Expansion Slots

Exit the CMOS screen now and then select the Exit and save option to store the data you just entered. Then you can switch off the machine again, remembering to remove the power lead. There are now a few more things to be placed into the machine before we can finally close the case. The expansion cards should now be fitted, This should be one of the easier tasks out of the lot, the idea is that these cards should should just slot into place, you only have to decide which slot they should go into, either an ISA, PCI or AGP.

Above - A PCI slot, Used for most internal peripherals and components, you will have more of these slots than any of the others. This slot is used for sound cards, modems, DVD decoders, TV cards, some graphics cards, network cards etc. 

The AGP (Accelerated graphics port) is used solely for graphics cards. This provides a faster Bus speed than the PCI slot which is why its so useful for graphics cards which are demanding more and more every year. The older ISA slots are slowly fading out now but still are used by components such as modems and network cards, its wise to use the PCI if buying anything new because of the risk of ISA disappearing completely.

Just put all your expansion cards in the correct slots and screw them in tightly checking that they are all seated correctly. If you have a sound card you should have an audio cable coming from it. This is a cable to send CD-Audio from your CD-ROM directly to your sound card. There will be a slot on the back of your CD drive where this will fit.

That should be everything now, but don't screw the case on just yet, fit everything together again, including the keyboard and the mouse. connect the power lead again and boot up the computer, this time check that the LED's are working correctly as well, the Green light should be constantly on and the orange light should flicker as and when there is hard disk activity. If all is well reset the computer to check that that is working OK and then insert your boot disk (we will assume you are using MS windows from now on - if this is not the case consult your OS manual for instructions on installing). The boot disk will contain the programs we need to set up your hard disk ready for receiving information. This program is FDISK.

FDISK is a hard disk partitioning utility that sets up partitions on your hard disk and also creates the boot sector and logical drives etc. Run FDISK by typing fdisk at the command prompt (A:\). You should enable large hard disk support and then create a primary DOS partition. If you want to have more than one partition set this to the percentage of the drive you want the primary partition to be, if you want 2 partitions half each then set this to 50% and then create a logical drive at 50%. If you want the drive to have one partition then set this to 100%. FDISK will then ask you to restart the computer. Once the computer has re-booted you will need to format the disk. To do this type format c: at the command prompt. You will see a warning that says all data will be lost, this is OK as your hard disk doesn't contain any data at the moment. proceed with the format and enter the data it requires once finished.

You are now ready to install Windows!

Next - Installing Windows