen, per inch of movement of the
mouse. The higher the better. Is not true for DPI. It is more a matter of matching DPI to your particular
user style. The game you're playing,
and your screen size. Your sensitivity style,
high, medium, or low, will largely determine what DPI range you will feel
most comfortable using. Mouse sensitivity is also
used to describe DPI, but there is a small difference. Dpi refers to the
mouse hard capability of the sensor in the mouse, whereas sensitivity is a
software adjusted setting, adjusting mouse sensitivity
this way can give you the same effect as having
a different DPI mouse, which is why some people use
the terms interchangeably. High sensitivity users who
prefer to move the mouse a small distance to cover the whole screen will
prefer a high DPI. Low sensitivity users
move the mouse in long sweeping motions
will prefer a lower DPI. This also depends on
your screen size. Low and medium
sensitivity users may also want to consider
maximum tracking speed, which is in inches per second. Some mice have an
adjustable DPI setting in software or via
extra buttons, which can allow you to
adjust DPI on the fly. This may suit some
advanced gamers who find they prefer a different
sensitivity setting. In different
gameplay situations, higher numbers will
mean your mouse is capable of higher
maximum tracking speeds. But too high a DPI can make your mouse
intolerable to use, as it will appear to
be way too sensitive. Counts per inch are a more accurate description
of mouse hardware than DPI. Cpi refers to the physical
resolution of the camera used in the mouse sensor and represents the sampling
rate per inch. The CPI represents how
many pixels can be imaged by the sensor
over 1 " of distance? The difference between DPI and CPI is embedded into the software algorithms
of the mouse itself. The CPI can be
converted to a DPI by further splitting pixel sizes
using software algorithms. Therefore, DPI will
always be greater than or equal to CPI and is often
in multiples of four. Unfortunately,
software splitting can result in extra noise, so an insanely high DPI is not
necessarily always better. Mouse sensitivity refers to a
software adjustment factor. Adjusting the mouse
sensitivity in your operating system basically
scales the number of cons registered by the mouse
and translates the cons registered by the mouse into a number of pixels
moved on screen. Maximum trucking speed is the fastest speed
that the mouse can move across a surface and still chuck its position
correctly without flaws. It is related to the
DPI of the mouse, whereas a low DPI will result in a lower
maximum trucking speed. You will want to check that
the maximum tracking speed of your mouse exceeds your expected maximum
operating speeds. Particularly important for
low sensitivity players, The poll rate of your
mouse is basically how often it reports its
position to your computer. It is measured in huts. So, for example,
a polling rate of 500 huts means the mouse is being pulled 500 times per second or every
two milliseconds. Higher polling rates
are claimed to be more accurate,
but in reality, the one to eight milliseconds
difference is negligible compared to your
human response times and Internet latency, which can both be
in the hundreds of milliseconds range too high. A polling rate can actually slow down your computer
unnecessarily, because your processor is constantly updating the
cursor position of the mouse. So it's good to seek
out a happy medium. In general, a
higher polling rate is required when you
have a higher DPI. If not pulled often enough, the larger number
of cons reported by a mouse could
possibly be missed, which can cause an
undesirable cap in the maximum tracking
speed prediction or angle snapping is designed to increase the stability of
your cursor on the screen. But it's a feature that
many gamers don't like because it can interfere with things like precision aiming. It basically works by snapping your user input to a particular
angle with intolerances. Usually, if a mouse
has this feature, it can be turned on
or off in software. But it pays to check, as there are some
mice which seem to have a hardware
implemented prediction. This describes the characteristic
where a cursor may move a larger distance depending on how quickly you
are moving the mouse. It is usually
configurable in software, and the user preference to have acceleration varies greatly
between individuals. For example, if you move your mouse at a rate
of 5 " in 1 second, it might move your
mouse 2000 pixels. If you make the same movement
but in half the time, which is 5 " in 0.5 seconds, it may move the
cursor 3,000 pixels. Maximum acceleration is
also a specification on many gaming mice and refers to the physical acceleration
that the mouse can withstand. Often quoted in G's, which is a multiple of the
Earth's gravitational pull, It is pretty much physically
impossible to exert more than a round eight G's of acceleration when using a mouse, and many specs often exceed
this greatly lift distance refers to the distance
you need to lift your mouse from a surface
for it to stop reading. A large LOD can result in nuisance kiser tracking when you are trying to
reposition your mouse. Laser type sensors
seem to suffer from this issue more than optical or infrared type mouse sensors. Some moths have a
configurable LOD. Another popular DIY fix
is to apply tape to half of the sensor to make it less
sensitive to LOD issues. Flaws occur anytime
the mouse kisor does not track on the screen
due to the user input. Flaws that compromise most accuracy can
include jittering, stuttering, skipping,
drifting, et cetera. Unpredictable acceleration
or prediction may also be classed as flows as the mouse is not behaving as it
is expected to. Additional features like
user profile saving, where your mouse settings are
saved on the mouse itself, may be desirable to some gamers. The mouse configuration
software package should also be considered as well as warranty information
and customer support.
9. MONITORS: The monitors typically used with PCs come in a variety of sizes and resolutions and are typically based on one of
two display technologies. Liquid crystal display with
fluorescent back lighting, or LCD, or liquid crystal
display with LD back lighting. A number of features and specifications differentiate
one display from another. Some of these can be confusing and some are more
important than others. The following sections
examine the features and specifications to look for when comparing or
selecting displays. Pc monitors come
in various sizes, generally ranging from 19 " to 30 " In diagonal measurement, displays smaller than
15 " are available for specialized uses and are often used on smaller laptop
or network systems. Ultrabooks, smartphones, tablets and touch
screen media players. Displays larger than 30
" are also available. However, these are
generally categorized as large format
multimedia displays or televisions rather
than as PC monitors. In general, the
larger the monitor, the higher the price tag. However, the often sweet spots where a certain
size may have a price advantage
over small sizes due to sales and
manufacturing popularity. Display sizes are
measured diagonally, which is an artifact from the wronged tubes used in
the first televisions, where the diagonal
measurement was equal to the physical
diameter of the tube. Larger higher resolution
monitors retain the value longer than most
other computer components. Although it's
common for a newer, faster processor to come out right after you have
purchased your computer, or to find the same model with a bigger hard disk
for the same money, a good monitor can
outlast your computer. If you purchase monitors with longer term usage
considerations in mind, you can save money on your next system by reusing
your existing monitor. Because monitors do not
follow Mores law where processing speed
and transistor cons are doubling every
1.5 to two years. Resolution indicates the amount of detail a monitor can render. This quantity is expressed
in the number of horizontal and vertical
picture elements or pixels contained
in the screen. The total is usually
expressed in the millions of pixels
or mega pixels. As the resolution increases, image consists of a
greater number of pixels. With more pixels, you can
see more of a given image, or you can view the
image in greater detail. Display adapters
normally support a variety of resolutions. However, what a display can handle is usually
much more limited. Therefore, the specific
resolution you use is normally dictated by the
display, not the adapter. A given video adapter
and display combination will usually have an
allowable maximum, which is usually
dictated by the display. But it can also work at several resolutions
less than the maximum. Because LCD and LD monitors are designed to run at a
single native resolution, they must use electronics to scale the image
to other choices. Older LCD panels
handle scaling poorly, but even though current
LCD and LD backlet panels perform scaling fairly well, you are almost always
better off selecting the single specific resolution that is native to the
display you are using. However, if the
native resolution of the display is
exceptionally high, you can choose lower
resolutions to achieve larger and more readable
icons and text. A given resolution has a horizontal and
vertical component, with the horizontal component
the larger of the two. The aspect ratio of a display is the ratio between the horizontal and
vertical number of pixels. It is calculated as the width in pixels divided by the height. A number of aspect ratios have been used in PC displays
over the years. Most of the early
display formats were only slightly wider
than they were tall. More recently, wider formats
have become popular. Aspect ratios of 1.5 or higher numerically are considered
wide screen displays. Originally, 1.33
or four to three was the most common aspect ratio for displays because it matched the aspect ratio of the original standard
definition televisions. The first generation of PC
wide screen displays used a 1.60 or 16 by ten or 85 ratio, whereas second
generation displays used to 1.78 or
16 by nine ratio, which is also the
most popular format for widescreen televisions, although many PC users preferred the additional
vertical resolution of the 16 by ten ratio
over the 16 by nine. Lcd manufacturers found it
more economical to produce the same 16 by nine to display for PCs as they do
for televisions. Thus eliminating 16 by ten versions as a choice
In a color monitor, each picture element or
pixel consists of three red, green, and blue RGB pixels. By varying the intensity
of each of the subpixels, you can cause the
overall color and brightness of the pixel
to be anything from black all off to white all on almost any color
or level in between. The physical geometry
of the RGB sub pixels varies depending
on the type of display, but the shape is normally either rectangular
stripes or wronged dots. Lcd monitors
normally have tries, or pixels are arranged as rectangular vertical stripes in a linear repeating arrangement. When you're choosing a display, the most important
considerations are the combination of
size and resolution. The overall combination
of size and resolution is normally expressed in
pixels per inch or PPI. But it can also be
expressed in pixel pitch, which is the distance between
pixels in millimeters. A higher PPI number or lower
pixel pitch means that fixed size image
such as icons and text will be smaller and
possibly harder to read. Pixel pitch is also sometimes called dot pitch in reference to the dot shaped subpixels used on some displays for
a given size screen. Higher resolution displays
have a higher PPI number, which corresponds to a
lower pixel pitch number. As a result, the picture
elements are closer together, producing a sharper
picture on screen. Conversely, screens with
a lower PPI number, which equals to a
larger pixel dot pitch, tend to produce images that
are grainier and less clear. Analog display connections
such as VGA are designed to transmit signals that drive the display
to draw images. These signals tell the
display to draw an image by painting lines of pixels from left to right and
from top to bottom. For example, if the display
resolution is 1024 by 768, that means 768 lines would be drawn one after the
other from top to bottom. When the 768th line is drawn, the entire image would be completed and the
process would repeat, starting again from the top. The speed at which
this image drawing occurs has two components called the horizontal frequency and the vertical frequency. These frequencies are also
called scan or refresh rates. The horizontal frequency is the speed in which the
horizontal lines are drawn, expressed as the total
number of lines per second. The vertical frequency or
vertical refresh rate, is the speed in which
complete images are drawn, expressed in the number
of images per second. Some monitors and
video adapters can support both interlaced as
well as non interlace modes. In non interlaced mode, the screen is drawn
from top to bottom, one line after the other, completing the screen in
one pass, interlaced mode, the screen is drawn
in two passes with the odd lines first
and even line second. Each pass takes half the time of a full pass in
non interlace mode. The brightness of a display
is especially important in an LCD panel because
the brightness can vary a great deal from
one model to another. Brightness for LCD panels is measured in candelas
per square meter, which is also called a knit
and often abbreviated as T. Typical ratings for good display
panels are 200-450 kits, which means the
brighter, the better. Contrast is normally expressed as the ratio between
white and black, with higher ratios being better. There are unfortunately
different ways to make the measurement, but the one that is most important is the
static contrast ratio, Which is the ratio
from brightness to darkest that can be produced on the display
simultaneously. Many display
manufacturers like to quote dynamic contrast
ratios instead. Because they are
measured over time with different back light
brightness settings and produce significantly
larger numbers. The refresh rate of
a monitor refers to how many times per second the screen refreshes
the image on it, it's measured in hoots and a higher number
the more times per seconial monitor
refreshes refresh rate examples are
60 hoots, 75 hoots, 120 hoots, 144 hoots, 165 hoots, 180 hoots, 240 hoots,
and 360 hoots. Ips stands for in
plane switching, And it is the type of panel used by numerous monitors
and smartphones. Its primary advantages
are superb visuals, including both better
color reproduction and greater contrast
ratios than TN panels, as well as far better
viewing angles, TN. Short for twisted pneumatic is the best performing type of panel supporting the
highest refresh rates and the lowest response times. Response times in particular are something to take note of, considering that almost
no other panel can achieve true one millisecond
pixel response times yet. Furthermore, 144 hot an monitors much cheaper than the
IPS equipped counterparts. And only TN panels can
go as high as 240 hoots. Tn panels don't offer
the best visuals. Colors tend to look to wash out. And the viewing angles
are rather poor, so they won't be appealing for users who prize visuals
over performance. On top of that, it
should be noted that TN panels do not support HDR. And finally, VA, or
vertical alignment panels, are something of a meta ground
between IPS and TN panels. The color reproduction and viewing angles are comparable
to those of IPS panels. Why they do surpass them when it comes to contrast ratios. Furthermore, pricier
VA displays can actually reach one
milliseconds response times, as well as 144 hertz
refresh rates. Va panels, however,
are known for having the highest
response times of these three panel types, and ghosting is not an
uncommon occurrence with them. Something that
will definitely be a big problem when it
comes to fast space games. Furthermore, backlight,
bleeding, and clouding is also
common in VA displays. If you can't stand the site
of poor black uniformity, you should probably
avoid this type of panel Vida G. Sync
is groundbreaking, new display technology
that delivers the smoothest and fastest gaming
experience ever sync. Revolutionary performance
is achieved by synchronizing display
refresh rates to the GPU in your
four GTX pored PC, eliminating screen tearing and minimizing display
stuttering and input lag. The result scenes appear
instantly, objects look sharper, and gameplay is super smooth, giving you a stunning
visual experience and a serious competitive edge. This is a proprietary
invidia solution. It requires an Vidor
graphics processor that supports G sync, as well as Splay that
supports G sync. Every PC monitor that
supports G sync includes a proprietary hardware
module that talks to the Vidor GPU and adjusts the display
settings on the fly. Amd Radian free sync technology uses the adaptive
sync protocols of display port and HDMI connectors to provide a variable
refresherate, which allows a monitors
refresherate to change dynamically and in synchronization
with a graphics card. This is AMD's solution and
it is not proprietary. Instead, it's based on a royalty free industry
standard known as Displayport. Adaptive sync
displays that support Frecnk don't need a
proprietary hydro module, and this makes them
a bit cheaper. G sync and free sync introduce
variable refresh rates. If your game is rendering
at 40 frames per second, your display will update
at 40 frames per second. If it starts rendering
at 75 frames per second, your monitor will refresh
at 75 frames per second. The monitor and graphics
processor talk to each other, and the refresh rate
constantly changes to be the ideal one to match the images being
sent to the display. This eliminates stuttering
input lag and screen terin, resulting in a much
more fluid image when playing PC games without the problems of V. Sync stands
for high dynamic range. Basically, it means
better contrast, greater brightness levels,
and a wider color palette. It's about making your films and TV shows look a bit
more like real life. The idea is that your eyes can perceive brighter whites
and darker blacks. Greater dynamism
than traditional TV's have been able to display. Hdr aims to improve on that. Hdr content preserves detail in the darkest and brightest
area of a picture that are lost using old
standards such as Wreck 79. It also allows for
more natural true to life colors that are closer to how we see
them in real life. Color depth was
previously referred to by the total number of colors
that the screen can render. But when referring
to LCD panels, the number of levels that each color can render
is used instead. This can make things
difficult to understand, but to demonstrate, we will look at the
mathematics of it. For example, 24
bit or true color comprised of three colors, each with eight bits of color. Mathematically, this is
represented as two to the power of eight times two to the power of eight times
two to the power of eight, which equals to 256
times 256 times 256, which equals 16.7
million colors. High speed LCD monitors
typically reduce the number of bits of each color to six instead of
the standard eight. This six bit color will generate far fewer
colors than eight bits. See when we do the math, two to the power of
six times two to the power of six times
two to the power of six equals 64 times 64 times 64, which equals 262,000 colors. This is far fewer than
the true color display, such that it would be
noticeable to the human eye. To get around this problem, the manufacturers employ a
technique known as deterring. This is an effect where nearby pixels use slightly
varying shades of color that trick the human
eye into perceiving the desired color even though
it isn't truly that color. A color newspaper photo is a good way to see this
effect in practice. In print, the effect
is called half tones. By using this technique, the manufacturers
claim to achieve a color depth close to that
of the true color displays. There is another level
of display that is used by professionals
call a ten bit display. In theory, this can display
over 1 billion colors, more than even the
human eye can display. There are a number of
drawbacks to these type of displays and why they are
used only by professionals. First, the amount of
data required for such high color requires a very high bandwidth
data connector. Typically, these monitors
and video cards, you will use a display
port connector. Second, even though
the graphics card will render upwards
of 1 billion colors, the displays color gamut, or range of colors it
can actually display, will really be less than this. Even the ultra wide color gamut. Displays that support
ten bit color cannot really render
all the colors. All of this generally
means displays that tend to be a bit slower and also much
more expensive, which is why they are not
common for consumers.
10. SOUND: Thanks to competition
among many companies, we now enjoy widely supported hardware and software
standards for audio. Audio hardware has gone
from being an expensive, exotic Aaron to being an industry standard part of virtually any system
configuration. The term audio support hardware refers to either
audio integrated into the moder board or chip
set or a sound car when the text applies
to both types of audio. The standard audio
support hardware in today's pieces typically
includes an HD audio controller, or sometimes the older
AC 97 audio controller, integrated into the
motor board chipset, combined with a sound codec chip located on the motor board. However, if the capabilities of the integrated audio
are not satisfactory, a sound card can be inserted via the
peripheral component, interconnect or PCI, or peripheral component
Interconnect Express, or PCIE, in the computer, or via
an external bus such as the Universal Serial Bus or
USB, regardless of location. Audio support hardware
includes jacks for speakers or headphones
and a microphone. In addition, many examples
provide dedicated jacks for digital audio out surround the song and musical instrument, digital interface
or MID I hardware. The quality of audio hardware is often measured by
four criterias. Frequency response or range, Total harmonic distortion, signal to noise
ratio, and wattage. The frequency response of a sound card or integrated
audio is the range in which an audio
system can record or play at a constant and
audible amplitude level. Many cards and
integrated solutions support 30 hot to 20 kilo hoots. The wider the spread, the better the adapter, the total harmonic
distortion measures an audio adapters linearity and the straightness of a
frequency response curve. In layman's terms, the total harmonic distortion is a measure of accurate
sound reproduction. Any non linear elements cause distortion in
the form of harmonics. The smaller the
percentage of distortion, the better this harmonic
distortion factor might make the difference
between cards that use the same
audio chipsets. Cards with cheaper components
have greater distortion, making them produce
poorer quality song. The signal to noise
ratio measures the strength of the song signal relative to the bag
rung noise or his. The higher the number which
is measured in decibels, the better the song quality, usually stated as either
total or watts per channel. This is the amount
of amplification available to drive the speakers. This is one of the more misleading
specifications because a valid comparison
of output levels between different amplifiers
can be difficult to make because distortion
increases with power output. Amplifiers with higher
HD specifications will more easily have higher total or put
channel wattage ratings. Amplifiers driving
more speakers will have higher total
wattage figures as well. Even though the
amount of power to the primary stereo
channels will usually be less thanks to the
universal presence of integrated audio on PCs
for a number of years, you don't need to buy a sound card to enjoy audio
playback from your PC. However, depending upon the
types of audio content you enjoy and the type of devices you want to
connect to your PC, you might want or
need to disable a systems built in
audio capabilities and replace it sound card
with better support for specialized needs to make an intelligent
purchasing decision about a replacement
for integrated audio. You should be aware of
some audio hardware, basic components and the
features they provide, as well as the advanced
features you can get on better sound cards
or external adapters. This section discusses
the features you should consider while evaluating
audio hardware for your PC. Most integrated
audio sound cards or external audio adapters have the same basic
external connectors. These 18 inch Minija
connectors provide the means of passing
sound signals from the adapter to speakers, headphones and stereo systems. And of receiving sound from
a microphone, CD player, or stereo laptop computers with integrated audio often
includes two jacks, stereo line out and line. However, sound cards
and motherboards with integrated audio often
include SPDIF, Co axle, or optical jacks
for supporting 5.1 or 7.1 surrounded audio
and digital audio. The jacks are usually labeled, but when you're setting up a
computer on or under a desk, the labels on the back of the
PC can be difficult to see. One of the most common
reasons a PC fails to produce song is that the speakers are plugged into
the wrong circuit. To avoid this problem, most consumer oriented audio
cards color code the jacks according to
specification formed in the PC 99 design guide. The color coding can vary on some audio adapters or
not be present at all. A second method used on systems with motor
board based audio is universal audio Jack
sensing a feature of the AC 97 version 2.3
audio standard. Also supported by most
motherboards using H D audio. When a device is plugged
into an audio jack, the audio driver pops up a dialog box asking the type
of audio device in use, such as microphone,
stereo speakers, stereo headphones and so on. The audio driver dynamically assigns the jack to support
the device plugged in, even if the wrong device
is being used in a jack. According to the color coding, the line out
connector sends song signals from the audio
adapter to a stereo device. Outside the computer,
you can hook up the cables from the line out connectors to stereo speakers. A headphone set a stereo system. Some systems use the
same lime green color for surrounded audio jacks. As for the stereo
headphone jack, check additional
markings on the jacks or your system documentation for help with the line in connector. You can record or mix song signals from
an external source, such as a stereo
system camcorder, to the computer's hard disk in place of a
dedicated line jack. Some song cards use
a multipurpose jack. Creative calls it a flexi
jack to support line in, microphone in and optical out the audio card or mode board
documentation for details. Virtually all modern
sound cards and desktop systems with integrated
audio include jacks that support Center and
Sub Woofer output for use in 5.1 and greater
surround audio systems. Systems that support 5.1
audio use three jacks, one for front or stereo audio, one for audio and one for
center or sub Woofer audio. Systems that support 6.1 or 7.1 audio might include
additional jacks or might reassign and center or subwoofer jacks with software to
provide additional output. Depending on your
software driver, you might need to run a set
up program provided with your sound card or model board to enable
surrounded audio. Alternatively, selecting the surrounded audio
setup you use through your OSs speaker
configuration utility might be sufficient. The mono en connector is used to connect a microphone
for recording your voice or other songs to disc this microphone
jack records in stereo and is therefore not suitable for high quality
music recordings. To record in stereo, use the line jack. Many audio adapter cards
use automatic gain control or G C to improve recordings. This feature adjust the
recording levels on the fly. A 6000 to 10,000 Om dynamic or condenser microphone works best with this jack. Some inexpensive
audio adapters use the line connector instead of
a separate microphone jack. Some song cards use a multipurpose jack in place of a dedicated
microphone jack. The Sony Philips Digital
Interface receives digital audio signals
directly from compatible devices
without converting them to analog format. First, the SPDIFout
interface might be built into the song card using a dedicated or
multipurpose jack. Most der boards include an SPDIFoutjack on
the report cluster, whereas others use a plug in header cable to provide output. This supports home theater and digital speaker systems
with optical inputs. Typical location of card or external device moder board based
audio solutions may include optical PDF out on the Port cluster or on a header cable that
uses an expansion slot. Cards made for audio
recording also can include an optical or coax
PDF in connection. As with many PC components, a software driver provides
a vital link between an audio adapter and the
application OOS that uses it. If you are using
integrated audio, you can get updated drivers
for your system from the motherboard or
computer vendors website or via Windows update. If you're using a
discrete sound card, get updated drivers from the card vendors website
or via Windows updates.
11. STORAGE: Permanent storage is any
computer data storage device that retains its data when
the device is unpowered. Common examples of
permanent storage are the computer's hard drive, SSD or M two. Hard Disk drive, sometimes
abbreviated as hard drive, is a non volatile memory
hardware device that permanently stores and
retrieves data on a computer. A hard drive is a secondary storage
device that consists of one or more platters to which data is written using
a magnetic head, all inside of an
air sealed casing. Internal hard disks reside in a drive connected to the motherboard using
a Satter cable, and are powered by a connection to the PSU or power supply unit. Ssd's or solid state drives
have started to replace hard disk drives because of the distinct
performance advantages they have over hard disk drives, including faster access
times and lower latency. While SSDs is becoming
more and more popular, hard disk drives continue to be used in many
desktop computers, largely due to the value per dollar that hard disk
drives offer over. Ssd's short for solid state
drive or solid state disk, although it doesn't
use a disc mechanism. An SSD is a storage
medium that uses non volatile memory as a means of holding
and accessing data. Unlike a hard drive, an SSD has no moving parts, which gives it advantages
such as faster access time, noiseless operation,
higher reliability, and lower power consumption. Ssds primarily use the
Satter connection, which has a theoretical
maximum transfer rate of 750 megabytes/second However, a newer generation
of SSD's known as M two is emerging
that utilizes a PCIE connection offering
speeds of up to 12 gigabytes/second
Formerly known as Next Generation
Form Factor or NGF, The M two format is technically a replacement for the
M Stata standard, which was popular
with manufacturers of supercompact laptops
and other small gadgets That may seem surprising, since most M two drives sold at retail are intended for
use in full size desktops. But MD two has
effectively replaced M Saa hard drives
and SSDs in laptops. M two is more than just an
evolutionary form factor. Potentially it could supersede the whole agent serial
ATA format altogether. M Do two is a slot that
can interface with a 3.0 PCI Express 4.0 and 5.0 and even USB 3.0 That means that potentially any
storage or disk drive, GPU or port expansion or
low power gadget that uses a USB connection could
all be mounted on a card plugged into the M Do
two slot at the same time. The reality is a little
more complicated. For example, a single M two slot only has four PCI express lanes, a quarter of the total generally desired
for graphics cards. But flexibility for the
stimulator slot is impressive When using the PCI bus
instead of the Sater bus M Do two devices can transfer
data at anywhere from 50% to approximately 650% faster
than standard Sater. Depending on the capabilities of the moder board and the
Md two card itself. If you have the opportunity
to use an M TwoSD on a moder board that supports
PCI generation four or five, It can be significantly faster than a
regular sater drive. At the moment, M Do
two is primarily used as an interface
for super fast SSD's, both on laptops and desktops. If you walk into a
computer hardware store and ask for an M Do two drive, assuming you can find a retail computer store
still in operation, of course they will
almost certainly show you an SSD with
an M Do two connector. Some laptop designs also use an M Do two port
as the means of wireless connection mountain
tiny low powered cards that combine Wi Fi
and Bluetooth radios. This is less common
for desktops where the ease of a USB dongle or PCIE times one X card is
preferred though There's no reason
you couldn't do it on a compatible motor board. If your PC was made or assembled
in the last few years, it probably has an M two slot. Unfortunately, the
flexibility of the format means that
actually using it, it isn't as simple as
just plugging in a card. M two cards come with two major compatibility
variables, length and key. The first is fairly obvious, Your computer needs to have enough physical space to support the length of the
card you want to use. The second variable, how
the card is keyed just means the card connector must match the slot you'll
be plugging it into. For desktops, length isn't
typically a problem. Even a tiny mini
ITX motherboard can easily make room for the
maximum length M two PCB, which is 110 millimeters long. Some cards are as short
as 30 millimeters. You generally want a
card to be the size intended for use by a
motherboard manufacturer. As an indentation in
the end of the PCB allows for a small screw to
hold it securely in place. All M two drives use the same width determined
by the connection. The size is expressed in
the following format. Check for compatibility with your laptop or motherboard
when picking one out. Md 22230, 22 millimeters
wide by 30 millimeters long. Md 220-24-0220 2 millimeters
wide by 42 millimeters long. Md 22260, 22 millimeters
wide by 60 millimeters long. Md 22280, 22 millimeters
wide by 80 millimeters long. Md 22210, 22 millimeters wide
by 110 millimeters long. Motherboards are flexible,
offering mountain holes for the retention screw at some
or all of these intervals. While the M two standard uses the same 22 millimeter
wide slot for all cards, it's not necessarily
the exact same slot. Since M two is designed to be used with so many different
kinds of devices, it has some frustratingly
similar looking ports. Key uses a gap in the
right side of the card, left side of the host controller with six pins to the
right of the gap. This configuration supports PCIE times two bus connections. Mk uses a gap in the
left side of the car, right side of the
host controller with five pins to
the left of the gap. This configuration supports PC, IE times four bus connections for twice the data throughput. B plus M K uses both of the above gaps with five pins on the left side of the car
and six on the right. Because of the physical design, B plus M K cards are limited
to PCIE times two speeds. The two cards with
a B key interface can only fit into
a B key host slot. And likewise for M key. But cards with a B, M key design can fit in
either a B or an M host slot. Since they have gaps for both, check your laptop or
motherboard specification to see which one is supported. We recommend seeing
the documentation instead of eyeball in the slot since the
two key standards can easily be confused.
12. POWER SUPPLY: Power supply is not only one of the most
important parts in a PC. It is unfortunately one
of the most overlooked. Although most enthusiasts who build their own systems
understand its importance, the mainstream PC buyer
generally does not Some that do any mine seem
concerned only with how many watts of power
it's related to put out, even though no
practical way exists to verify those ratings
without regard to whether the power being produced
is clean and stable or whether it is full of
noise, spikes, and surges. The basic function of the power supply is to
convert the electrical power available at the wall circuit to that which the computer
circuitry can use. The power supply in a conventional desktop system
is designed to convert either 120 volts nominal 60
hoot AC alternating current, or 240 volt nominal 50 hoots
AC power into 3.3 volts, 5 volts, and 12 volt
DC, or direct current. Some power supplies require you to switch between the
two input ranges, whereas others auto switch. Technically, the power
supply in most pieces is described as a constant voltage switching
power supply unit, which is defined as follows. Constant voltage means
the power supply puts out the same voltage to the computer's
internal components no matter the voltage of AC current running it or the capacity or wattage
of the power supply. Switching refers to the design and power
regulation technique that most suppliers use compared to other types
of power supplies. This design provides an efficient and
inexpensive power source and generates a minimum
amount of heat. It also maintains a small
size and low price. The Pow supply unit normally
supplies 3.3 volts, 5 volts, and 12
volts to the system. These voltages are
often called rails, referring to the
fact that although multiple wires are carrying
a specific voltage, they are normally tied to a single rail or tap in
the power supply unit. Multiple wires are used because if all the current were
carried over a single wire, the wire under
terminals, connectors, and even the traces on the
circuit board will all have to be extremely
large to handle the load. Instead, it is cheaper and more efficient to spread the
load out among multiple, smaller and thinner wires. The digital
electronic components and circuits in the system, motherboard adapter cards and disk drive logic boards
typically use the 3.3 volts or 5 volts power and the motors disk drive motors and any fans use the 12 volt power. In addition, voltage regulators
on the motherboard or in other components convert
these standard voltages to others as necessary. You can think of each rail as a separate power circuit of a power supply
within the poor supply. Normally, each rail is rated for a specified maximum
amount of current in amps because the
extreme amount of 12 volt current required by newer CPU voltage regulators and high end video cards can exceed the output of common
12 volt reels. Some power supply designs
use multiple 12 volt reels. This means that
essentially they have two or more separate 12
volt circuits internally, with some wires topping off of one circuit and others
topping off of another. Unfortunately, this can
lead to power problems, especially if you fail to balance the loads
on both reels or to ensure you don't exceed the load capacity on
one or the other. In other words, it
is far better to have a single 12
volt reel that can supply 40 amps than 212 volt reels
supplying 20 amps each. Because with the single rail, you don't have to worry which connectors derive
power from which reel. And then try to ensure that you don't overload
one or the other. Whereas the 3.3 volts, 5 volts and 12 volts reels technically independent
inside the power supply. Many cheaper designs have
them sharing some circuitry, making them less independent
than they should be. This manifests itself in
voltage regulation problems, in which a significant load on one rail causes a voltage
drop on the others. Components such
as processors and video cards can vary their power consumption
greatly by their activity. Transitioning from sitting at the Windows desktop to
loading a three D game, can cause both the
processor and video card to more than double the draw on the 12 volt rail on some
cheaper power supplies. This can cause the voltages on the other rails
to fall out of spec or drop greater than
5% making the system crash. Better designed power supplies feature truly independent reels with tighter regulation
in the 1% to 3% range. The power supply must deliver a good steady supply of DC power so the system
can operate properly. Devices that run on
voltages other than these directly must then be indirectly powered to onboard
voltage regulators, which take the five
volt, or 12 volt, from the power supply
and convert that to the lower voltages required
by various components. Processors also require
a variety of voltages, as low as 1.3 volt or less, that are supplied by a sophisticated voltage
regulator module, or VRM, that is built into
or plugged into the motorbo. Built into the processor, you'll commonly find three or more different voltage
regulator circuits on a modern motor board. If you look at a
specification sheet for a typical PC power supply, you can see that the supply
generates not only 3.3 volts, 5 volts and 12 volts, but also negative 12 volts and
possibly negative 5 volts. Although negative 12
volts and possibly negative 5 volts are supplied to the motor board via the
power supply connectors. The motor board normally
uses the 3.3 volts, 5 volts, and 12 volts. If present, the
negative 5 volts is simply routed to the
ISA bus on pen B five. So any ISA cards can use it even though very
few ever have. However, as an example, the analog data separator
circuits found in Ola floppy controllers did
use negative five votes. The tabard logic typically doesn't use negative
12 votes either. However, in the past, it was used in some
board designs for serial port or local area
network, or land circuits. The positive voltages
seemingly power everything in the system
logic and motors. What are the negative
voltages used for? The answer is not much. In fact, negative 5 volts was
removed from the x 12 volt, 1.3 and later specifications. The only reason it remained in most power supply designs
for many years is that 5 volts was required on the ISA bus for full
backward compatibility. Because modern pieces no
longer include ISA slots, the negative five volt signal was deemed as no
longer necessary. However, if you are installing a new power supply in a system with a Oler Moder board that
incorporates ISA bus slots, you want a power
supply that does include a negative
five volt signal. Although older
serial port circuits use plus Or -12 volt outputs, today most run only on
3.3 volts, or 5 volts. The main function of
the 12 volt power is to run disk drive motors, as well as the higher output processor
voltage regulators. In some of the newer boards, usually a large amount of 12 volt current is available
from the power supply, especially in those designed for systems with a large
number of drive bys, such as in a tower
configuration. Besides disk drive motors and newer CPU
voltage regulators, the 12 volt supply is used by any cooling
fans in the system, which of course should
always be running. A single cooling fan can draw between 100 milliamps
and 250 milliamps. However, most newer fans use the lower 100
million figure. Note that although most fans in desktop systems
run on 12 volts, portable systems
can use fans that run on 5 volts or
even 3.3 volts. Systems with modern
form factors based on the TX or TX standards include
another special signal. This feature called S can turn the power supply and thus the system on
or off via software. It is sometimes known as
the soft power feature. Ps is most evident when you use it with an operating
system such as Windows, that supports the advanced
power management, APM, or advanced configuration
and power interface, or ACPI specification. When you shut down a Windows PC, Windows automatically turns off the computer after it completes
the Shotton sequence. A system without this feature
only displays a message that it's safe or
ready for you to shut down the computer manually. In addition to supplying electrical power
to run the system, the power supply ensures that the system does not run unless the voltages supplied are sufficient to operate
the system properly. In other words, the power supply actually prevents the
computer from starting up or operating until all the power supply voltages are within the power ranges. The power supply completes internal checks and tests before allowing the
system to start. If the tests are successful, the power supply sends a special signal to the
motherboard called Power Good. This signal must be continuously present
for the system to run. Therefore, when the
AC voltage dips and the power supply can't maintain outputs within
regulation tolerance, the power good
signal is withdrawn, goes low, and forces
the system to reset. The system does not restart until the power good
signal returns. The power good signal, sometimes called Power Ok, is a plus five volt nominal
active high signal, with a variation from 2.4 volts through 6 volts generally
being considered acceptable. That is supplied to the motor board when
the power supply has passed its internal self tests and the output voltages
has stabilized. This typically takes
place anywhere from 100 milliseconds to
500 milliseconds. You turn on the
power supply switch. The power supply then sends the poor good signal to
the motor board where the processor timer chip that controls the reset line to
the processor receives it. Power for the
processor comes from a device called the
voltage regulator module, which is built into most
motor motor boards. This device senses the
CPU voltage requirements usually via sense pins
on the processor, and calibrates itself to provide the proper
voltage to run the CPU. The design of a VRM
enables it to run on either a plus 5 volts or plus
12 volts for input power. Many have used 5
volts over the years, but starting in the year 2001. Most converted to
12 volts because of the lower current
requirements at that voltage. In addition, other devices might have already
loaded the 5 volts, whereas only drive
motors typically use the 12 volts prior
to the year 2000. Whether the VRM on your
board uses 5 volts or 12 volts depends on the particular motor board
or regulator design. Many modern voltage regulator
ICs are designed to run on anything from a 4
volts to a 36 volt input. So it is up to the motor board designer as to how they will be configured. To augment the supply of 12 volt power to
the motor board, inter created a new ATX 12 volt power supply
specification. This added a third
power connector called the 12 volt connector, specifically to supply additional 12 volt
power to the bore. The 412 volt power connector is specified for all power
supplies conforming to the ATX 12 votes form
factor and consists of a Molex mini fit junior
connector housing with female terminals. This connector has
212 volt power pins, each rated for eight arms total
using standard terminals, or up to 11 amps using
each HTS terminals. This allows up to 18 amps or more of additional 12 volts
current to the tabor, for a total of 22 arms of 12 volts When combined with
the 20 pin main connector. High end model boards often use multiple voltage
regulators to supply power to the processor
to distribute the load among the additional
voltage regulators. These boards may use 24
pin 12 vote connectors. However, they are physically combined into a single
eight pin connector shell. This type of CP power
connector was first defined by the EPS 12 vote
power Supply specification, version 1.6 released
in the year 2000. Although this specification
is intended for file silvers, the increased power
requirements for some higher power
PC processors has caused this connector
to appear on desk PC model boards
supporting these processors. Power supplies have several
specifications that define the input and
output capabilities as well as the operational
characteristics. This section defines
and examines most of the common specifications
related to power supplies. Pc power supplies are of a switching rather
than a linear design. The switching type
of design uses a high speed oscillator
circuit to convert the higher wall
circuit AC voltage to the much lower DC voltage used to power the PC
and PC components. Switching type
power supplies are noted for being efficient
in size, weight, and energy compared
to the linear design, which uses a large
internal transformer to generate various outputs. This type of transformer
based design is inefficient in at
least three ways. The output voltage of the transformer linearly
follows the input voltage, hence the name linear. So any fluctuations
in the AC power going into the system can cause
problems with the output. The high current level
requirements of a PC system require the use of heavy
wiring in the transformer, the 60 hoots frequency of
the AC power supplied from your building is difficult to filter out inside
the power supply, requiring large and expensive filter capacitors
and rectifiers. The switching supply,
on the other hand, uses a switching
circuit that chops up the incoming power at a
relatively high frequency. This enables the use of high frequency transformers that are much smaller and lighter. Also, the higher
frequency is much easier and cheaper to
filter out at the output, and the input voltage
can vary widely. Input ranging from 90 volts
to 125 votes still produces the proper output levels and
many switching supplies can automatically adjust
to 240 volts inputs. One characteristic of all
switching type power supplies is that they do not
run without a load. Therefore, you must
have something such as a motherboard and
hard drive plugged in and drawing power
from the supply to work. If you simply have
the power supply on the bench with
nothing plugged into it, either the supply burns up or its protection circuitry
shuts it down. Most power supplies
are protected from no load operation and
shut down automatically. Some of the cheapest
supplies, however, lack the protection circuit
annually and can be destroyed after a few seconds
of no load operation. A few power supplies
have their own built in load resistors so they can run even though there
isn't a normal load, such motor board or
hard disk plugged in. Some power supplies have minimum load requirements for both the 5 volts
and 12 volt sides. According to IBM
specifications for the 192 Wt power supply
used in the original 80, a minimum load of seven amps
was required at 5 volts, and a minimum of 2.5 amps was required for 12 volts for
the supply to work properly. As long as a motor board was plugged into
the power supply, the motor board would draw sufficient 5 volts at all times to keep these
circuits in the supply happy. However, 12 volts is typically used by motors and
not motor boards, and the floppy or optical
drive motors are usually off. Because floppy or optical drives don't present 12 volt load
unless they are spinning. Systems without a
hard disk drive could have problems
because there won't be enough load on the
12 volt circuit in the supply to
alleviate problems. When IBM used to ship the original 80 systems
without a hard disk, it plugged the hard
disk drive power cable into a large 550 watt sand by resistor that was mounted in a small metal cage assembly where the drive would have been. The AT case has screw holes on top of where
the hard disk would go. Specifically designed to
mount this resistor cage. A system manufacturer should
be able to provide you with the technical specifications of the poor supplies it
uses in its systems. This type of information
can be found in the system's technical
reference manual, as well as on stickers attached directly
to the poor supply. Poor supply manufacturers
can also supply this data, which is preferable
if you can identify the manufacturer and contact
it directly or via the web. The input specifications
are listed as voltages, and the output
specifications are listed as amps, several
voltage levels. You can convert amperage to voltage by using the
following simple formula. Which is what equal to volts by amps When it comes to computers. One of the major factors in overall energy consumption is the efficiency of the
power supply unit. In 200094, the Northwest Energy
Efficient Alliance founded the eight
Plus Program to encourage computer
manufacturers to improve the energy efficiency
of the machines by installing highly
efficient power supplies. Ecos consulting, which
manages the program, tests and certifies
power supplies as 80% or higher inefficiency
to help offset the cost of producing
more efficient designs. The program also pays
incentives to manufacturers producing power supply units and systems that are certified. Systems with more efficient
power supplies consume an average 15 to 30% less power than the
conventional designs. This can result in a significant
energy and cost savings over the life of a system. In addition, the resulting lower heat output both improves system reliability and
saves additional energy in cooling the system as well as the surrounding
environment. The 80 Plus program
currently has six levels of certification from 80 plus
white to 80 plus Titanium. Each level of
certification signifies different minimum levels of efficiency which are measured
at three different loads, 20% 50% and 100% How is this efficiency determined and what is
the overall effect? The poll supply unit
in a PC converts the high voltage
AC wall current to 12 volts and lower DC
voltages for use in the PC. Unfortunately, no poll supply
unit is 100% efficient, meaning that some of the
power is lost or used up using the conversion and ends up being
dissipated as heat. Conventional poor supply units or were normally
about 70% efficient. Which means that 30%
of the energy drawn from the wall circuit is
wasted and ends up as heat.
13. CPU INTENSITY: There are two types of CPU intensive games
that rely heavily on one or two performance critical
treads and will perform best on CPU's with the highest single
threaded performance. 99% of games currently
in existence, games that can leverage multi treading and
will scale more evenly with counts with predominantly single
treaded games, the game can be
considered CPU intensive when the performance critical
part of that tread exceeds the single treaded performance
of what can be considered a mainstream CPU and becomes
the dominant bottleneck. Multi treaded games
are much the same, except that the
performance critical parts may be more spread
out across treads. Once any of those
treads workload exceeds what the typical
mainstream CPU can handle. With all of the Bagung
stuff thrown in, the CPU becomes the
bottleneck again.
14. BOTTLENECK: The term bottleneck
is everywhere when we're talking about
PC gaming performance. A bottleneck occurs
when there is a restrictive
element holding back the performance that could
otherwise be achieved. If you're just getting started with planning your
first PC build, this may be a hard concept
to grasp and that is why this bottlenecking
explanation is very important when you are
dealing with bottlenecks. It is important to know
why one would happen, how to find them, and most importantly, how to avoid them. The name bottleneck comes
from the way that fluid flows much slower through
the neck of a bottle than it would if that
neck didn't exist. Hence, another word for a
bottleneck is a choke point. For example, let's turn a bottle full of water upside
down and open the lid. The water is flowing
out of the bottle only at a rate at which the
bottle opening will allow. The wider the opening is, the faster the water will
flow out of the bottle. And the smaller the opening is, the water will
flow a lot slower. Imagine that instead of
water, we have frames. And these frames are being
displayed onto your monitor. Displaying the frames
is, of course, your PC. But let's stick with the
concept of a bottle for now. The opening of the bottle can
represent any component in your system that may restrict the number of frames that could
potentially be displayed. The easiest way to explain
this is as if you take a very old computer and
assuming it's even compatible, you put the very latest $1,000
graphics card in the PC. The PC is not going
to slow down and the gaming performance will
most probably be improved. But that card won't reach
its highest potential, even though the new card might be ten times faster
than the old one. Depending on the bottleneck, you may only get a small
performance increase because the CPU memory and potentially other components
are so slow that they can't feed the graphics card data at a fast enough rate
to keep it busy.
15. CPU BOTTLENECK: The most common
bottleneck that you'll see in PC gaming is
a CPU bottleneck, Meaning that your CPU
will be restricting the potential number of frames
being drawn from a GPU. The simplest explanation for
how this happens is that your CPU is just not powerful enough to
keep up with your GPU. But let's dive a little deeper and take a look at
what's really going on. Let's say that we have a game being rendered at 60
frames per second, which is equal to one frame
every 16.67 milliseconds. The CPU, in addition to many
other tasks to prepare, sending a draw call to the GPU, which means it is sending some data such as
texture and shaders, whilst also rendering
objects and buffers on the next frame
which is to be rendered. The GPU renders this frame
and it's then displayed onto your monitor when it receives the next frame
which is to be rendered. And while that's rendering, the CPU is already on the
next frame for the GPU. So here we have no bottleneck. And that's because
the CPU is preparing the frames faster than
the GPU can render them. As mentioned earlier, in case the CPU is on
the weaker side, then the GPU will be rendering frames faster than the
CPU can prepare them. And this right there
is the bottleneck. Your GPU could be utilized 100% if your CPU
was more powerful. But in this case, it spends
more time idling and not rendering frames because of this bottleneck situation. Let's say a GPU can render frames every 16.67 milliseconds, but the CPU needs 25
milliseconds to prepare them. Now in this 25
millisecond duration, the CPU is doing a lot of work. In addition to preparing
the frame data for the GP, it also needs to
process other things, such as any game
AI, logic, physics, and of course any
other background tasks that may be occurring
in other programs. All these tasks increase load on the CPU and can therefore increase the amount
of time that it takes to send a draw
call to the GPU. Essentially, this is why some games are more CPU
intensive than others, such as Battlefy five, which is quite CPU intensive, seeing that there is a
lot of network data, game logic, and
physics to handle, whereas riding a horse
through a forest in which a tree is a lot
less CPU intensive.
16. RAM BOTTLENECK: A memory bottleneck implies that the system does not have
sufficient or fast enough Ram. This situation cuts the speed at which the Ram can serve
information to the CPU, which slows overall operations. In cases where the system
doesn't have enough memory, the computer will start
offloading storage to a significantly
slower hard drive or SSD to keep things running. Alternatively, if the Ram cannot serve data to the
CPU fast enough, the device will experience both slow down and low
CPU usage rates.
17. CPU,GPU PAIRING: The monetary rule of thumb for pairing a CPU and
GPU is a bit flawed. This will work great if all games were designed
the same, but they're not. Some games are more GPU
intensive with little CPU usage, while others pull
more resources from the CPU and barely
touching the GPU. The first thing you
need to do is check out the demands of the
games you plan on playing. Now, generally speaking, if you're making a
generic gaming rig, then yes, this methodology
is an easy route to take. Take your budget for GPU
and CPU and allocate roughly somewhere between
two thirds towards the GPU and the remaining
one third toward the CPU. Up to take investing in the CPU, that's half the cost of the GPU. This is often a safe bet
across the board for a general non game
specific gaming rig. I would stick with
that general scale.
18. AUDIO HARDWARE: All systems today should be capable of playing
audio to some degree. Which means you need at least a possible set
of external speakers and either a motherboard with integrated audio or a
separate song card. Most systems today
feature integrated audio, but you can disable it if you
prefer to add a dedicated, high quality sound card. Dedicated cards are
ideal if you want the best possible song
quality for video playback, audio capture and editing, or surround song for gaming. Almost any motherboard
integrated audio system or song card on the market today
is compatible with the baseline creative
song. The Blaster series Windows direct Song
and other song API's. Speakers designed for
use with Pics range from tiny unpaired devices to large
audio file class systems. Many of the top manufacturers of stereo speakers now produce
speaker systems for PCs. Some include Subufers or even a full Dolby Song
Sung implementation.
19. CABLES: Pc systems need many
different cables to hook up everything. These can include power
cables or adapters, Serial ATA drive cables,
and many others. Motherboards normally
include a few cables, but if you are installing
multiple drives, you might need to
purchase extras. Chassis normally
include cables for front panel connections
and power cables are normally included width or
are part of the power supply. You might need
screws, standoffs, mounting brackets or reels
if your case requires them and other
miscellaneous hardware to assemble your system. An assortment of hardware is normally included
with the chassis, but in some cases, it helps to have extras on hand. When you are planning
to build a system, it is important to consider how all your selected components will work together and how the software you run
must support them. It is not enough to
be show that you have sufficient slots
on the mudder board for all your expansion cards and enough bays in the case
for all your drives. You must also consider the resources required
for all the components. For example, if the
Chasis you have selected have front
panel IO ports. Are there available connections for all of them on
the Mudder board? Essentially, you should
completely configure the system before you
begin ordering parts. Planning a system to this level of detail
can be a lot of work, is one reason, besides cost, that the majority of
PCs are prebuilt. Another consideration
is the operating system and other software you
need pre built systems, nearly always arrived
with the OS installed. But when you build your own, you must be prepared with a copy of your selected
operating system. The OS you select for your new computer is
another important decision. You must be certain that the operating system supports all the hardware you selected, which can occasionally
be a difficult task. Today, the main choices are Windows or one of
the Linux variants. This is one area where building your own
has real advantages. Oem systems often have limited choices when it comes
to the operating system. But when you build
your own system, the choice of OS
is entirely up to you Drivers for the
desired operating system. And specific hardware components
might also be a problem. It is a good idea to gather all the latest
driver revisions for your hardware and intended
operating system. As well as bias flashes,
firmware, updates, and other software
components and have them available when you
begin the assembly process. Placing them on an optical disc or flash drive is a good idea. That way you can access them easily and install
them when necessary.
20. HARD DISK,SOLID STATE DRIVES: Your system also needs at least one hard disk
or solid state drive. One of the cardinal rules of computer shopping is that you can never have too much storage, buy as much as you can afford, and you'll almost certainly
end up filling it anyway. Many motherboards now
feature redundant array of independent or inexpensive discs or red capable stata interfaces. These enable you to install multiple drives in a number
of array configurations, including D zero or
stripe red one or mirrored red five which is striped with distributed parity. And red ten which is striped
mirrors using the red one, Red five or red ten
configuration is particularly useful for increased protection
against data loss. Red one requires match
pairs of drives rears. Red five requires
three or more drives, and red ten requires
four drives. Obviously, your system
needs a keyboard and some type of pointing
device such as a mouse. Different people prefer
different types of keyboards, and the feel of one type can vary considerably
from other types. If possible, I suggest
you try a variety of keyboards until you find a
type that suits you best.
21. HEATSINK AND COOLING FANS: Some of today's faster processors
produce a lot of heat, and this heat has to be
dissipated so your system doesn't operate intermittently
or even fail completely. Boxed processors from Intel and AMD are sold with the heat
sink and fan included. Although OEM processors don't include a heat sink from
the processor manufacturer, most vendors who sell them add an aftomatic heat sink
and fan to the package. Often aftermarket heat
sinks and fans provide significantly
better cooling than those shipped with
boxed processors, making them more suitable
for overclocking. All modern heat sinks require that a thermal
interface material be applied to the base of the
heat sink before installation. A small amount can be supplied with a new heat sink either as an integrated phase
change power or as a separate tube of
thermal pace or grease. But for a few dollars, you might want to purchase some separately because
the grease has to be cleaned off and
reapplied every time you remove and reinstall the
processor or heat sink. Another consideration for
cooling is with the case the fan in the power supply
and the one on the CPU, heat sink might not be enough for a high
performance system. Recommend you get a case that includes at least one
additional cooling fan. This is typically mounted
in the rear of the chassis, directing additional
air out of the back. Some cases include an
extra fan in the front, which is recommended if you are installing more than
three hard drives. Most motherboards provide
connectors for a CPU fan, plus at least two Chasis fans.
22. MEMORY: Main memory typically
is installed in the form of dual inline
memory modules, or Dims. Current motherboards
use memory in single, dual, or quad channel modes. In single channel mode, each 64 bit de dim is
accessed individually, whereas in dual or
trichannel mode the modules are accessed in
multiples of two or three. For higher performance,
if you want to take advantage of the
faster multichannel modes, make sure you
purchase and install memory modules in
matched multiples. Some memory modules
are available with an extra error check bit
for each eight bits. These are called ECC, or error correcting
code modules. Ecc support is normally found only in silver type
processors and motherboards, and is rarely found
in standard PCs. If you want to install the more expensive ECC
modules in your system, make sure that
your processor and motherboard provide
the necessary support.
23. MOTHERBOARD: Several compatible form factors are used for motherboards. The form factor refers to
the physical dimensions and size of the board and dictates into which type of case
the board will fit. In general, you are safest
sticking with the ATX, or Micro tax form factors as
those are the most popular. And with that, you will have
the widest choices in cases, motherboards and power supplies. In addition to processor
support and form factor, you should consider
several other features when selecting a motherboard. The following sections
examine each feature. Aside from the processor, the main component on a motherboard is
called the chipset. This usually is a set of one or two chips that contain the main
model board circuits. The chip that connects to
the processor is typically known as the PCH or
platform controller hub. The chipset is typically
known by the name of the PCH. In a single chip chip set, the PCH or CU connects
all slower speed input, output ports and devices
such as USB ports, PCI Express times one
slot or times four slots, audio network and so on. The memory controller
and PCI Express times 16 slots are
controlled by the CPU, which will be Intel
or APU will be AMD. Because the chipset really
is the motor board. The chipset used in a
given motor board has a profound effect on the
performance of the board. It dictates all the
performance parameters and limitations of the
board, such as memory, size and speed, processor
types and speeds, supported buses and
speeds and more. Because chipsets are constantly being introduced and
improve over time, I can't list all of them
and their functions here. Clearly, you must base the selection of a
chipset largely on the processor you choose and the additional components you intend to install
in the computer. The chipset dictates which type of bus slots can be included
on the motherboard. Almost all recent
chipsets include peripheral component
interconnect or CI and PCIE slot support. If you really want in depth technical information
about the chipset in a given motherboard, I recommend downloading
it documentation, often called the databook, from the manufacturer's website. This documentation should
also help describe the advanced chipset set up functions in your
systems set up program. This information, you
might be able to fine tune the moderboard configuration by altering the chipset
features and settings. Another important feature
on the moderboard is the basic input output
system, or bias. This is also called
the Rum bias because the code is stored in a read
only memory or Rum chip. There are several things
to look for here. Most biases for
desktop computers are supplied by one of the major
bias manufacturers such as AM I or American Megatrends
International Phoenix Inside Software or Award, which is owned by Phoenix. The bias is normally contained
in a special type of reprogrammable chip called a
flash from or double Prom, which is electrically erasable, programmable read only memory. This enables you to download bias updates from
the manufacturer, and using a program it supplies, easily update the code in a bias before purchasing
a motherboard, check to see whether
the motherboard is well supported and that the manufacturer offers
downloadable bias updates. If you can't easily find
bias updates, drivers, and documentation for the board on a manufacturer's website, you might want to
choose a board from a different manufacturer that
provides better support. You also need to verify that the motherboard and bias support both the processor you
plan to install initially and the processor you might
upgrade to in the future. If the motherboard and chipset can handle
a new processor, but the bias cannot, a bias upgrade might be available to provide
proper support. The traditional bias
is being replaced by the Unified Extensible
Firmware interface, or UEFI, which enables booting from three terabyte hard disks and other features. Not possible with the
traditional bias. However, both UEFI and Bias firmware require you to select the correct settings
for your hardware.
24. PROCESSOR: Both Intel and AMD sell processors through two
primary channels or methods. They are referred to as
boxed or retail, and OEM. The most obvious
difference between the boxed and OEM processors
is the physical packaging. It could be argued that both
technically come in boxes, but the Intel or AMD box
processors come individually packed in a colorful
shrink wrap box that includes the processor, the heat sink and fan
installation instructions, and a certificate
of authenticity, warranty paperwork, and so on. Of particular note is
the cooling system, which is designed to work on the worst case
tumor environments and is a high quality
and heavy duty unit. On the other hand,
OEM processors come in a much larger box with multiple trees containing
up to ten processors each or up to 100 total. No heat sinks, fans, installation instructions, warranties, or other
paperwork are included. Oem dealers might provide a heat sink and fan
with an OEM processor. Be sure to find
out details about the bundled fan and
heat sink if you are not satisfied with the bundled cooling
hardware by the processor, by itself and select
the fan and heat sink. You prefer major
sister manufacturers purchase OEM processors in large quantities because the motherboard you choose dictates
or limits your choice. In a processor, you should
choose your processor first, which will then dictate
the type of CPU circuit or slot that must be
presented on the motherboard.
25. SYSTEM COMPONENTS: In these days of commodity
parts and component pricing, building your own system from scratch is no longer
the daunting process. It once was, every component
necessary to build a PC system is available off the shelf
at competitive pricing. And the system you build can use the same or even
better components than the top name brand systems. A benefit of building your own system is that
you are guaranteed an industry standard system that will be easily upgradable
in the future. Many of the larger
system vendors use proprietary components
that can make future upgrades
difficult or impossible. The components used in building
a typical PC as follows. Poor supply, which is
sometimes included with the case Mob processor or CPU, CPU, Fan, or heat sink, which is also known as
an active heat sink. Usually included with the
processor memory or Ram, hard disk or solid state drive. Keyboard, pointing device
or mouse video car, which may be integrated into the Mob or CPU
display or monitor. Sound which is usually
integrated into the Motorbor speakers
network interface, car cables, hardware operating
system and other software. The case and power supply unit
are often sold as a unit, although many vendors do
sell them separately. The power supplies included with lower cost cases are often of lower quality or provide an inadequate
amount of power. So you might want to replace the existing power supply
unit with one of your. There are a multitude of Chi designs from
which to choose, usually dependent on the moldable form
factor you want to use. The number of drive
as are available, and whether the system is
to be placed on a desktop, on the floor, under the desk, on a shelf, or in
some other location. Cases with extra fans for
cooling, front panel, input, output and audio ports, removable side panels and aboard trees to make installing
a motor board easier. As well as cases that require
no tools for assembly, rack mounted versions, and more. For most custom built systems, a mid tower case supporting an ATX or Micro Tx
form factor aboard, as well as an ATX 12 vote or EPS 12 volt form factor per supply
unit is the best choice. The ATX 12 volt and EPS
12 volt pul supply units will have the 24 pin
main power connector used on the latest boards, while EPS 12 volt
pulsupply units will also have an eight pin
plus 12 vote processor poor connector instead of the standard four pin version used on the AA x 12 volt units. The size and shape of a component is called
the form factor, like those for motor
boards and Po supplies. However, each specific
case is designed to accept a specific motor board and poor supply form factor. You have to ensure that the
particular case you choose will accept the type of motor board and poor
supply you want to use. After you settle on
a case form factor, you need to choose
one that supports the motor board and poor supply form factors you want to use. The case you choose
is really a matter of personal preference
and system location. Most people feel that the tower systems are roomier
and easier to work on, and the full size
tower cases have a lot of bays for
various storage devices. Tower cases typically have enough bays to hold
removable media drives, multiple hard disk drives,
SSD's optical drives, flash memory, card readers, and anything else you
might want to install. However, some of
the desktop cases can have as much
room as the towers, typically the mini
and mid tower models. In fact, a tower case is sometimes considered
a desktop case, turn sideways, or vice versa. Some cases are
convertible, that is, they can be used in either a desktop or
tower orientation. When it comes to
the power supply, the most important consideration
is how many devices you plan to install in the system and how much
power they require. When you build your own system, you should always keep upgradability and
repairability in mind. A properly designed
custom PC should last you far longer than
an off the shelf model, because you can more easily
add or replace components. When choosing a case
and power supply, Leave yourself some
room for expansion. Under assumption that you will eventually want to install
additional drives or other new devices that
appear on the market that you can't live it out Specific, be sure you have at least a few empty internal
driveways and choose a higher output
power supply than you initially need for
your current equipment, so it won't be overtaxed when additional components
are added later.
26. VIDEO CARD AND DISPLAY: You need a video adapter and a monitor or display to
complete your system. Numerous choices are
available in this area. But the most important piece of advice I have to give is
to choose a good monitor. The display is your main
interface to the system and can be the cause of many hours of either
pain or pleasure, depending on which
monitor you choose. At this point, the market
for RTs has died off, and I recommend only LCDs
with LED backlighting, often referred as LED
displays for new systems, a display can be moved from system to system
as you upgrade, and can be used as a secondary display side to
get a larger display later. Getting a high
quality display that supports the latest video
connection types and display standards is an
excellent long term investment in your computing life.
27. COMPUTER ASSEMBLY: Actually assembling
the system is easy after you have lined
up all the components. In fact, you will find a
path procurement phase, the lengthiest and trying of the entire experience
computing system is basically a matter of
screwing everything together, plugged in and all the
cables and connectors and configuring everything
to operate properly. In short order,
you will find out whether your system operates
as you had planned, or whether some
incompatibilities exist between some
of the components. Be careful and pay attention to how you install
all the components. It is easy to forget a jumper, switch or cable connection that later causes problems
in system operation. Most people's first
reaction when problems are cool is to
blame defective hardware, but that is usually
not the source. The problem can
typically be traced to some misstep or our meat
in the assembly process. Above all, the most crucial rule of assembling your
own system is to save every piece of
documentation and software that comes with every
component in your system. This material can be
indispensable and troubleshooting
problems you encounter during the assembly
process or later. You should also retain all
the packing materials used. May order components
to you until you are certain they will
not have to be retuned. The process of
physically assembling EPC requires only
a few basic tools. A quarter inch nut driver or a Phillips head screwdriver for the external screws that
hold the cover in place. And interests 16
inch nut driver of Phillips head screwdriver
for all the other schools, needle nose pliers can also help in removing
motherboard standoffs, jumpers, and stub on
cable connectors. Because of marketplace
standardization, only a couple of types
and sizes of screws, with a few exceptions, hold a system together. Also, the physical arrangement of the major
components is similar, even among different
manufacturers or tools, you will need a
software related, you will need an operating
system installed desk or ISO. And it is a good
idea to have disks handy with any service
packs, drivers, or other software
you will want to install the following sections covered assembly and disassembly procedures for these components, motherboard keys
or cover assembly, power supply drives,
and adopted boards. As you prepare to install your systems motherboard,
unpack the motherboard. Check to ensure that you have everything that
should be included. If you purchase a new board, you typically get at
least the motherboard, the input output shield, some IO cables on a manual, if you are installing one or more video cards
that have cooling shrouds, make sure that you
have access to other slots if you needed to add additional cards
or header cables that use expansion
slot brackets. Many mid-range and
high performance cards have coolants roads wide enough to
prevent the use of the adjacent expansion slots. When you are working on the internal components
of a computer, you must take the necessary
precautions prevent accidental static discharge
is to the components at anytime your body can hold a large static
voltage charge that can easily damaged
components of your system. Before I ever put my hands
into an open system, I touched a bare metal grounded
portion of the chassis, such as the internal frame
or the power supply keys. This action serves to equalize the electrical
charges the device on my body might be carrying. Be sure the system is unplugged during all phases
of the assembly process. Some will claim that you should leave the system plugged in to provide an ERD grown to
the power cord and outlet, but that is unnecessary. If you leave the
system plugged in, you open yourself up
to other problems, such as accidentally turn
it on or leaving it on when installing a board
or device which can damage the motherboard
or other devices, power supply is used
in many systems study, deliver a plus 5 v current to the
motherboard continuously. That is, whenever
they are plugged in bottom line and show that any system you are working on is completely unplugged
from the wall outlet. It can take as much as 5 s for Paul to completely
drain from the system. Some motherboards
have a small LED does stays lit as long as power
is present in the system. After you disconnect
pore to the motherboard, make sure the LED
turns off before you start to work with the
motherboard or its components. A more sophisticated way to equalize the charge is
between you and any of the system
components is to use an electrostatic
discharge Protection Kit. These kits consist
of a wrist strap and Matt with ground wires for attachments to the
system chassis. When you are going
to work on a system, you place them next
to the system units. Next, you clip the ground
wire to both the mud and on unimpeded part of the systems chassis tie
into groans together. You then put the wrist strap and touched that wire to either
the chassis or the maths. If you are using a wrist
strap without a minute, clip the wrist strap wire to the system chassis when clip and these wires
to the chassis, be sure to use an area
that is free of paint. So good ground contact
can be achieved. As you install or remove
drives, adapter cards, and especially delicate items such as the entire motherboard, memory modules or processors. You should place these
components under static mat. Sometimes people put the
system unit on top of the mat, but the unit should
be alongside the mat. So you have room to lay out all the components as
you work with them. If you are going to remove the
motherboard from a system, be sure you leave enough
room for it on the mat. If you do not have
such a market place, the removed circuits
and devices on a clean desk or table
always pick up a loose Up Dakar by the metal bracket
used to secure the card to the system in this bracket is tied to the growing
circuitry of the car. So by touching the
bracket first, you prevent a discharged from
damaging the components of the car if the circuit board has no metal bracket in
motherboard, e.g. handle the board carefully
by the edges and try not to touch any of the
connectors or components. If you don't have proper ESD equipment such
as a wrist strap or Matt, be sure to periodically
touch the chassis. Why the working
inside the system to equalize any charge you
might have built up.
28. INSTALLING THE CPU AND HEATSINK: Before you install
your new motherboard, you should install the
processor and the memory. This usually is
much easier to do before the board is
installed in the chassis. Some motherboards have
jumpers dot control, both the CPU speed and a
voltage is applied to it. If these are set incorrectly, the system might
not operate up with a radically or might
even damage the CPU. Modern birds control
voltages either automatically or via
the bios setup program. If you have questions
about the proper settings, check the board and
processor documentation. All processes 30
run hot enough to require some form of heat sink to dissipate heat
from the processor, to install the processor
and the heat sink, use the following procedure. Prepare the motherboard, take the new motherboard out
of the anti-static bag. It was applied in and set it on the bug or the anti-static mat. If you have one,
install the processor, first, find pin one
on the processor. It is usually
denoted by a corner of the chip that is
marked by a triangle. Next, remove the cover from
the processes socket, if so, equipped and find the
corresponding pin one or land one of the socket for
the CPU on the motherboard. It also is usually
marked on the board or with a bevel in one
corner of the socket. Insert the CPU
into the socket by lifting the released lever
until it is vertical, then are lined up pins, all lands on the processor with the holes opens in the sockets. Japan dong into place. If the processor does not
seem want to jump in all the, we remove it to check the proper alignment
and any bent pins. When the processor is fully
seated in the socket, push down the lock-in
lever on the socket until it latches to
secure the processor. Apply thermal paste. New ritual processes
usually come with heat sinks that have pre-op
lighting, thermal paste. Some vendors covered a
piece with protective tip that must be removed before
installing the heat sink. You cannot be used
to make peace if it is damaged or
FDA heat sink has already been installed once the existent tomato paste
must be cleaned off, Andrea applied to do this, use a soft towel
or clot to remove the previous piece from the heat sink and the top
of the processor, apply new paste to the top of the processor
heat spreader, which is the metal cup. Use the smallest among two, you can spread over
the top of the chip, usually in an x fashion. Install the heat sink. Some heat sinks use one or more retainer
clips with this type, you must be careful we're not touching the clip to the socket. You don't want it to scrape
against the motherboard, which can damage circuitry
sees or components. He also needed to
keep the heat sink steady on the chip while
at touching the clips. So do not move, tilt or slightly the heat
sink while you attach it, connect the fan plugged of fun power connector into the CPU fan connectors
applied on the motherboard, which should be near
the processor socket. Optionally, some heat sinks use a peripheral pro connector
for fun poor wrote the fun wires such
that they won't interfere with the fun
or any other components. Configure the motherboard
jumpers if necessary. Although motherboards
used jumpers to configure processor
on the bus speeds, while some newer
motherboards use jumpers to configure
integrated video, refer to the motherboard
manufacturers manual to set the jumpers, if any, to match the CPU
you are going to install. In modern systems, the processor configuration is done via the
motherboard bios setup.
29. INSTALLING MEMORY MODULES: To function, the motherboard must have memory
installed on it. Usually you install modules and the lowest numbered
sockets or bunks first, note that multi-channel
boards perform best if modules are installed
in matched multiples, consult the motherboard
documentation for more information
on which sockets to use first and in
what order and how to install the specific
modules the board uses, because memory
modules are keyed to the sockets by a notch
on the side or bottom. They can go in only one way. The motherboard attaches
to the case with one or more schools and
standoffs or spaces. If you are using a new keys, you might have to attach
one or more standoffs in the proper holes before you
can install the motherboard, use the following procedure to install the new motherboard. In the case, find the holes in the new motherboard
standoffs. You should install
standoffs in the chassis wherever there is a match and screw hole in
the motherboard, note that screw holes
typically have a room of soda, solid or dotted around them, which acts as a Gandhian points. Sometimes boards
have other holes that are not
designed for screws. These will not have the
growing part or should not be used as the metal
standoff or school. Screw any standoffs
into the new keys in the proper positions to align with the schools in
the motor board. After you insert the standoffs
on line them up with the schools on the
motherboard carefully attach the screws to
secure the motherboard, the motherboard tree or keys, dependent on your
chassis design. Install the IO shield
into the chassis by snapping it into place from
the inside of the keys, installed a new motherboard into the keys or the
motor boat Tree, either screw it directly to the standoffs are
slider standoffs already attached to the board by sliding the entire
board into position, be sure you align the IO
shield with the case or ports on the back
of the board with the IOC already in the keys. Often you will have
to set the board into the keys and
slide it sideways to engage the standoffs
into the slots and the keys when the board is
in the proper position, the screw holes in
the board should be aligned with all the metals, standoffs, or screw
holes in the keys. Take the screws that
was applied with the new motherboard and screw
the board into the keys.
30. PREPARING A MODULAR POWER SUPPLY: If you have a modular
power supply, that is one that uses
detachable keyboards to provide power to different mixtures
of PCIe and SATA hard disks, you need to determine the
power connectors you need and attach the appropriate
modular power leads, e.g. if the power supply has
a built-in PCIe times 16 connector for a high
performance video card. But you are using two cards that require additional power, connect a modular PCIe
times 16 power lead. The power supply is easy
to install on as usual. Touches to the chassis
with four screws. Etx style motherboards have 20 or 24 pen main
power connector plus a four or eight pins
CPU power connector, Botha. So they can only go
in one week to attach the poor connectors from the power supply to the
motherboard, do the following. Plugged at 24% or 20 pen main ATX power supply connector into the motherboard
power socket. You can plug a 20
pin connector into a 24 point socket and vice versa by connecting them
in an offset fashion. Or you can use cables
adapters to meet them up. Most edX systems use a for
each x 12 v or eight pin EPS 12 volt connector connect a poor lead from the
power supply to the CPU. Fun, if the motherboard does not have a CPU fan power connector.
31. CONNECTING I.O: You must make
several connections between the motherboard
and the case. These include LEDs for the hard disk and poor
unintentional speaker connection, a reset button, and
a power button. Most modern
motherboards also have several bits in IO ports
that have to be connected. Some boards also include
additional items such as built-in video
or song adopters. If w is an ATX type, the connectors for all
the external IO ports are already built into
the rear of the board. Use the following procedure to connect the cables
needed for Onboard IO. Connect the Serial ATA cables to the drives and host adapter
ports on the motherboard. Or touch the front panel switch, LED internal speaker wires, and front mounted ports, such as USB and audio from the case front panel
to the motherboard. If they are not
marked on the board, check where each one is on the diagram in the
motor board manual. Unfortunately, even though standards for these types of
connection exists, many motherboard and
chassis manufacturers do not follow the
industry standards. And you might find some frustration in getting
these connections right. At this point, you
should install your hard drive or drives
and solid state drives. Before you physically install
a drive in the computer, you must ensure that it
is properly configured. Serial ATA jives generally don't require a jumper
configuration because Serial ATA jives connect to the Sutta host in a point-to-point configuration
using a dedicated cable. There is no master, slave or cables electricity and as there is with
parallel ATA drives, note however, that some
SATA hard disk drives, my toddler jumpers to help
solve compatibility issues, such as to configure a six gigabits per second
interface p.sit drive into the slower 1.5 gigabits
per second or gigabits per second modes
to walk our own problems, which some older
satyr whose adopters, some computer cases use plastic or metal rails that are secured to
the sides of a j, so it can slide into
the B and the chassis. Or our case designs
have drive-bys directly accept the GI
via screws to the side. Supports are no other
hardware as necessary. Some cases have two
or three designs with slide and latches to secure
jobs without schools. Still others use
a cage management in which you first
install the jives into a cage and then slider
cage into the case if your keys uses the
reals or leakage, These are usually
included with the keys, with the proper mountain
mechanisms applied via keys, all you need is
the bear drive to install many hard disk drives. Climate special short
lengths cuz that may have the same size strength as other schools you might
use in your system. But these groups should
not be interchanged. If you use crews
that are too long, they might protrude too far into the drive kicks in
and cause problems. The step-by-step procedure for installing jives is as follows. Sata drives typically do not require jumper
configuration. However, in some
six gigabits per second or gigabits
per second jives. You may need to set
a jump or to force the drive to 1.5 gigabits
per second mode for compatibility with older 1.5 gigabits per second host
adopters slide there, drive into unavailable Dr. B and a security
using the screws, rails or brackets provided
with either drive or chassis, connect the SATA data cable between the drive and
the host adapter. Such a poor connected
to the drive. Some SATA drives have both conventional fopen
peripheral poor connectors, as well as subtle 15
pin poor connectors, in which case you can
use one or the other, but not both simultaneously. If your DR setup or connector on your power supply does not have such a poor
connectors available, you might need to purchase
a peripheral to setup our cable adapter if one was
not provided with to drive, this type of adapter changes
the standard for pain. Peripheral pore connects to a 15th pins such
a poor conductor. If necessary. You can also use a y splitter cable to create
Tupac connectors from one. Some computers have fewer
poor connectors than driving. Follow these steps to install a video card into a
system if necessary, remove the screw and slot cover behind the expansion slot. You want to use the
new video card for. If the card uses a
coolant find that requires a second and
sparser slot for eggs or remove the adjacent
slot cover slider video cut straight down into the slot where it
will be installed. Typically a PCI Express
slots push Dakar don't into the slot using a front-to-back rocking motion if necessary, to get the AD connector
to slide into the slot. Not many PCI Express cards feature every tenant tab at
the end of the connector, which helps to secure
the card in the slot. Several types of
routine or designs are used and you will need to
disengage this beauty. And I'm going to move into
car if the car requires power connected the appropriate Paul lead from the power supply. Most recent high-end PCIe
times 16 video cards use six pin PCIe or six plus two or eight pin PCIe polar leads if you
are installing, is second video card for use in an envy link or
Crossfire configuration. Keep in mind that the second car might block the adjacent
expansion slot. However, when the second PCIe
times 60 card is installed, it schoolish or blocks the space that a PCI
card would have used. Thus, you might have
fewer available slots than you expected. Use. Either the screw
moved during removal of the old car or the screw used in step one to fasten
the card into place. If you are installing
two or more cards in an envelope link or
Crossfire configuration, repeat steps one to five
for the additional cards. If the envy link or
crosswalk configuration requires you to touch a bridge between the
cards are touched. The bridge attached
the video cable from the monitor to the
proper connector at the rear of the monitor. If the car uses a DVI, HDMI or display port
connector under monitor uses the standard
pin VGA connector. Use an appropriate adapter which may be provided
with a video card, are available
separately from stores. That's taught computer parts. If you're building a
dual display system, Be sure to plug in
your primary and secondary displeased to the
appropriate connectors. If you are replacing an
existing video card or switching from onboard video
to an add-in video card. Remove the existing
installed video Java before pouring down to
install the new car. This helps prevent the
system from improperly identifying a new video card and mixed for a
smoother upgrade. To do this, open the
windows Device Manager, select the existing Display
Adapter under select, Remove or uninstall. Do not. You boot the system
if asked, instead, poured down and removed
existing video card, then installed a new video card after the entire
system is assembled. When the system boots up, windows should detect
the new video card and automatically begin the
installation process. At that point, follow the
manufacturer's instructions for installing the
latest video drivers for the new video card. After the video card
drivers are installed, you can use the window
display properties to fine tune its settings for
resolution, color, depth, or refresh rate if desired, many systems use additional expansion cards
for networking, song, the other functions, these
cards are plugged into the bus slots present
on the motherboard to install these cards,
follow these steps. Insert each car by Julio, it carefully by the edges. Be sure not to touch the
chips on the circuitry, puts the bottom edge
finger connector into the appropriate open slot, which will be the
PCI or PCI Express, firmly press down on
the top of the car, exerting even pressure
until it snaps into place, secure each card bracket
with a screw or touch any internal cables
you might have removed earlier from the cards. If the car requires
additional power connected, the appropriate poor lead
from the power supply. If you have multiple
slots to choose from, try to consider airflow when choosing the SLA to
install a particular car. Some cases, you
might want to leave blank slots between cards
or group all the cards away from any video cards that
might be installed because video cards generally create more heat than all the
other cards combine. Know the system should
be nearly assembled. All that remains is installing
the cover assembly and connecting any external devices that are cabled to the system. This normally
includes a keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers,
and a network cables. I usually do not like to install the case covers
Cruz until I have tested a system and make sure that everything
is working properly.
32. SYSTEM STARTUP: At this point, you
are ready to pour on the system for the first
time to prepare for this, connect the following keyboard, most Display and power. Note that I did not include
connecting in network cable. I usually recommend
you do that after the operating system has been installed along
with any updates. And after you haven't showed, you are either behind
a router or have the operating systems
built-in firewall to end on, know that everything
is connected. You can pull up the system on a random bios setup program. This enables you to configure the motherboard to
access to install devices and set the system
date and time the system post. Pour on self-test also runs to determine whether any
major problems exist. To run the bios setup and configure the system,
do the following. Paul on the monitor
first and then the system unit observed
the operation via the screen and
listen for any bibs from the system
speaker inverse system should automatically go to a post consistent of video bios, check-in, a RAM test, unusually uninstalled
components report if a fatal error occurs
during the post, you might not see anything
on-screen under system might deep several times
indicating a specific problem. Check the motherboard
bios documentation to determine what the
beep codes mean if there are no fatal errors, you should see the post the
split onscreen dependent on the type of motherboard
bios or UEFI use, such as Phoenix, AMI,
award or others. You have to press
a key to enter up the normal boot
sequence and get to the bios setup
program screens that enable you to enter important
system information. Normally the system
indicates via the on-screen display
which key to press to activate the bios or UEFI setup program
during the post. But if not, check the motherboard manual for the key or keys
to press to enter setup command keys
that are used to enter bios or UEFI setup our F1, F2, Delete key, F ten, escape key and insert key, press the appropriate key to
enter the bios setup when prompted because the post and modern motherboards
is so fast, it is easy to miss the time you are supposed
to press the key. So I usually start
tapping the key repeatedly just a second
or two after pouring on. In some cases, this can generate a keyboard
error message. You can ignore us. The bios setup screen appears, you should know be
in the bios setup if you didn't press
the key in time, we said the system
and try again, check the bios
version reported on the main setup screen and ensure that it is
the latest version, if it isn't know, would be a good time to install the updated flush bias image. The easiest method to
do a bias upgrade or newer system is via a flash
drive contained a bias image. To do this on another system, visit the motherboard
manufacturer website under load that that ISO file, burn this image to a
flash drive and then place the drive into the
USB port of the new system. And you set it,
follow the prompts on the screen to complete
the bias image. Many motherboards do not support bootable bias upgrades
via sutta optical drives. In that situation, you must
perform the upgrade via a Windows-based executable or
a bootable USB flash drive. Check the various bios
setup screens to ensure your processor and a memory are being properly record
dies and supported. Check CPU type speed, cache to terrorism, to a
channel mood and so on. This able, any ports or
devices that will not be used, such as serial ports, parallel ports, consumer
infrared ports, and so on. Check to see that all the installed drives
are being detected. Check the drive configuration. Sure. That the system is
set to HCI at a minimum, or even better, ensure that
it is set to read mode. I recommend read mode even if you don't plan to
use red because it includes all HCI
functionality and allows for a future red migration without having to re-install
the OS or drivers. This is called Ready. Ready. Set the IDE mode. If you are installed
it on older OS that does not have a HCI
already drivers. This will unfortunately reduced driver performance
because advanced set of features such as MCQ or native command queue
and will be disabled. Note, you cannot use
IDE mood with an SSD. Check, fan control and hardware monitoring called a PC
health on some systems to see that all funds are being recognized and that
all the fonts are important proper
rotational speeds also observed components
temperatures. Note that some components, such as the chipset ICH
or I 0 controller hub, I designed it to
run from 90 degrees Celsius to 115 degrees Celsius. So high temperatures are
normal and even expected for that chip, check
memory configuration. I recommend leaving the
default auto settings, which will automatically set the memory timing according to the modules you have installed. Check the chipset configuration if you're running
Windows Vista are newer. I recommend enabling the HPT or high-precision
event timer because it is supported in these
versions of Windows, but not in Windows XP
in the security menu enables VT of virtualization
technology if available. This allows virtualization
software such as virtual PC or VM way to use the hardware virtualization
secrecy in the chip, which improves the
performance of virtualized OSs
and applications. In the poem menu, check the ACP I suspend state and showed that
it is set to S3, which is a spend to ROM
instead of S1, which asleep. The reason is that S3 uses virtually the same amount of power as being completely off, thus saving up to $100 per year or more in energy
costs per system. In the boot menu, check the boot order
and showing that the optical or USB flash drive precedes the hard disk
or solid state drives, which will enable a
successful OS installation from CD or DVD or
bootable USB flash drive. After you check all the
settings in the bios setup, follow the instructions on screen or in the
motherboard money. Well, to save this
Athens and exit the setup menu at this point, starting with a new drive, you must install the OS if you are using
a non Windows OS, followed the documentation for the installation procedures on a newer system in which you
are installing Windows, there isn't really anything
you need to do other than simply button from
the desk or flash drive, you might have to enable
the optical or USB drive as a boot device
in your bios setup and follow the prompts to
install the OS windows automatically recognize
whether the hard drive needs to be partitioned, are formatted and allows you to do that at the beginning
of the installation, Windows comes with
integrated drivers for most newer chip sets. So you should not need additional storage
drivers in most cases. However, if the
hard drive is not recognized at the start
of the OS installed, storage drivers are
probably required. You can supply them via optical disk or a
USB flash drive. You can also install Windows from a bootable USB flash drive. Installing via a
flash drive not only works faster than
when using a DVD, but it also enables you to easily install Windows
on systems that don't have an optical
drive to create a bootable USB drive
for installing Windows, you need on 8 gb or
larger USB flash drive. It windows IS go from online and an ISO file creation tool, such as Windows USB
slash DVD download tool. When you are ready, first download the Windows ISO from the Microsoft website. Then create an ISO file by using an ISO creation tools such as Windows USB DVD download tool. And then use the Windows
USB DVD download tool to copy the ISO file to the
flash drive will complete. You will have a bootable
flash drive that will work just like your original DVD
for installing Windows, to install Windows ten
from a flash drive or use the Windows download
tool utility to prepare the flash drive for use after
you have the OS installed, I recommend installing
the drivers. In general, older
operating systems have fewer drivers included on the installation disk
mean and you have to install more drivers after
the OS is installed. This often includes
chip set J was for your motherboard drivers
for newer video cards, sound cards, network cards, and more of these, the motherboard Chipset
drivers are the most critical and should
be installed first, a disk containing these drivers should have been included
with your motherboard. Insert the desk and follow the prompts to install
the chipset drivers, then install other drivers, such as video songs
and in network. After the important
drivers installed, you should install any OS, update that word already integrated into the
OS installed desk. For that last step, you will probably
need to connect the network cable and go online. If your computer uses
a wireless connection, use the operating systems
wireless connection manager to connect to the
wireless network, provided the SSID and
encryption key as prompted, as long as you've installed
the latest update, the built-in firewall is
turned on by default. After the operating
system updates, you can install your
favorite applications and put the system in service. No. You have a fully
functional PC.
33. DIFFERENT WAYS TO COOL YOUR CASE: Ensuring your computer
receives sufficient cooling with PCK is funds
isn't rocket science, but it can be tricky. Sure, you could take the maximum
power approach of Chavan as many fans as possible
into and onto the keys. But that's far from the ideal. There needs to be rhyme
or reason to the setup, or else it becomes
something holy inefficient. We break down the
fundamentals of air cooling your computer so you
can avoid a meltdown. Every fun features a cubic
feet per minute CFM written, which measures the volume of
air it moves in a minute. The greater the CFM, the more a fan moves to
properly air cooler computer, you need to have
enough case fans to push or pull a N2
and O2 of the keys. More keys fans mean higher total CFM and more air being moved
through your computer. Just be mindful of
the noise level. Fans can generate quite a bus to avoid making your
computer to load, use fewer or quieter funds. Also, flushing
multicolored lights shouldn't be the main
feature of your case funds. Air travels one week, true? A fun in one side, on all of the other by
changing the direction. If one is mounted, it can act as either an intake or exhaust. You should also heat
the placement of the funds should travel in
a clip-path to the keys. Generally, you want the keys
funds in front of the keys drawing in here while the
funds or the rear blew out. If your case has
vents at the top, they shouldn't be placed as exhaust funds because
hot air will rise. Side mounted funds should
be used for intake. They often don't have air
filters to prevent dust issues. You can custom fabricated
your own filters. Speaking of dust, you
want to make sure that your computer remains
as free as possible. Otherwise, all the airflow
in the world won't help much to cool down your components to
reduce dust in the keys, ensure that the air going into the keys first passes
through a filter. Many cases have
removable filters. By leaving filter's dirty
or covered in dust, you reduce airflow and cooling power aside from fan and events, the other major points
of interest include the many small gaps in the
chassis and adjoining pieces. You can't really control
airflow at these points unless you want to put Culkin
or sealant into your keys. Optimal air pressure with
a computer keys is one of the most discussed
and debated topics in computer cooling. In simple terms, a computer
keys can either have positive air pressure
where the case fans push more air into the
case, then pull out. So there is more air pressure inside of the keys,
neutral pressure, where air pressure
in the keys is equal to air pressure
outside of the keys. This is difficult to attain unless you leave
the keys coupon and a negative pressure
where more is being pulled out of the
keys than pushed in, creating a vacuum to
determine pressure total the CFM of all the intake funds and a cfm of all
the exhaust funds. If the intake CFM is greater than you have
positive pressure. If the exhaust CFM is greater, then you have negative pressure. Neutral pressure would be when the intake and
exhaust CFM or equal. A perfect scenario,
you would have mutual pressure
which includes keys, because no dust
will be sucked in. Negative pressure would
mean that air is being sucked into your keys from
all the tiny gaps you can't control and
don't have filters on which means less
efficient cooling over time aim for slightly
positive pressure with slightly higher CFM
intake than exhaust CFM. This way, the air
enters your keys, goes through a filter, foods.
34. TROUBLESHOOTING YOUR PC: No matter how well
built your PC is and how well written its software
is, problems can occur. Diagnostic software
can help troubleshoot problems when your computer
malfunctions or you suspect problems with
an upgraded component or an entirely new system
built from scratch. You also might find that your system problems
are caused by a hardware malfunction
and that you must open the computer case
to perform repairs. Several types of diagnostic
software available for PCs. Some diagnostic functions are integrated into the
PC hardware directly, whereas others take the form of operating system utilities or
separate software products. This software, some of which is included with the
system when purchased, can assist users in identifying many problems with the
computer's components. The types of diagnostic
software are as follows. Post or Power on Self test. This runs whenever
a PC is turned on. These routines are contained
within the motherboard Rum, as well as Rums. On expansion cards, manufacturer supplied
diagnostics software. Many of the larger
manufacturers, especially high end name
brand manufacturers such as HP or Compaq, Dell, Lenovo, and others,
offer or include special diagnostic
software expressly designed for the systems. In most cases, these
utilities are included with the system or you can
download them from the manufacturer's
website at no charge. Some manufacturers write
their own diagnostics, but most purchase the rights to an existing commercial
package that is subsequently customized
or privately labeled. Operating system
diagnostics software. Operating systems
such as Windows, Linux and so on often include a variety of diagnostic
software utilities designed to identify and monitor the performance of various
components in the computer. Commercial diagnostics software. A number of manufacturers make general purpose diagnostic
software for PCs. This type of software
is often bundled with other system maintenance
and repair tools to form a general PC
software toolkit. Free or open source
diagnostics software. A large number of free or open
source diagnostic programs are available for PCs, including small tasks
specific programs, as well as complete collections of diagnostics in bootable form. The following sections provide
more detail on the post. A series of program
routines buried in the motherboard Rum
Bios chip that tests all the main system
components at pore on time. This series of routines is partially responsible
for the delay. When you turn on your PC, the computer executes the post before loading the
operating system. These tests check the primary
components in your system, such as the CPU Rum moder board, support circuitry memory, and major peripherals such as
the expansion chassis. These tests a brief and
designed to catch hard errors. The post procedures
are not very thorough compared to available
disk based diagnostics. The post process provides
error or warning messages whenever it
encounters a faulty component. Although the
diagnostics performed by the system post
are not thorough, they are the first
line of defense, especially when it comes to detecting severe
motherboard problems. If the post encounters a problem severe enough to keep the
system from operating properly, it halts the system boot
process and generates an error message that often identifies the cause
of the problem. Post tests normally provide three types of output messages. Audio codes on screen,
text messages, and hexadecimal numeric codes that are sent to
an Port address. Post errors can be displayed
in the following three ways. Beep codes heard through the speaker or beeper
attached to the motherboard. Note that some systems
do not include a speaker post checkpoint codes. Hexadecimal checkpoint codes
are sent to an port address. A special card plugged into an available expansion slot is required to view these codes on screen messages error
messages displayed on screen after the video
adapter is initialized. Bias post beep codes. Beep codes are used
for fatal errors only which are errors
that occur so early in the process that the video
card and other devices are not yet functional because
no display is available. These codes take the
form of a series of beeps that identify
the faulty component. When a computer is
functioning normally, you might hear one or
two short beeps when the system starts up at the
completion of the post, although depending
on the system, it may not make any sounds
at all if things are normal. If a problem is detected, a different number of beeps sung sometimes in a combination
of short and long tones. Some implementations
of UEFI firmware also use postcodes to
report errors bias. Post checkpoint codes. Post checkpoint codes are hexadecimal numeric
codes written by post routines to IO
port addresses AH, as each major step is begun. These are often simply
called postcodes. These postcodes can
be read only by a special adapter card plugged into one of
the system slots. Post checkpoint codes can track the system's
progress through the boot process
from power on right up to the point which the
Bootstrap loader runs. When you plug a post code
reader card into a slot, During the post two digit
hexadecimal numbers flash on the card's display. If the system stops
unexpectedly or hangs, you can identify the
test that was in progress during the hang
from the two digit code. This step usually
helps to identify the malfunctioning component
bias post screen messages on screen messages
are brief messages that attempt to indicate
a specific failure. These messages can
be displayed only after the point at which
the video adapter, card and display have
been initialized. These different types of error messages are
bias dependent and vary among bias manufacturers
and even in some cases, among different biases from
the same manufacturer. Operating system diagnostics,
when Windows encounters severe problems such as malware that corrupts or interferes
with system operations, bugs in drivers or other low level software
inconsistencies in data necessary for operation, or even hardware defects, the system is halted
or shut down in a condition that is technically
called a bug check. Bug checks are also
known as stop errors. Kernel errors trap errors,
fatal system errors, and system crashes because the error information
is normally displayed on a blue
text mode screen. They are also informally
known as blue screen or SOD, or blue screen of death errors. When these errors occur in addition to the
blue screen text, windows normally saves
a memory dump file and then automatically
restarts the system. Unfortunately, the
automatic restart makes it almost impossible to read
the blue screen error text. I recommend reconfiguring
the system failure and recovery options in Windows to disable the
automatic restart. To do this, manually
select Start and in either the run or start search
dialog box that appears, enter the text YSL. Then click Ok. In the
System Properties window, select the advanced tab. Start up and Recovery
Settings, System failure. Then uncheck the automatically restart box and click okay. With the automatic
restart disabled, if a blue screen error occurs, you will be able
to view and record the text on the screen before
restarting the system. When you're looking at
blue screen errors, the hexadecimal number following the word stop is called the
bug check or stop error code. It indicates the
cause of the problem. Stop errors can be caused
by hardware errors, such as memory
problems, malware, or even improper hardware
or software configuration. For general troubleshooting of windows bug check or stop
error or blue screen codes. I recommend you follow
these suggestions. If any hardware was recently installed in the system,
try removing it. If any software was recently installed, try uninstalling it. If any drivers updates or hot fixes were recently
installed, try rolling back. Removing or updating them. Ensure that the system is free from malware
such as viruses, rootkits and Spy or hardware. Check with the model
board manufacturer to see if an updated
bias is available. Make sure that the
processor expansion cards, memory modules and so
on are fully seated. Make sure that all the
cables are fully connected. Make sure that the
operating system has the latest service park and
critical updates installed. Check the system log and application log in the Windows
event viewer to see if any additional error
messages have been logged recently free or user
supported diagnostics. When building a new system, it is desirable to test the system to see whether
it is working properly. The term burn in testing is
often used describe running stress tests or diagnostics on a new piece of equipment
to screen for failures. The idea is to flush
out early failures. So burning tests are usually designed to be as
stressful as possible. This usually means running tests that are as hard as
possible on the equipment, including running them under maximum temperatures and loads. Pc maintenance tools. To troubleshoot and repair
PC systems properly, you need a few
basic tools if you intend to troubleshoot and
repair PCs professionally. There are many more
specialized tools, you will want to purchase
these advanced tools. Enable you to more
accurately diagnose problems and make jobs
easier and faster. Here are the basic
tools that should be in every
troubleshooters toolbox. Simple hand tools for basic disassembly and
reassembly procedures. Diagnostics software, a
multimeter chemicals such as counter cleaners
component freeze sprays and compressed air
for cleaning the system. Foam swabs or link free cotton swabs if
foam isn't available. Small nylon wire ties for
dressing or organizing wires. Hand tools, because they work better than
conventional screwdrivers use nut drivers to remove the hexagonal headed screws that secure the
system unit covers, adapter boards, disk
drives, and pour supplies. In most systems.
You will, however, still need standard screw
drivers for systems that have substituted Philip head screws for the more standard
hexagonal head screws. If slotted screws are used, they should be removed and
replaced with torques, Hex or Philips head screws that capture the driver tool and prevent it from slipping
off the head of the screw and potentially
damaging the system. Tweezers or a parts grabber
can be used to hold any small screws
or jumper blocks that are difficult in your hand. The parts grabber is
especially useful when you drop a small part into
the interior of a system. Usually, you can remove the part without completely
disassembling the system tip. Some system
manufacturers now use cases that snap together
or use thumbscrews. These are usually advertised as no tool cases because you
literally do not need any tools to remove
the cover and access the major assemblies To make
an existing case tool free. You can replace the
normal case screws with metal or
plastic Tom screws. However, you still should use metal screws or thumbscrews to install internal components, adapter cards, disk drives, power supplies, and
the motherboard. Because the metal screws provide a ground point
for these devices, although this basic
set is useful, you should supplement it
with some other basic tools, including the following
electrostatic discharge or ESD protection kit. These kits consist
of a rich trap with a ground wire and a
specially conductive mat with its own ground wire. You also can get just the rich
trap or the antistatic mat separately In areas or times of the season where
there is low humidity, static charges much more
likely to build up as a move, Increasing the need
for ESD protection. Needle nose pliers and
hemostats curved and straight. These are great for gripping
small items and jumpers. Straightening bent
pins and so on. Electric screw driver
combined with Hex, Philips standard and
torque bit sets. This tool really speeds up repetitive disassembly
and assembly use on exterior screws
only flashlight. You should preferably use
a high tech LD unit which enables you to see inside dark systems and is
easy on batteries. Wire cutter or stripper. This makes or repairs
cables or wiring. For example, you'd
need this along with a crimping tool to make
Internet cables vice or clump. This installs
connectors on cables, crimps cables to the
shape you want and holds parts during
delicate operations. Metal file. This smooths
rough metal edges on cases and chassis and trims the face plates on disk
drives for a perfect fit. Markers, pens and note pads. Use these for taking notes, marking cables, and so on. Windows install media
installation media for your OS can be used to boot test the system from an
optical or flash drive, to attempt system recovery, to install the operating system, or to run memory diagnostics,
diagnostics software. You can use this software for PC hardware verification
and testing postcard. This displays post
diagnostic codes on systems with fatal
errors nylon cable ties. These help in routing
and securing cables. Neatly routed cables improve
airflow in the system. Digital multimeter, This
checks for supply voltages, connectors and cables
for continuity, cleaning swabs, canned
air or dust blower, and contact cleaner chemicals. These clean,
lubricate and enhance contacts on circuit boards
and cable connections. Data transfer cables
and adapters, these quickly connect two
systems and transfer data from one system to another. Sphere keyboard and mouse. You can use these to
operate a system if the existing
keyboard or pointing device is defective
or difficult to use. Usb hub, USB or firewire
cable adapters, These connect multiple
external USB devices. The cable adapter and gender
changers are recommended for connecting different types
of USB and firewire devices, spear screws, jumpers,
standoffs, and so on. These are handy if you lose any of these items
from the system. You are working on Sp CR 2032 lithium coin
cell batteries. These are used as the Ms Ram
batteries in most systems. It is a good idea to have a
replacement or two on hand. Although a number of CR 20 X X battery
types are available, most systems use
the CR 2032 safety from a personal
safety point of view, there really isn't that much
danger in working on a PC, even if it is open
with the power on a PC runs on only
3.35 or 12 volts, meaning no dangerous life threatening voltages
are present. Before working on a PC, you should unplug
it from the wall. This is not really
to protect you so much as it is to
protect the system. A modern ATX form factor system is always partially
running. That is, as long as the system
is plugged in. So even if it is off, standby voltages are present to prevent damage
to the motherboard, video card and other cards. The system should be
completely unplugged. If you accidentally
turn the system all the way on and plug in
or remove a card, you can find a card
or a motherboard. Esd protection is another issue. While working on a PC, you should wear an
ESD wrist strap that is clipped to the
chassis of the machine. This ensures that you
and the system remain at the same electrical
potential and prevents static electricity from damaging the system as you touch it. Some people feel that the system should be plugged in to
provide an earth grum. That is not a good idea at all. No earth grown is necessary. All that is important
is that you and the system remain at the
same electrical potential, which is accomplished
via a strap. Another issue for
personal safety is the use of a commercially
available wrist strap. Rather than making your
own commercially made wrist straps feature an
internal one mega Me resistor designed to protect you. The resistor ensures
that you are not the best part of the grum
should you touch any hot wire. When you remove components
from the system, they should be placed on a special conductive
anti static mat, which is also a part of any
good ESD protection kit. Matt is also connected via a wire and clip to
the system chassis. Any components removed
from the system, especially items such as the processor Da
board adapter cards, disk drives and so on, should be placed on the Matt. The connection between the Matt and the Chassis will prevent any static discharges
from damaging the components test equipment. In some cases, you must use specialized devices to test a
system, board or component. This test equipment is not
expensive or difficult to use, but it can add much to your
troubleshooting abilities. Electrical testing
equipment, I consider a volt meter or multi meter to be required gear for
proper system testing. A multi meter can
serve many purposes, including checking
for voltage signals at various points in a system, testing the output
of the power supply, and checking for continuity
in a circuit or cable. Preventative maintenance. Preventative maintenance
is the key to obtaining years of
trouble free service from your computer system. A properly administered
preventative maintenance program pays for itself by
reducing problem behavior, data loss, and
component failure, and by ensuring a long
life for your system. Preventative maintenance
also can increase your system's resale value because it will look
and run better. There are two types of preventative maintenance
procedures, active and passive. Passive preventative
maintenance includes precautionary steps you can take to protect a system
from the environment. Such as using poor
protection devices, ensuring a clean temperature
control environment, and preventing
excessive vibration. In other words,
passive preventative maintenance means treating your system
well and with care. An active preventive
maintenance program includes procedures that promote a longer trouble free
life for your PC. This type of preventive
maintenance primarily involves the periodic cleaning of the system and
its components, as well as performing backups, antivirus and anti spiral scans, and other software
related procedures. Following sections describe several active preventive
maintenance procedures. Active preventive
maintenance procedures. How often you should perform active preventive
maintenance procedures depends on the
system's environment and the quality of the
systems components. If your system is in
a data environment, such as a machine shop floor or a gas station service area, you might need to
clean your system every three months or less. For normal office environments, cleaning a system every few months to a year
is usually fine. However, if you open your system after one year and find
dust bunnies inside, you should probably shorten
the cleaning interval. Other hard disk preventive
maintenance procedures include making periodic
backups of your data. Also, depending on which OS
and file system you use, you should defragment hard disks at least twice a year or up to once a month in some cases to maintain disc
efficiency and speed. Many of these tasks
can be automated with the scheduling features in your operating system
or the utility program. Note that defragmenting
applies only to traditional hard disks and not to solid state drives or SSDs, which because of their design, should never be defragmented. Weekly and monthly checklists. The following is a sample weekly disc
maintenance checklist. Back up any data or
important files, check for and install any
operating system updates. If you have automatic
updates turned on, which is recommended, this is
done automatically for you. Although operating
system updates are traditionally offered
on a monthly basis, critical out of burn updates
can happen at any time. Run a full system antivirus and antispyus scan before
starting the scans. Ensure your anti virus and anti spiral software
are up to date. The following are some monthly maintenance procedures
you should perform, check for, and install
any updated drivers. Run the Windows
disc cleanup tool, which searches the system for unnecessary files that
can be safely deleted. A more thorough third party
freer tool I recommend for this purpose is C cleaner run a disc defragmented program. The defragment program included with Windows runs automatically. But for a faster and more thorough demand
defragmentation, you might prefer a third
party program such as V OPT, which is also known as being one of the fastest
on the market. Check that all system fans
are operating properly, including the CPU heat sink, poor supply, any chassis
fans cleaning a system. One of the most
important operations in a good preventive
maintenance program is a regular and thorough
cleaning of the system. Dust build up on the
internal components can lead to several problems. One is that the dust acts
as a thermal insulator, which prevents proper
system cooling. Excessive heat shortens the life of the system
components and adds to the thermal stress
problem caused by greater temperature
changes between the system's power on
and power of states. Additionally, the
dust can contain conductive elements that can cause partial short
circuits in the system, other elements in dust. And it can accelerate corrosion. Electrical contacts resulting in improper connections in all. The regular removal of
any layer of dust and debris from it in a computer
system benefits that system. In the long run, tip
cigarette smoke contains chemicals that can conduct electricity and cause
corrosion of computer parts. The smoke residue can
infiltrate an entire system, causing corrosion
and contamination of electrical contacts and sensitive components such as optical drive lens assemblies. Properly cleaning the
system and all the boards inside requires certain
supplies and tools. In addition to the tools required to
disassemble the unit, you should have these items
contact cleaning solution, canned air, a small brush, lint free foam
cleaning swabs and antistatic wrist
grounding strap dusters. Compressed gas often is used as an aid in
system cleaning. You use the compressed
gas as a blower to remove dust and debris from
a system or component. Be careful when you use these devices because
some of them can generate a static charge when the compressed gas leaves
the nozzle of the can. Be sure you are using the type approved for cleaning or
dusting of computer equipment. And consider wearing a
static grounding strap. As a precaution, you should use compressed gas
only on equipment that is poured off to minimize any chance of damage
through short circuits, air compressors and
vacuum cleaners. Some people prefer to
use an air compressor or a vacuum cleaner instead of can gas dusters for
cleaning a system. An air compressor or vacuum
cleaner is more useful when you are cleaning a system fully loaded with dust and dirt. You can use the vacuum
cleaner to suck out most of the dust
and debris instead of simply blowing it a wrong on the other components which
sometimes happen with can air. An air compressor is normally
powerful enough such that all dust and debris will
be blown out of the unit. But if done indoors, it can create a breeding hazard. I normally recommend
using a combination of both a vacuum cleaner
and an air compressor, or just an air compressor if the cleaning can
be done outdoors. Some compressors and vacuum
cleaners are specifically designed for use on analog
electronic components. They are designed to
minimize ESD while in use. If you are not using one specifically designed
with ESD protection, you should take precautions such as wearing a grounding
wrist strap. Also, if the device
has a metal nozzle, be careful not to touch it to the circuit boards or components
you are cleaning swabs. Use swabs to wipe off
electrical contacts, connectors, and other
sensitive areas. The swabs should be made of foam or synthetic
carmel material that does not leave
lint or dust residue. Unfortunately, proper foam
or camel cleaning swabs are more expensive than typical cotton swabs do not use cotton swabs because they leave cotton fibers on
everything they touch. Cotton fibers are conductive
in some situations and can remain on drive heads
which can scratch disks, foam, or camel swabs be purchased at most
electronic supply stores, system disassembly and
cleaning procedures. To properly clean your system, you must at least
partially disassemble it. If you are only blowing
up the dust and dirt, then generally all
you need to do is open the system
leaving all the cards, components and cables in place. For a more thorough cleaning, you need to remove cards, cables and most of
the other components. Generally stripping the system g to the motherboard
and chassis. To clean any adapter cards
removed from the system, blow off any dust or Dot
using compressed air or a vacuum cleaner also blow any dust out of the poor
supply and any fans. You do not need to
disassemble the power supply. To do this, simply blast the compressed air into the supply through
the fan exhaust port. This will blow the dust out of the supply and clean off
the fan blades and grill, which will help the
system air flow. If the chassis has
a removable filter, be sure to remove it
and clean it off. Either with compressed air or a vacuum cleaner designed
for computer use. Cleaning connectors
and contacts. Cleaning the connectors
and contacts in a system promotes reliable
connections between devices. For most plug in cards
or memory modules, you should clean
the edge connectors that plug into slots
on the motherboard. If you are cleaning a plug
in board or memory module, pay special attention
to the edge connector that mates with the ****
connector on the motherboard. When people handle
plug in cards, they often touch the goal
contacts on these connectors, touching the goal contacts, coats them with oil and debris, which prevents proper contact
with the **** connector. When the board is installed, make sure these
goal contacts are free of all finger
oils and residue. It is a good idea to use one of the contact cleaners that
has a conductive lubricant which makes it easier to
push the adapter into the slot and protects the
contacts from corrosion. Cleaning the keyboard and Mose. To prevent problems,
you should periodically clean the keyboard with air
compressor or vacuum cleaner. My favorite method is to turn the keyboard upside down and shoot it with
compressed air. This blows all the
dirt and debris that has accumulated
inside the keyboard and possibly prevents
future problems with sticking keys or
dirty key switches. If a particular key is stuck or making
intermittent contact, you can soak or spray that
switch with contact cleaner. The best way to do this
is to first remove the keycap and then spray
the cleaner into the switch. This usually does not require complete disassembly
of the keyboard. Periodic vacuum or
compressed gas cleaning prevents more serious
problems with sticking keys and keyswitches. Keep optical or
laser mice clean. Just check the bottom
of the mouse for any dust or debris that might block the
light or detector. Use compressed air to remove dust or other
extraneous material. Passive preventive
maintenance procedures. Passive preventive maintenance
includes taking care of the system by providing the
best possible environment, both physical and
electrical, for the system. Physical concerns are conditions such as ambient temperature, thermal stress from power
cycling, dust and smoke, contamination and
disturbances such as shock and vibration. Electrical consumes
items such as ESD, power line noise and radio
frequency interference. Examining the
operating environment before you set up a new PC, prepare a proper location
for it that is free of airborne contaminants such
as smoke or other pollution. Do not place your system
in front of a window. The computer should
not be exposed to direct sunlight or
temperature variations. The environmental
temperature should be as constant as possible. Power should be provided through properly
grounded outlets and should be stable and free from electrical noise
and interference. Keep your system away from radio transmitters
or other sources of radio frequency energy, such as mercury ovens.