Ask Tegan

[Tegan]

Ever wanted to know how to do something on your computer, and just didn't who to ask or where to look? Ever wondered what video card to buy, or what hardware to upgrade to speed up your general computing? Ever wondered why your computer makes that funny beeping nose every time you try and watch porn?

Well here is your place to ask and get help.

Couple of rules of thread:
1) Please only post questions!. I want to keep the thread as clean as possible, with question answer pairs. No idle chit chat. If you think you have a good answer to a question, feel free to post it. Don't worry about stealing my thunder! The thread will be heavily moderated.

2) Don't post guesses. If you don't know the answer, don't answer!. I want to keep all the information in the thread relevant and accurate. Hopefully over time it will build up as a sort of mini-encyclopedia of random computer facts and tricks.

There you have it. Post your question as you have them, and I will answer them as quickly as possible.

 

[BreakfastSurreal]

How do I build a computer?

 

[Tegan]

How do I build a computer?

That's a long answer, but the short answer is:

You need to figure out what components you want to use in the following categories:
Case
Motherboard
CPU
Power Supply
Video Card
Memory (RAM)
Storage (Hard Drives)
Optical Drives (CD-ROM, CD-R/RW. DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW)
Peripherals

Once you have the basics of your system together, clear a clean workspace and get some tools. For most builds you will need:

Phillips head screa driver
Flat head screw driver
Pliers (preferably needle nose)

NEVER use a power drill to tighten computer screws. You will end up stripping them, making hardware removal very difficult. Take it from my personal experience, you DO NOT want to drill a screw out of a 250 dollar motherboard.

In addition, make sure you have a cooling solution for your CPU and thermal paste. Zip ties for wire organization can also come in handy.

Read the instructions for your case carefully. Remove all it's screws and fasteners from their packaging and put them in a bowl or some kind of repository that you won't lose them. Then you will take the following (very general) steps:

1. Mount your power supply to your case, but DO NOT plug it in to the various power connector slots on your motherboard.
2. Very carefully mount the motherboard risers and make sure they match up with the pre-drilled mounting holes in your motherboard!. Once the risers are in place, very gently place the motherboard and it's port face plate in to the case. Fasten the motherboard with the provided motherboard screws. DO NOT over tighten the screws.
3. Remove the CPU from it's packaging and very gently place it in the CPU socket. Make sure all pins line up! If you bend a pin, you just lost yourself an expensive CPU.
4. Apply a thin, consistent layer of thermal paste to CPU. Do not use too much paste! You don't want to gunk it on there, or you will lose heat transfer between the heatsink and the CPU.
5. Very carefully mount your heatsink and fan setup on the motherboards heatsink brackets. This process will vary from motherboard to motherboard and heatsink to heatsink.
6. Install the RAM modules in the DIMM slots of your motherboard. Make sure you place the memory in correctly and never jam it in to the slots. If the memory doesn't seat with a gentle push and a nice click, you are putting it in wrong.
7. Mount any drives in the appropriate bays. Optical drives tend to go in your 5 1/4" bays while hard drives mount in internal 3 1/2" bays. Your floppy drive (if you have one) will mount in one of the external opening 3 1/2" bays.
8. Connect your drives to your motherboard via SATA or IDE cables. What cable to use will vary by drive, and where they get plugged in will vary by motherboard.
9. Insert any extra crads, such as your video card, in to the correct slots. Remember there are several types of card slots including, but not limited to, PCI, AGP and PCI-e (or PCI Express). They are different, and an AGP won't fit in an PCI-e slot and vice versa. Some new boards call regular PCI slots PCI-e 1x slots, but it's generally less confusing to just call them PCI slots.
10. Connect all of the proper power leads to the proper devices, connecting the motherboards power leads LAST. This will generally entail connecting SATA or molex power connectors to drives, PCI-e or molex power connectors to video cards, and connector 24 and 8 pin power connectors to the motherboard.
11. Mount any case fans you have to their ports on your case. Make sure you have them face the correct direction, as air flow is changed if you flip a fan around. As a general rule, you would fans taking in air from the front of the case, and fans pushing out air from the back of the case. This creates a flowing air current inside your case, constantly removing hot air and adding cool air. Side panel fans for video cards can also be helpful. As with connecting drives, cards and the motherboard above, you will need to connect power cables to the fans. Some fans use a 3-pin power connector that can plug in to various fan power heads on the motherboard. Others use a molex adapter to allow a standard molex connection to power them.

That is a VERY general list of tasks to complete. Obviously each task has more detail involved, and much manual reading is in store for someone building their first system. Always, always, always read the manuals of your components if you aren't sure of how they are installed.

 

[dt3]

*Ask Tegan...hmmm, what can I ask Tegan........*

*Question pops into head!*

How are you a mod after like a week and a half dude? Gotta be the fastest promotion ever!

 

[ouachiski]

So when I updated to dot net 2.0 something whent wrong. Now I cant uninstall it or update it further. Tom make matters worse it has destroyed my msi.exe and so I cant install any new programs. I have searched online for a fix and am unable to come up with any thing short of a reinstall of windows. Get technical if you know an answer cause I am a computer tech myself. This one just has me stumped.

 

[Tegan]

So when I updated to dot net 2.0 something whent wrong. Now I cant uninstall it or update it further. Tom make matters worse it has destroyed my msi.exe and so I cant install any new programs. I have searched online for a fix and am unable to come up with any thing short of a reinstall of windows. Get technical if you know an answer cause I am a computer tech myself. This one just has me stumped.

Try downloading the latest version of Windows Installer from:
Download details: Windows Installer 3.1 Redistributable

See if that fixes the MSI issue. If it does, try the .NET v2 redistributable setup again. If it still fails, a Windows re-install may be the next step.

 

[Tegan]

*Ask Tegan...hmmm, what can I ask Tegan........*

*Question pops into head!*

How are you a mod after like a week and a half dude? Gotta be the fastest promotion ever!

I have no idea, ask V

 

[ouachiski]

Try downloading the latest version of Windows Installer from:
Download details: Windows Installer 3.1 Redistributable

See if that fixes the MSI issue. If it does, try the .NET v2 redistributable setup again. If it still fails, a Windows re-install may be the next step.

Tried all that allready. I was hoping not to have to do a re-install but I guess that is where I am stuck.

 

[Tegan]

Tried all that allready. I was hoping not to have to do a re-install but I guess that is where I am stuck.

Yah, sounds to me like you have a busted Windows install. You can try doing a system restore, if you've kept up to date restore points. You can also try a Windows repair, but I always tell people that's just a stop gap. Eventually you are going to want to format. I would say, while your system is still usable, backup your data and just do the re-format. It's a pain, but your computer will run well afterwards anyway.

 

[Johnny]

Okay
How did you become a Mod so fast?

 

[Tegan]

Okay
How did you become a Mod so fast?

I don't want to start deleting posts, but if you guys want to ask a question like that, PM me or ask VShaye's. I don't run the nut house, I just give people their pills.

I was asked to watch over the C&T forum because it's what I do for a living and it was lacking a mod. There, question answered. Next.

 

[IntruderLS1]

Now for my question: I lose internet connection from 12m to 7pm every day. Like fuckin clock work. Any suggestions?

Dude, that's flippen weird. How do you hook up? Something the kid next door can pull out of the wall, and use for his personal enjoyment every night?

I've got a question too Teg... I've put my new system together (Thank you VERY much for your help), but I'm having two weird issues: 1) My soundcard is seen by XP to be a new piece of HW every time I boot up, even though all the drivers are installed, and it's working great. I even tried to be cordial and let XP do the drivers for me, but even that didn't work. Second, my primary HD is being looked at as a removable thumb drive somehow. LOL I have the option to stop it for safe removal all the time. :confused

 

[IntruderLS1]

Okay, figured out the sound card thing. I went into BIOS and disabled my on board functionality.

Still need help on the removable drive thing though... ??

Also, I have this "Creative Media-Source GO" thingy hidding on top of my monitor. I've taken it out of the star-up in MSCONFIG, and I've killed it with the CCleaner tool, but it's still there. Any ideas?

Thanks mate.

 

[Boomer]

Yeah, found out it was my router settings. Neighbors stealing my bandwith.

 

[ouachiski]

yea, if you got wireless you have to make sure you set up security for it or anybody within range can steal you connection, altho I dont complain when I find free interweb

 

[Tegan]

Guys, seriously knock it off. Boomer and I are cool, he isn't ragging on me, and if he is, I can handle it

I am gonna delete the "drama" posts from this thread so we can keep it questions and answers. It's not personal. If you want to argue with me in another thread or PM's, hit me with your best shot baby!

 

[Tegan]

Yeah, found out it was my router settings. Neighbors stealing my bandwith.

Make sure you have some kind of wireless security mode turned on. I recommend WPA Personal, as WEP is too easily broken.

 

[Tegan]

Okay, figured out the sound card thing. I went into BIOS and disabled my on board functionality.

Still need help on the removable drive thing though... ??

Also, I have this "Creative Media-Source GO" thingy hidding on top of my monitor. I've taken it out of the star-up in MSCONFIG, and I've killed it with the CCleaner tool, but it's still there. Any ideas?

Thanks mate.

The removable drive thing is just an NVidia driver thing. They put it there because some people use swappable SATA bays. You can safely ignore it, and I highly recommend never "Safely Removing" your primary HDD

 

[IntruderLS1]

Weird issue. Every sixth time or so, my monitor is not recognized during start up. The computer boots fine, just no signal is making it out to the monitor. Re-boot clears it.

 

[Tegan]

Well, first do the obvious, make sure the monitor connections is screwed in well, hehe.

If that doesn't help, make sure your video card is well seated. Take it out, blow it off, use some air down in the slot to get any shipping dust out. Re-seat the card and make sure it's nice and snug.

After that, go to your monitors manufacturers website and get the latest monitor driver. Usually it's just an .inf that tells Windows what brand your monitor is, as most are plug and play these days, but sometimes they have minor setup changes that help the monitor perform better.

Make sure you have multi-monitor and SLI turned off in your drivers if you don't use either. Sometimes they can cause weirdness in single card/single display setups.

Also, I guess I should ask, on the sixth reboot, do you not get video from post onward, or just after Windows starts up? If it's from post onward, it's a hardware issue. If it's from the Windows load-up onwards, it's a software issue (most likely).