Build The Ultimate Custom PC (2005)

Chapter 11 — Checking and Testing Components 189

If you find that any of the voltages fall outside the ranges specified, we recommend that you exchange the power supply unit. An unreliable power supply is not going to get any better with use and will likely deteriorate, causing you problems like lockups, crashes, or even fried components!

Summary

In this chapter, we’ve looked at how to check and test certain key PC components for problems before they are installed in the PC. You’ll no doubt save time, money, and frustration by checking your components before you begin the installation process.

Much of the testing involved only simple visual checking of the components for cracks, defects, and broken pins. But for the PSU, given its importance, we covered physical testing using a multimeter to measure various output voltages along the power rails.

Now that the testing is over, let the building begin!

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The three main components you need to make sure will fit together are:

CPU

Motherboard

RAM

These are the three critical components and are the same ones you are most likely to encounter compatibility problems with.

Check the documentation. The information supplied with the motherboard is likely to cover the type of CPU and RAM that it is compatible with. Check the details carefully and confirm that the RAM and CPU are compatible. When building a PC, there’s no equivalent to the jigsaw puzzle world where you can bash a piece into place or chew a lug off! Things have to fit, and they have to fit smoothly. Otherwise, the project is going to go wrong, components will be broken or damaged, and you will end up out of pocket.

However, don’t become too paranoid about things fitting — if the documentation says that things are all going to come together then there’s a really good chance that they will. Sockets and connectors can be quite deceptive, and a socket and connector that are perfectly compatible can look incompatible to the eye (especially when they’re still in their packaging). If later you find that your components aren’t coming together right when the instructions says they should, then you have a good case for an exchange. (RAM is the most likely candidate to give you troubles. There are times when even the best vendor gets its lines mixed up and supplies the wrong parts.)

Newcomers to building a PC have a tendency to want to handle the parts that they’ve bought — a lot. It’s easy to understand why — the parts are not only cool but they look exciting. No matter how excited you are, please do try to limit your handling of the parts to a minimum. By handling them, not only do you increase the risk of damage to them from electrostatic discharge but also damage from dropping them or careless handling.

Also, never bring parts up to one another when one or more of the components are still in their antistatic bags to check for fit. It’s very easy to damage connectors in this way, and also remember that the static charge is designed to skip across the surface of these bags. If one component is protected and the other isn’t, there’s a greater chance that the unprotected item could be destroyed by ESD.

No. 2: Instructions and Drivers

One thing you’re definitely going to find when building a PC is that you quickly become buried in instructions and in the CDs that contain software drivers for your devices (see Figure 12-1). Drivers aren’t too bad because they are usually labeled clearly — if not, label them yourself to avoid confusion and hassles later.

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FIGURE 12-1: Piles of instructions!

Instructions come in all shapes and sizes. Single sheets, booklets, CD, even things that look and feel like whole books. It’s actually rare to come across a component or device that doesn’t come with some sort of documentation these days.

Don’t decide to be tidy and keep all your documentation and instructions tidy in a folder or box. Keep them with the components. That way you won’t have to go searching through a box or folder each time you want something, and identical-looking pieces of paper won’t become mixed.

It’s also not unusual for extra notes containing important additional instructions or warnings that have been left out of the main documentation to be added to the box in the final stage of the packaging process. Because these are printed as an afterthought, they may not carry the name or number of the product they are referring to (or even the manufacturer’s name), so separating this paper from the component will mean that you are missing vital instructions that could affect your warranty should things go wrong.

However, don’t let the weight or thickness of the paper you get supplied with impress or overwhelm you. There are a few things that you need to check before you start building the PC.

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Are the Instructions in Your Language?

It’s quite possible to get a component or device that has a lot of instructions shipped with it, but when you look closely, you discover there’s nothing written in any language that you can read and understand! Some things ship with paperwork in numerous languages, but sometimes critical languages are omitted. Check through all the paperwork you’ve received carefully (it’s at times like this that you’ll be glad that you didn’t throw anything away!) and don’t assume that your language will be the first one listed in whatever book or leaflet provided. In fact, you may have to hunt for it.

Still can’t find instructions you can read? Take a look through any CDs or DVDs that came too as they might be on that. There’re a number of different file formats to look out for.

The main file types likely to contain instructions are:

Text files (.txt)

Rich text files (.rtf)

Portable document format (.pdf) Requires Adobe Reader to be installed

Still no success? Try the website if there’s one listed (there usually is). There may be documentation available for download there.

If you have no joy finding instructions on the web, you can check for a support email or telephone number in your country and give them a call or send an email. Before you call, make sure that you know what components or products you have (make a note of the model numbers). Avoid overseas calls — these are going to be expensive and are unlikely to be unsuccessful. In an email, be clear in detailing what items you have and the problem that you are having.

If you can’t find any instructions that you can understand you can always turn to the web for help. The search engines Google (www.google.com) and AltaVista (www.altavista.com) both have excellent translation tools on their sites that might be of use to you.

Do the Instructions Make Sense?

Read through the instructions in advance of actually needing them. Finding instructions in a language that you can understand is no guarantee that the instructions are actually going to make sense, as they may have been poorly translated.

Better quality products usually have better written, clearer, easier to read instructions included.

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What’s much worse and far more annoying than instructions that make no sense are instructions that seem to make sense until you get to a point and then become vague (usually at a crucial step or during a complicated procedure). This is why it’s vitally important to read them through well ahead of time.

Read all instructions in advance and clarify any vague aspects! Read with a highlighter pen in hand and highlight any areas of ambiguity so that you can come back to them later and see if you can work it out.

Reach Out for Support: Remember that tech support is not only there for when things go wrong. You can get in touch with tech support to clear up ambiguities and problems with the documentation. You’ve paid for support so use it!

Are the Instructions Current?

Stop press! Over time, things change. Well, everything except the instruction manuals!

Manufacturer’s don’t like changing their instruction or installation manuals until they have to because it’s not a cheap process (it’s a long process that usually involves testing, translation, and chucking away the old manuals). They can do this not only for small changes but also big important ones. But, rather than incorporating information relating to the changes in the manual, what they do instead is include a “Stop press!” or late breaking information sheet.

Because there will be no indication of this in the manual, be sure to check through all the paperwork. Also, just to confuse, they may have not included it on paper but may have just added this important information to a readme file on disk or CD that you’ll have to find yourself (or just post it to their website — always worth checking out to see in case there’s anything new there!).

No. 3: Keyboard

We can’t count the times we’ve seen someone start building a PC and then realize that he or she hasn’t got a keyboard! As odd as it sounds people have quite a blind spot to realizing that a PC has a keyboard attached!

It’s not the end of the world if you forget one — if you have another PC you can always borrow it in the interim, but as you get deeper into the build you begin to need the keyboard more and more.

When you’re building and subsequently testing a PC, a basic keyboard without any fancy buttons or features is a lot better because it doesn’t require any special drivers to be installed. The same is true of mice — build and test with a basic one if possible.

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If you are planning to make building PCs into a hobby or small business, then it’s a good idea to have a spare keyboard or two handy (same goes for mice and monitors). Basic keyboards are cheap (you can get one for under $5) and are perfectly adequate for testing purposes.

Another option is to keep your old keyboard the next time you upgrade to a better one.

No. 4: Power Cord

Again, a power cord is something that every PC has yet few people think about when they’re building one. Your PC is going to start needing power pretty quickly, so you’ll need a power cable to connect the PSU to the mains line, and without a suitable power cord you’re not going to get very far (see Figure 12-2).

FIGURE 12-2: Power cord.