(c) S.T.E.P.S. Publishing

1 INTRODUCTION TO PC PERIPHERALS 1

1.1 AIMS 1

1.2 OVERVIEW 1

1.3 WHAT IS A COMPUTER? 1

1.4 THE CASE 2

1.5 EXTERNAL CONNECTORS 4

1.5.1 Keyboard port 4

1.5.2 Mouse Port 4

1.5.3 Video Port 4

1.5.4 Serial Port 4

1.5.5 Parallel Port 4

1.6 KEYBOARD 5

1.7 MONITOR 5

1.8 MOTHERBOARD 6

1.9 MAJOR INTERNAL COMPONENTS 7

1.10 CPU 7

1.11 MEMORY (RAM) 8

1.12 FLOPPY DISK 9

1.13 THE HARD DISK 10

2 GETTING STARTED 12

2.1 AIMS 12

2.2 OVERVIEW 12

2.3 TOOLS YOU MAY USE TO BUILD YOUR PC 12

2.4 SAFETY BEFORE STARTING ANYTHING! 13

3 CHOOSING, INSTALLING AND UPGRADING A MOTHERBOARD 19

3.1 AIMS 19

3.2 OVERVIEW 19

3.3 MOTHERBOARD COMPONENTS 19

3.4 ELEMENTS OF MOTHERBOARDS 20

3.4.1 CACHE 20

3.4.2 IDE CONTROLLERS 20

3.4.3 SCSI CONTROLLERS 20

3.4.4 PORTS 20

3.4.5 BUS 21

3.4.6 BIOS 21

3.5 IMPORTANCE OF THE MOTHERBOARD 21

3.5.1 CPU 22

3.5.2 MATH COPROCESSOR 22

3.5.3 CACHE 22

3.6 CONSIDERATIONS FOR MOTHERBOARDS 22

3.7 INSTALLING / UPGRADING MOTHERBOARDS 24

4 CHOOSING, INSTALLING AND UPGRADING A PROCESSOR 28

4.1 AIMS 28

4.2 OVERVIEW 28

4.3 CPU 28

4.3.1 CHOOSING A CPU AND CPU SPEEDS 29

4.4 INSTALLING CPU 31

5 CHOOSING, INSTALLING AND UPGRADING A HARD DISK DRIVE 32

5.1 AIMS 32

5.2 OVERVIEW 32

5.3 HARD DRIVES 33

5.3.1 IDE 33

5.3.2 SCSI 33

5.3.3 BRAND 34

5.3.4 SPEED 35

5.3.5 CACHE 35

5.3.6 RPM 35

5.3.7 WARRANTY 35

5.3.8 THE SIZE 35

5.3.9 DIMENSIONS 36

5.4 INSTALLING A HARD DRIVE 36

6 CHOOSING, INSTALLING AND UPGRADING A FLOPPY DISK DRIVE 38

6.1 AIMS 38

6.2 OVERVIEW 38

6.3 FLOPPY DRIVES 38

6.4 INSTALLING A FLOPPY DRIVE 39

7 CHOOSING, INSTALLING AND UPGRADING A CD-ROM DRIVE 41

7.1 AIMS 41

7.2 OVERVIEW 41

7.3 INSTALLING A CD-ROM 42

8 CHOOSING, INSTALLING AND UPGRADING A VIDEO CARD 44

8.1 AIMS 44

8.2 OVERVIEW 44

8.3 VIDEO CARDS 44

8.4 INSTALLING VIDEO CARDS 46

9 CHOOSING, INSTALLING AND UPGRADING MEMORY 48

9.1 AIMS 48

9.2 OVERVIEW 48

9.3 RAM 48

9.4 MEMORY SIZE CONSIDERATIONS 50

9.4.1 RAM DESIGN 50

9.5 RAM CONFIGURATIONS 51

9.6 PARITY RAM 51

9.7 INSTALLING RAM 52

10 REPLACING A KEYBOARD, MOUSE, MODEM, SOUND CARD AND OTHER CARDS 54

10.1 AIMS 54

10.2 CARDS 54

10.2.1 Serial & Parallel 54

10.2.2 IDE & floppy controllers 55

10.2.3 NIC 55

10.3 NETWORK CARDS 55

10.4 INSTALLING THE CARDS 56

10.5 SOUND CARDS 57

10.5.1 Installing a Sound Card 59

10.6 INSTALLING AN EXTERNAL MODEM 60

10.7 INSTALLING AN INTERNAL MODEM 62

10.8 KEYBOARD AND MOUSE 63

11 SELECTING AND INSTALLING PRINTERS 65

11.1 AIM 65

11.2 OVERVIEW 65

11.3 INSTALLING PRINTERS USING THE ADD PRINTER WIZARD 66

11.4 FINDING SOLUTIONS TO PRINTING PROBLEMS 67

12 INSTALLING AN OPERATING SYSTEM AND APPLICATIONS TO YOUR PC (WINDOWS NT WORKSTATION) 68

12.1 AIMS 68

12.2 OVERVIEW 68

12.3 INTRODUCTION 68

12.4 REQUIREMENTS 69

12.5 SETTING UP NT WORKSTATION 70

12.5.1 Installing Workstation using Floppy disks 70

12.5.2 Network Installation 70

12.5.3 Steps to be followed for basic setup 71

12.6 WALKING THROUGH SETUP WIZARD 74

12.6.1 Choosing a Set-up type 75

12.6.2 Creating an Emergency Repair Disk (ERD) 76

12.6.3 Installing Optional Components 76

12.7 NETWORK SETUP 78

12.7.1 Network Adapters 78

12.7.2 Network Protocols 78

12.7.3 Network Bindings 78

12.7.4 Workgroups and Domains 78

12.7.5 Completing Installation 79

12.7.6 Starting Windows NT 79

12.8 INSTALLING OFFICE 97 79

13 TESTING THE SYSTEM 80

13.1 AIMS 80

13.2 OVERVIEW 80

13.3 STEPS TO TESTING YOUR SYSTEM 80

14 APPENDIX 82

14.1 A BRIEF HISTORY OF COMPUTERS 82