[pchelpers] Re: [Fwd: Re: Re: Cheap PC]

Hi Judy,

Thursday, December 30, 2004, 6:24:08 AM, you wrote:


JLR> I've not been confident enough to try and put one together. I attached
JLR> a slave HDD once and had bad nerves for a week.   Writing software - now
JLR> I have little problem with that.  'All head, no hands' this guy.

At least you won't be messing with your main computer, so there's
little cause to be nervous.

With modern computers, there's only a few things that are important.

The first is to be sure that the keyboard and mouse are plugged into
the right ports, although on most modern computers, they'll simply not
work. On older systems, reversing could cause damage. Ditto for
unplugging them while the system is on; it could fry the controller on
the motherboard on older systems, but modern systems seem tolerant of
that.

Also, need to check that the hard drive and floppy cables are plugged
into the drives and the motherboard the right way -- most only fit one
way, but not all. On hard drives and CD/DVD drives, the stripe goes
towards the power cable, but on floppy drives, this rule doesn't
always hold. Plugging the floppy in the wrong way generally results in
the floppy drive light being always on; on older systems, this would
cause the drive to fry if left for more than a few seconds, although
newer equipment seems more tolerant. Reversing the hard drive cable
can have varied results, including the system not turning on or the
drive simply not being detected by the BIOS. Check the markings on the
drive and the motherboard (look for a "1", arrow, or a square mark at
one corner) to be certain that you're plugging it in the right way.
Sometimes the LAST pin is marked ("34" or "39"), which means that pin
1 is on the other end. Just to add some excitement, I've seen a couple
of situations where the cables were made backwards, and at least one
where the markings on the motherboard were backwards.

If your case has front-panel USB ports, make sure that the USB is
hooked up properly, especially if you have a separate connector for
each wire. According to one motherboard manual that I looked at,
hooking these up wrong can cause damage.

Mistakes anywhere else don't cause any peramanent damage that I can
think of, offhand (of course, don't do anything inside while the power
cable is plugged in -- ignore the power switch), although if the
motherboard has jumpers, make sure that they appear to be set
correctly before turning on the power.

-- 
Scott.




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