Snail Mail and Checks to 6 L Reldas Ct Cockeysville, MD 21030
**********DISCLAIMER**********
Although I believe this to be a project that any reasonably intelligent person can accomplish, the Author assumes no responsibility for failed attempts, errors,
omissions or injuries or losses connected to the use of the information contained herein. If you need help, get it. If you are not sure, ask. So there.
**********LEGALESE************
Microsoft, IBM and other company names are registered their respective companies. All products mentioned are copyright their respective companies, and the
companies and products are Registered and Trademarked. Review of their product constitutes and/or implies no relationship and no infringement is intended.
Dedicated to the memory of Farnum Andrew Quillimork, inventor of FAQs.
cCopyright 1989 - 1995 DJ Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
This document is available in Word for Windows 6.0 format and in HTML at my home site. Hard Copies available via snail mail - $5 for the disk, $8 for
hardcopy from the above address.
Graphics, Charts, Table of Contents, Waves and some in depth subjects may be available only in the full Word version, offered above.
If received via BBS, Internet or other electronic means:
I INVITE YOUR COMMENTS AND YOUR CRITICISM. YOU ARE FREE TO UPLOAD IT TO OTHER BBS'S IN ITS ENTIRETY WITH NO
CHANGES TO THE TEXT. COMMENTS SHOULD BE OUTSIDE OF THE ARTICLE.
DJE Version 4.0 October, 1995
Revision History- Original November, 1989 as Build your own IBM Compatible This is a living document. It is corrected and expanded constantly. The date of
the latest modification:October 15, 1995
FULL VERSION HARD COPIES ARE AVAILABLE FOR $8.00 FROM THE ABOVE ADDRESS. FIVE OR MORE COPIES $5.00 EACH. 1,000 OR
MORE COPIES INCLUDE DINNER AT MY PLACE AND A SHOE SHINE.
MODULE 1 - PURPOSE, HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHIES 4
PURPOSE 4
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY - A SHORT INDUSTRY OVERVIEW 6
Who's Who in Nerddom 6
The PC is Born 7
MODULE 2 - OVERVIEW & FAQS 8
A QUICK HARDWARE OVERVIEW 8
UP TO DATE FAQS ABOUT IBM COMPATIBLE PCS 9
MODULE 3 - BASIC PARTS 12
THE BASIC PARTS 12
PREFACE 13
Step One Buy a Magazine! (!?!) 13
Computer Shows 13
Catalogs 14
Discount Store 14
Computer Store 14
THE CASE 14
The XT 15
The AT Case 15
The Baby AT(Aw...isn't it cute??) 15
The Tower 15
The Baby Tower 15
Installation 15
What are all those damn wires in the case?????? 15
Speaker: 16
Reset: 16
Turbo: 16
Turbo LED: 16
KeyLock: 16
Hard Drive LED 16
Power Supply: 17
CPU FAN 17
THE MOTHERBOARD 17
Mini Glossary # 1 CPUs 17
The BIOS (Basic In-Out system [ooh baby]) 18
The PS2 line of IBM 19
Installation: 19
On Getting Fried 20
VLB Motherboards 20
Jumpers 21
MCA (Micro Channel Architecture) 21
ARCHITECTURE 22
ISA,EISA and MCA 22
Local Bus 22
Pentium Motherboards (PCI) 22
Cache Memory 23
L2 Cache 23
POWER SUPPLY 23
Installation 23
THE MEMORY 23
Memory and Speed 24
Parity 24
WAIT STATES 25
RAM 25
ROM 25
SIPPS 25
SPEED 25
CACHE MEMORY 26
MODULE 4 - I/O DEVICES 26
THE KEYBOARD 26
Installation: 26
OTHER STANDARD I/O 27
Installation 27
THE CONTROLLER 27
Types of Floppy Drives 27
HARD DRIVES 28
High Tech Hard Drives 29
Installation 29
SCSI 30
IDE 30
LARGE IDE HARD DRIVE FACTS & FAQS 30
UPGRADING AN IDE TO AN IDE 31
WHAT ARE THOSE OTHER PARAMETERS? 32
BAD SECTORS 32
THE FIRST REBOOT - A PLANNED FAILURE 32
WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE? 33
WHAT IF I CAN"T GET THE OLD HARD DRIVE TO ACT AS SLAVE? 33
WHAT IF NOTHING WORKS BUT ONE DRIVE AT A TIME? 33
MOVING FROM MFM/RLL DRIVES TO IDE. 33
DELETING OLD PROGRAMS 34
HARD DRIVE FAQS BY FARNUM ANDREW QUILLIMORK 34
FORMATTING 37
MODULE 5 VIDEO 37
THE MONITOR 37
VGA Resolutions 38
Installation: 39
VIDEO MEMORY 39
Interlaced Vs Non-Interlaced. 39
Dot Pitch 39
Refresh Rate 39
Windows Accelerators 39
VESA 40
PIXELS 40
The Monitor (video) Board 40
Frequencies 40
MODULE 6 THE M WORD 40
CD'S 40
CD Rom Speed 41
CD Rom Installation 41
A WORD ABOUT WORMS. 43
SOUND BOARDS 43
LIVE VIDEO 43
PLUG N PLAY FOR 95 43
MODULE 7 - BUILDING SUMMARY 44
MODULE 8 - WINDOWS 95, DOS OPERATING SYSTEMS AND STARTUP FILES 44
WINDOWS 95 44
WINDOWS 95 INSTALLATION Q&A'S 45
OPERATING SYSTEMS OTHER THAN WIN 95 48
More Fun with EMM386 49
Ascertaining the DOS Version 50
Backing up startup files 50
Making a Bootable Floppy 51
Using DOS's Edit Command 52
Symptom: Low Memory 52
DATA COMPRESSION 53
MODULE -9 FIRMWARE AND DATA COMMUNICATIONS 54
PORTS 54
PARALLEL 54
SERIAL 54
MODEM MOUSE WARS 55
MODULE 1 - PURPOSE, HISTORY and BIOGRAPHIES
Purpose
Since you are reading this book, you probably fall into one of the following categories: A Build it yourself-er? With very
little know how and using only what you already know about IBM Compatible Computers, it is an easy and enjoyable task
to assemble an 80486 Machine for a total of under $800. This machine will look like a store model and do everything a
store bought system will do, and leave you $200 or more for other pursuits.
The Machine can be built in your spare time in a few days, or over a number of weeks or months, adding the parts as you
can afford them and find them at the right price.
In 1987, this author, knowing absolutely zilch about the inside of a computer, over three months of occasional work and
with no formal training, originally built a 12 MHz 80286 Compatible Machine with 2048K Memory, a 5 1/4 and 3 1/2
Inch drive, a 10 Meg hard disk, Parallel and Serial Ports, and a 1200 bps Modem. Actual work time was in the
neighborhood of 10 hours. There was no test equipment, special tools or mathematics involved. Since that time, I have
assisted in the building of many machines. Over 10,000 people have downloaded this book and many have written to me
with their success at building. The original machine has been upgraded many times and is on it's fourth owner (and still
cookin'). The process itself has become much easier by improvements in the technology. IDE drives that identify
themselves to the machine saves HOURS of work. Parts come already jumpered for IBM Compatibles because 80% of the
worlds computers are just that. In 1987, that just wasn't the case.
Why build a computer instead of buying it? MONEY and fun. This machine you would build using these instructions
would easily go for between $1000 and $1200. Most parts are under warranty, so you are not "stuck" with a computer that
does not work. Just have the offending part replaced or serviced.
Compatibility- What makes this process nearly idiot proof is the architecture- everything plugs in or screws together. If
you can build a model car with Legos or hook up a stereo, you can accomplish this. When you are ready to upgrade it, it
will be a simple task. If you buy a P*ckard B*ll or some such machine, you may find the upgrade path difficult to
impossible.
When IBM made the first PC, they were under the gun to produce a unit to Market in one year flat - so, in a move they
haven't duplicated since (and they haven't had a hit since), they used off the shelf, standard parts for the hardware. This
decision years ago that the MS-DOS PC would be an Open Architecture System gave the world a system that could be
cloned and duplicated, and created today's world of almost single standard computing. It gave us all the ability to run with
the big boys and made Apple an also ran.
Whatever part it is that you are looking for, it is made by a number of different manufacturers at a number of different
price points, and, wonder of wonders- they fit into the same slot the same way. An ABC Motherboard accepts a DEF
Controller, which runs a GHI Hard Drive, which fits into a JKL kit, and takes MNO disks.
This book has evolved from a five page general outline to it's present state. As of the version 2, the article includes a short
preface so that you can first evaluate the project, followed by lengthier information that you will most definitely need
either to narrow down your final buying decision or to support you as you debug your hardware.
Hey, I get lots of notes on the Internet from you guys, and occasional letters, and once in a great while, somebuddy pays
for this sucker. I just received a letter from a guy in Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia). I know it's for real because they got
stamps with pictures of roaches on them. No shit. He's dodging bullets and eating UN dehydrated Beets n' Bananas
rations and he STILL has the time to learn a little rotten English and send me 10 American Dollars. And he wished me
good Carma [sic] to boot. I got this mental picture of some guy on a bullet riddled, cobblestone street with this striped
shirt, huge mustache and three days stubble, holding his beanie in his hands and selling his father's watch for 10
American Dollars to send me. Of course, the mental picture is in black and white. Which probably explains the black and
white money (just kidding. They were real dollars. I bought a mess of ribs with them.) Carl thanks the guy from Slovenia
for the ribs. I thank him for my good Carma. He'll thank me as soon as I can figger out how to send this rag to Slovenia.
"That'll be $10.47, Sir..." "But...but...I already bought the ribs!" "Scuse me???".
There is very little to fear in making the decision to plunge ahead with this project. It is very hard to fail as long as you
have confidence in yourself, and simply a desire to let the little guy win for a change.
Already Bought It?
Having second thoughts about the power and abilities of what you have? That's OK. You can make the best of what you
have for now by learning about what's under the hood in the following pages. You will learn how to upgrade what's on the
desk to a truly good machine. You will learn whether or not your machine is true ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)
and can be upgraded directly, or if you need to rip out a major part of the system. Don't worry... 90% of compatibles are
just that. Unless of course, you bought a P*ckard-B*ll from C*******r C**y or someplace, in which case you have my
sympathies. This IS NOT an ISA machine. People are telling me that newest P*ckard B*ll is all ISA. I'll believe it when I
see it. Many people waste hours and hours of my time talking about their impending purchase. They sit in my living
room, eat my food, play around on my machine, then go and buy one of those aforementioned machines. They deserve
them. I get really offended when someone tells me about how much PB is improving. Once burned...
Ready to Upgrade?
This book will help you understand the total machine picture, so that you can decide whether it's best to get a bigger hard
drive, add memory or replace the motherboard.
Just Itching to Learn More?
You've come to the right place.
For those of you about to fight your first C:\> prompt, we salute you:
A section for the new user.
Welcome to the world of DOS and IBM. This unique planet is a place like no other you have ever been. Your previous
experience with other computer platforms will only be a good leg up on the total novice due to the unique nature of the
DOS platform IBM Clone.
There will be sections to follow that are of no interest whatsoever to you. Feel free to skip them, but I urge you to at least
scan the contents; you may very well find information that you will want to refer to in a later life.
The message of the book is this: If you ever want to do more than play an occasional game and flounder around the DOS
prompt, calling some $50 an hour guy every time you get an error message, so be it. The world is full of guys who call a
$75 an hour electrician to hook up a new phone or speakers to their stereo. I would rather spend $75 on a better phone or
better speakers, and have the knowledge of how to do it. Many people beg me for a copy of this book, and then, two
months later, I talk to them and they haven't "gotten around to looking at it" but have "gotten around to" buying a $3000
piece of crap computer from BigCity Computer Superstore - and they want to know if I will provide them free support
(no). Don't waste my time or half a tree. You can do this and it will be fun.
Let's plunge into the subject with a quick look at the players.
Biography and History - A short Industry Overview
Who's Who in Nerddom
Understanding use of the machine has as much to do with the personality of it's developers as with actual technical
knowledge. Things are the way they are because the PC was designed by men and women driven by other than normal
business pursuits. Let's meet a couple of key players who actually were responsible for it's development:
Bill Gates - Computer's Elvis. I fully expect him to die one day while performing some obscure physics experiment (Video
Physics lectures are Bill's idea of relaxation) and the BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems) of the world will tout his survival in
hiding, coding mysterious viruses for decades to come. From a future Cover of InfoWorld Weekly: "Gates Spotted in
Janitors Uniform at Comdex!" or "Gates and Mysterious Alien Fathered My Baby in Bizarre Runtime Experiment." He
will join the ranks of Hoffa and Hitler. Bill Gates, of course, began and owns Microsoft, the company that provides the
premier Operating System for the PC, known as MS-DOS, recently supplanted by Windows 95, MS's first GUI Operating
System. PC-DOS Version 1 wasn't written by Gates, it was written by Tim Patterson of Seattle Computing, who sold it to
Microsoft for $50,000. Bill has made billions of dollars from this 50 grand investment, and Tim Patterson now works for
Gates. MS-DOS wasn't even marketed as a separate product until well into Version 3.
IBM Small Systems Group - First, it is important for you to understand that IBM didn't WANT PCs to be great. They
wanted them to be adjuncts to RISC and Mainframe Computers. Every advance in PCs makes another hundred
Mainframes obsolete. IBM makes a hundred bucks or thereabouts on each PC sold. They make mega thousands installing
and supporting each Mainframe (an average 70% Margin). It took them until 1993 to figure out that mainframes aren't
coming back. Duh.
Way back in the 1970's (a millennium in Computers), IBM had made a few attempts at coming out with a personal
computer. As stated above, it was a project that they were, by it's nature, at odds with. Couple that with, according to
many, the IBM way of doing business in the great heyday of Corporations, which is that the Corporation, not the product,
was the goal; forming the right committees and wearing the right tie were business objectives - putting a product out to
market was a necessary annoyance. Having no great enthusiasm for the project, some IBM committee that was under
pressure to produce a progress report gave Boca Raton an ultimatum: produce a PC within one year or perish. Perish in
IBM parlance means that your group will be broken up, you will have a less than perfect performance review, and you will
have to move again. IBM = I've Been Moved. Since no right thinking person wants a poor performance review, these
stalwart men hitched up their gray trousers, straightened their striped ties, and went grudgingly about giving the world a
PC. Certain of it's failure (real computers are mainframes, after all), the group was even allowed autonomy; having
autonomy at IBM is akin to eating pork on a Muslim prayer rug. Unencumbered by the usual IBM flowcharts and
Business Plans (spending six months designing a fancy report with all the right typefaces and just the right amount of
linen in the cover telling everybody what you are going to do just as soon as you finish writing this plan) the Boca
Raton'ers (between the golf course and the Fifties Dance Committee meetings) decided that since there was no way to
produce the proper paperwork AND design a machine in the allotted time, that they would build the machine from already
produced parts and use their time how they knew best, having meetings. Well, they still needed an Operating System. No
one in their right minds at IBM was going to give one line of code to these upstart lepers. "Can you imagine! I spend my
whole career producing software code that adds leap year day to Payroll Accounting Run Modules on the IBM Big Mama
VII, and these outcasts want me to write an assembly routine for a desktop toy! The nerve. I got just 7 months to keep my
nose clean and I'll be a grade 8b, which means that Mary can get that Sun Porch she's been dreaming of. I'm not risking
my Career Development Path for those bozos. Just thinking about it made me late for lunch. Now all the Big Blue Plate
Specials will be picked over."
So the Boca Raton Merry Men set off on a quest to find an operating system, much like Bilbo Baggins set off to find the
King Under the Mountain. They met many colorful characters along the way and had many adventures that they faithfully
set down in their Daily Planners. Although they had no trolls to fight or elves majik to light the trail, they eventually
reached the Western Shores and what they hoped would be the end of their quest. The IBM'ers needed a 16 Bit operating
system, and the alchemist who held this secret formula, called CP/M, (Control Program for MicroComputers) was
supposed to meet with them on his magic mountain. Our heroes in Navy Blue arrived at the appointed hour, with their
famous disclosure document in hand. IBM had (or has) a curious document that we can call the "Playing with the Big
Boys Agreement". It states, more or less, that anything they learn from you can be used as if they had thought of it;
anything you learn from them you must keep secret forever. A Magic Scroll indeed! Well, it seems that the owner of the
Secret Formula was off flying around the countryside in his private plane that he bought with money made from the
Digital Corporation (remember the Rainbow, old timers?), it being such a fine day and all, and his wife, who was
relegated to keeping both feet on the ground, or at least on the desk and to answer the phone, consequently wasn't in the
mood to sign anything. It was still too early for lunch, so the Big Blues flew north to cry on the shoulder of Bill Gates,
who with his partners in Nerddom wrote Programming Languages for various PC upstarts. Bill and his partners had
gained fame by writing a program on streaming paper for the Altair, arguably the first PC, which not only added 2 + 2,
but actually came up with the answer 4! Bill "knew of somebody" who had written such an Operating System, called PC-
DOS. He promised his best efforts to secure it, handed out Kleenexes and lint brushes and the boys went home happy.
Gates' minions promptly called Seattle Computing and bought PC DOS 1.0 for the famous $50 grand. By the way, Gates
was furious at this spending of hard earned capital. PC DOS was now owned by Gates 'n Co., and licensed to IBM. IBM
has the only rights in existence to market their own version of MS DOS called IBM-DOS (currently version 7). In classic
IBM, it doesn't work and is overpriced.
The third and final puzzle piece was the code to hook the off the shelf hardware and the bargained for software together; it
was called the BIOS (Basic In Out System) which was produced in house (good for you, boys!) and burned into EPROMS.
The IBM PC was born, everybody got good performance reviews and... you guessed it, were moved to other groups. Bill
became a billionaire, Seattle Computing has sued Bill, Bill hates IBM and you and I got some good, if not great hardware
and some bad, but not terrible software out of the deal. I haven't gotten closer than 15 feet to William R. Gates III, but I'll
tell you this. Bill is the Tom Edison, the Henry Ford of our day. The man gave us this revolution, whether he meant to or
not. And my hat is off to him. I do admit to disliking the scrubbed to glowing Microsofties that run around in their purple
banlons at COMDEX and such, but, just maybe , I... choke... wanna be one... nah, I'd get canned.
The Steves, et al
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built a computer in their garage to show their friends in the local computer club how cool
they were. They called it an Apple. Their friends thought it was way cool so the Steves decided that building lots of
Apples would be more fun than flipping lots of burgers. Now these guys had good business sense; they built a good
product, kept the trade secrets to themselves, hired good people, paid them well and kept them happy, and totally and
miserably failed to capture the PC Market. Clear?
Why didn't they call it the Burger? Why am I telling you all this? Do you care? The Apple didn't quite begat the
MacIntosh. Steve Jobs was working on a project called the LISA, which got him so busy that he didn't notice that a bunch
of hardware geeks in the other building were working on a project called MacIntosh. MacIntosh took it's basic concepts
from Palo Alto, a research group funded by Xerox, which produced a concept called "windows", a device called the
"mouse" and a printer called a "laser jet". Xerox didn't produce any of this stuff, they only paid millions to develop it. Isn't
this a fascinating business? Do we wonder why the japanese think we're totally nuts? Anyway, LISA was a hideous mess,
so Jobs took credit for the MacIntosh, which was so cool that Bill started snacking on it, picking off the mouse, the GUI,
and, most of all Windows.
Oh, yeah. Steve Jobs subsequently built and crashed an empire by the name of neXt, using hundreds of millions from guys
like Ross Perot. The state of the art manufacturing plant eventually produced a machine that was largely ignored.
Customers would look at the features, look at the hardware... then look at the price and say "neXt!" Cool case, though.
And an honorable mention to:
Lots of folks deserve mention here, but the one that must be mentioned is Mitch Kapor; Mitch made computing worth the
money by making sure Lotus 123 was on as many desk tops as possible; without the spreadsheet, there is no way that the
Desktop PC would have been justified as a necessary business expense; the PC would have given way to the Word
Processor. With Lotus 123, businesses saw a way to make every accounting type account faster and make more money.
Letters don't make money because they are on a PC, but numbers do. Mitch got out of Lotus years ago, and now he's doing
a little thing called the Internet, which is doing for the Modem what Lotus did for the PC. Mitch is a nice guy who even
answers his E-Mail! Let's not forget Andy Grove, the man behind Intel. Despite the early 'dirty silicone dilemma' (great
story!) and current Pentium conundrum, Dr. Andy gave us the Intel 80XXX family of CPUs, which made this whole
revolution possible.
The PC is Born
The IBM PC Clone is a machine that exists because IBM used off the shelf parts that anybody could buy, and, in order to
get it to the Market on time, used an Operating System that wasn't exclusively theirs. The world, therefor, was given,
quite by accident, the most incredible gift since the Internal Combustion Engine - a personal computer in a Free Market.
Had Boca Raton been given the proper time, direction, funding and corporate belief in the project, they would have
produced an IBM only machine, captured a small percentage of the Market, and you and I (or at least I ) would be shut out
of freely participating in this technology. The IBM would have been another Apple. You need memory for an Apple, you
go see an Authorized Apple Dealer, who tells you that you can pay the price or stuff it up your floppy. You need memory
for a Clone, you go to a Computer Show and let the dealers yell each other's price down till the profit margin is as low as
the dealer can go and still go home with Cookie Money, and you buy your memory at fair market price. Excuse me for
being hokey, but this truly is the greatness of America.
That ends your Introduction to Personal Computers. I'll bet I'm the only writer you have ever read that has the ability to
digress before he progresses.
MODULE 2 - OVERVIEW & FAQS
A Quick Hardware Overview
Here is the copy of an actual computer ad. Below it is a quick and dirty summary of what the jargon means. Reading this
book and referring back to it will make these ads make sense to you
VESA LOCAL BUS
486DX2/66 MHZ
80486DX266 CPU
4MB RAM plus 256K Cache
1.2 and 1.44 FDD
210 MB IDE HDD
32bit VESA Local Bus 1 MB
14" SVGA Monitor .28DP 1024 x 768
101 Key Keyboard
DOS 6.22 (or 5.0), WIN 3.1, Mouse
ZIF Socket - Pentium Ready!
80486DX266 CPU - This computer is based on an Intel 80486DX CPU chip (the heart of the computer) whose speed has
been doubled from 33Mhz (it's rated speed) to 66Mhz, but only for internal operations (it won't make your hard drive or
video run faster). This is currently "top of the line" reasonable for home systems. There are suddenly lots of players in this
Market. TI, CYRIX, AMD, etc. Expect to pay a 10 - 25% premium for Intel.
4MB RAM plus 256K Cache - There is 4 Megabytes of Random Access Memory built in. DOS uses the first 640K
(64/100 of a Megabyte) for programs, the next 360K for loading programs high (out of your way) and 3 Megabytes of
XMS (which smart programs like Windows use to hold stuff in extended memory while you aren't using it). 4 meg is OK,
a bit skimpy for a 486DX. 256K cache is a memory speeding scheme. Certain operations which are in line for the CPU to
work on will stand in line in the Cache rather than main memory having to fetch them - which is hence freed to do other
stuff.
1.2 and 1.44 FDD - 1.2 Meg capacity 5 1/4 inch floppy drive and a 1.44 Megabyte capacity 3 1/2 drive. If you want to
drop ANY option, drop the 5 1/4. It's dead. RIP.
210 MB IDE HDD - A 210 Megabyte Hard Disk Drive, used for storage of programs and data - IT IS NOT MEMORY. A
megabyte is 1,024,000 bytes. A byte is akin to a word in a book. 8 bits make up a byte. A bit is akin to a letter in a word.
(OK, OK, so I'm simplifying...) 1K is 1,024 bytes. A page of text is about 1K. 210 Megabytes is 210,000,000 bytes plus
(somebody took my calculator). Windows 3.1 takes 5-25 Meg of hard drive space. 210 Meg is an OK size drive, but
increasing to a 540 Meg drive is no big expense. IDE is the "format" of the hard drive - stands for Imbedded Drive
Electronics. This is the current standard. High end systems will have SCSI drives, and used systems will have MFM or
RLL. IDE is fine. ZIP drives (removable 100 Meg disks) are coming on strong.
32bit VESA Local Bus 1 MB - The Video Card in the system is VESA Local Bus - It has three connectors at the bottom.
The first connector is 8 bit (OK for a serial port card) , the second is the 16 bit connector (OK for normal AT class cards)
and the third, extra connector is 32 bit, which gives it priority with the CPU. It doesn't have to wait in line behind the
floppy drive formatting a disk. It communicates with the CPU directly. This board has 1 Megabyte of Memory of it's own,
so that the image going to the Monitor is pre-processed so the CPU doesn't have to do it.
14" SVGA Monitor .28DP 1024 x 768 - This is a 14" (just like your TV is 20" or 27") Super Video Graphics Array Color
Monitor. Super VGA means it shows lots more colors and lots more information than standard VGA. The difference is
akin to the difference between a color picture in the newspaper and an actual photograph. 1024 X 768 is the maximum
resolution - there are 1024 pixels (dots) across the screen and 768 dots up and down. There is more information and
colors than you would have at standard resolution, 640 across and 480 up and down. .28 is the dot pitch - the smaller the
dot pitch, the clearer the picture. A .39 Monitor will ruin your eyes. Everything appears cloudy.
101 Key Keyboard - BigFD. All keyboards that meet standard for 80286 and up are 101. This is akin to Ford saying all of
it's cars are equipped with a 360 degree round steering wheel. Avoid BTC keyboards. Spend an extra 20 bucks for a
Focus. I think BTC stands for Better Type Carefully. Brand new keyboards may have Windows 95 keys also.
To test a keyboard, forget 'click' - hit the keyboards A-S-D-F keys simultaneously with your left hand fingers three times.
If the keyboard bends, jumps, skitters, moves or otherwise shows itself to be the piece of crap it is, move up. IBM and
Compac make great keyboards. A used keyboard from an obsolete IBM PS/2 is a great buy. (You will need a three dollar
adapter).
DOS 6.22 (or 5.0), WIN 3.1, Mouse - They are providing the operating system - MS DOS version 6.22, or, if you are one
of those ninnies who hates the latest and greatest, they'll give you 5.0; they are also providing Windows version 3.1 and a
mouse.
Pentium Ready! - means that you can swap out the 486 chip with a 586. You won't want to. Trust me. Would you swap
out the 4 cylinder engine in your 1989 car for a 1994 8 cylinder engine or buy a new car? An Overdrive processor will
cost you almost as much as a new motherboard and CPU.
ZIF is zero insertion force. The CPU is clamped rather than forced into the socket on the motherboard using a lever that
makes the whole thing look suspiciously like the paper cutter you use in work. It also works great as a guillotine for
roaches. This whole schlemiel is put here at your expense in case the day ever comes that you need to pop out the CPU.
All of the points above are covered below in much more depth.
Up to date FAQS about IBM Compatible PCs
Okay, having taught night courses in this stuff for a few years, lets jump right to the FAQs.
1) What the hell are FAQ's?
Farnum Andrew Quilimork - who invented a list called Frequently Asked Questions. You will find these as you browse
Bulletin Boards n stuff - such as 'ProComm 2.8 FAQ's'. Farnum has retired on royalties made from this scheme.
2) What's an IBM Compatible?
This term loosely refers to any machine that conforms to the ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) [8/16 bit] and EISA
(Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture) [32 bit] standards. You should be able to pick up any hard drive, floppy,
modem, printer, CD Rom, etc. that says "IBM Compatible" and plop it in, much like you should be able to plug any
toaster in any outlet. Some companies produce machines that claim to be IBM Compatible but accept their own
components only. Classically, P*ckard B*ll is the most notorious. Their products are priced slightly lower than other
brands, they spend a lot on advertising, and they foster 'loyalty' by making their products so that you have to buy P*ckard
B*ll parts. Memory may be soldered on the motherboard, the modem may plug into the motherboard directly, the
controller may be on the Motherboard, etc. This causes problems when you want to switch out the Modem to get above
2400bps, etc. You want a true ISA machine.
3) How do I tell if it is not an IBM Compatible?
Ask lots of questions before you buy. If you are reading this book just to get smart before you buy, you should shop for at
least two weeks and eventually buy your first machine from someone local with a good reputation. It's a real tough call to
buy your first machine from a catalog. Look at the back of the machine. The Video (TV), Mouse, and printer SHOULD
NOT PLUG IN AT THE BOTTOM OF A DESKTOP CASE. Imagine a compass. Imagine that you are looking down at
the top of the case. The Video, Mouse and printer should be in slots which run Northwest to about North, vertically about
halfway up the back of the case. The Keyboard should plug in about due North. The Power should plug in at the
NorthEast corner. That is because the standard ISA Motherboard has bus slots, keyboard connector and power connector
in the same place every time, so that your peripherals will fit into a standard case the right way. This will become hugely
important two years from now when you 'just gotta have more speed'. If your machine isn't standard, it's yard sale time.
Instead of a $500 motherboard and CPU, it's $2500 all over again. Adjust these hints for a Tower. You should still be able
to orient the slots and the Keyboard connector by placing the Tower on it's side. DEMAND to know whether the parts are
ISA. Do not shop name brand computers. Shop name brand PARTS. My brother recently went on a job where the
customer had 'drop kicked' has PC. Seems that after one hour on hold with Tech Support, followed by a recording telling
him that he would be called back within a day, the arrogant techie informed him that his computer couldn't be upgraded
because the memory was soldered in place. He drop kicked it, sending the 5 1/4 drive through the case and shearing off
the simms. How do you upgrade a PB computer? Drop kick it.
4) How does the CPU fit in all this?
CPU's (Central Processing Units) are divided into what we can call families. Lets take for granted you want to run
MSDOS on an IBM Compatible ISA Machine. This describes 99% of you. You need a CPU which is capable of running
MSDOS.
ISA CPU's
Dominated by the Intel series, consisting of 8080,8086,8088,80286,80386xx,80486xx Pentium and Pentium Pro. The bulk
of IBM Compatibles have Intel CPUs. AMD, TI and Cyrix make Intel clones with names like AM486DX2. IBM itself
puts out a line with names like 486SLC which is actually a hopped up 486SX. This is the classic line for running MS-
DOS and it's licensees. IBM makes a licensed and altered flavor called IBMDOS.
Intel type CPUs can run other operating systems, such as XENIX (Unix). CP/M, etc. You would not be able to put in an
Apple boot disk and run an Intel machine. DEC tried to put out a CP/M and DOS machine in the Rainbow, but it was a
frustrating, hideous mess, and DEC priced it's parts and upgrades ridiculously high.
Apple/Macintosh CPUs
Dominated almost exclusively by Motorola. Series including 68000,68010,68020,68030, 68040 and 68060. They run
Apples and Macintosh's. Macintosh compatibles were not allowed to spring up, and Apple controlled the pricing. The
Mac does more elegant Desktop Publishing and is easier to learn, but very limited in that cheap software and hardware
upgrades are practically non-existent. There have been kluges in the past to allow MSDOS to run MAC and MAC to run
MSDOS, but all have been problematical and very slow. The current series of Macintoshes based on the 68040 is the last
line for Mac, which will be abandoned for Power PC. Apple has made arrogant moves before, shipping machines that did
not run earlier generation software, or died in infancy (the LISA, which was abandoned for the Mac). The Mac is being
replaced by the Power PC, and there is a new generation in the works.
Alpha
The first Alpha shipped in 1992, and is a high performing CPU. It is used in high performance servers and Mainframes
made by DEC. You won't see your kid on one of these playing DOOM.
PowerPC
IBM and Apple got together in 1991 with Motorola when they were both pissed off at Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Andy
Grove (Intel). The PowerPC CPU line includes the 601 (50-100mhz), 603 (for portables and laptops), 604 (servers) and
620. All are built on 64bit RISC architecture. Apple revised it's entire hardware strategy and has put out Power Macintosh
and Performa models that run a Macintosh System 7 Operating system which is capable of running MSDOS and
Windows "boxes". Personal experience says that most functions run almost as well as an Intel PC, but communications are
problematic and iffy. If your intent is to run Macintosh stuff 90% of the time and occasionally use a Windows product, the
application seems stable. IBM on the other hand, has floundered and blustered and sound-byted it's way nowhere,
changing major parts of their PowerPC platform at the same time they claim to be shipping. It looks at this writing that a
beta PowerPC OS/2 will ship with some major functionality pieces circumcised. In the future, IBM has promised us, there
will be a single DOS-Macintosh PowerPC platform. Yeah, right. So far Apple has delivered. Unless the architecture is
going to be opened up to the extent of PCs (it won't), pass.
5) I hear ya knockin but you can't come in...How to I get into the BIOS without knowing the key combination?
If all else fails, pull out your controller card and reboot. The machine will say "Hey you idiot, you pulled out the
controller! Press F1 to enter setup". Who's the fool now, fool? Similar results can be had by removing a legal number of
SIMMS (8 down to 4 or whatever).
6) What is Windows 95?
It is the much delayed upgrade for Windows 3.1 and replacement for MS-DOS. Earlier, Windows95 was going to be a big
break from the past, leaving 286-386 and DOS users out in the cold until they could afford to upgrade to 32 bit hardware
and applications. Microsoft is trying to back pedal enough to allow most of our old software and hardware to work,
however poorly, at the expense of some of the functionality of a true 32 bit operating system. It's a hit. A disappointment
in some ways, but a hit. You whould buy Windows 95 if you are willing to work through the normal bugs of any version 1
release. There may not be a driver for your Major Teddy's CD-Soundcard kit for some time. There will be glitches and
bugs which will be worked out by 1.1. I was a beta tester and suffered through the worst of them before the fixes were
released. See my FAQ on Windows 95 installation elsewhere. Should you buy it? I wouldn't run without it, but I'm a
geek... I like solving glitches.
7) I get a lot of memory errors - do I need a bigger hard drive?
No (whine). Please understand this now and forever more - There is Memory - Random Access Memory (called RAM)
installed on the Motherboard which loads stuff to and from the CPU, hard drive, floppies, modem, etc. A hard drive has
SPACE just like a cassette tape has SPACE. Unfortunately, since the beginning of computing, stupid books and articles
have referred to hard drive memory (John Dvorak is STILL doing this). Memory indicates that anything in it disappears
when you turn it off - like your memory will erase when you are dead. Like the original digital TV's - when you turned
them off on any station, turning the set back on took you to channel 2 - it had lost it's memory. To solve Memory errors,
you must deal with the RAM - 640K low ram, 640-1024K UMB ram, and extended RAM - 1024 to 16,000K+. ROM is
Memory with a memory - some form of power, usually a battery - lets it remember your disk drives, date and time, hard
drive size, etc.
8)Oops, what do I do now? (MS-DOS)
OK, so before I read that, my computer said 'not enough memory', so I deleted the files on my hard drive; now it says
"non-System Disk or Disk error when I try to boot up.
You need a boot disk.
Find a friend who knows about DOS and computers and get some help. Almost everybody does something like this at least
once. The boot disk should contain the system files, undelete, SYS, format and F Disk. The mistake is usually in the panic
reaction to it. DON'T PANIC! Do nothing until you determine what is wrong. First, get your hands on a boot disk.
Second, swear you'll have one at the side of your machine forever more. Boot from the disk. Go over to C: and try to do a
directory. If you can, you are in pretty good shape. Try to go to the DOS subdirectory. If it is still there, and has lots of
files, you are in real good shape. Copy COMMAND.COM to the root and try to boot from the hard drive. If you can, read
up on undelete and unformat commands and good luck. All you did was wipe out the root directory, and all you have lost
is those files, including COMMAND.COM and your start up files, but not the hidden files (IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS). Now
you know why they hide them.
If you still cannot boot from the hard drive, but can read other sub-directories, you have managed to erase MSDOS.SYS
and IO.SYS. Running the SYS command from the DOS directory might put you back up. If not, running SYS from a
floppy might put you back up. If you do manage to boot from the hard drive, run some DOS commands (like formatting
disks, etc.) to see if you get Incorrect DOS Version messages. In that event, the restore has caused a mixed DOS version.
You need to reinstall DOS from the floppy disk set as soon as possible. Don't do any real work until then. At the end of
your fix, search the drive for copies of COMMAND.COM, EMM386.EXE and HIMEM.SYS and only keep the versions
which match the version in the restored DOS subdirectory.
If all else fails and you cannot read from the hard drive after booting from disk, get help from a nerd. You need to run
Fdisk, and if it reports OK, reformat the disk. If it cannot read the disk partition, you are in for a low level format and
partition job. Get help here - you cannot use most shareware low level formatters on today's drives.
9)My mouse doesn't work since I added a modem, and, for that matter, neither does the modem.
They are camping on the same IRQ, or com-shift has occurred. Read the relevant section in this book and reset your COM
ports accordingly.
10)What are bits and bytes, and why should I care?
Remember your old math class when they taught binary math? Well, you didn't care then either. Everything a computer
does is based on 0's and 1's, because a computer cannot think... it can only interpret on and off (the abscense or prescence
of current). Bits (on-off switches) get together in groups of 8 to form bytes - humans get together in groups of 8 and call it
a Mormon marriage - never mind. Anyway, these bytes make up numbers and letters, e.g. 0000 0100 is the number 4, and
they add a ninth bit that is like a political officer from the KGB in 70's Russia - it's job is to report any deviant behavior of
the first 8. This is called the parity bit. A 3 1/2 HD diskette holds 1.44 Megabytes, or roughly 1,440,000 bytes. So if a
letter or number is one byte, that disk can hold some 1,440,000 characters of data, such as a document.
11)Why is my 9600bps modem only downloading at 1200bps?
Because they use the same stupid letters for two different things. Your Modem is 9600 bits per second, and the download
rate reported by Zmodem and your com software is in BYTES per second. 8bits x 1200bytes per second = 9600 bits per
second. If your modem AND the other guys modem are advanced enough, you may be able to use compression and bi-
directional transmission to speed this up.
12)I tried to move my hard drive to another machine, the Auto detect IDE worked, but the drive won't run. Why?
Because the drive reports it's DEFAULT parameters to the BIOS, not the ACTUAL. Go back to your old machine and
read the Cylinders, Heads and SPT from the old USER settings, and put them in manually in the new SETUP. Write the
numbers and HD capacity on top of the drive in indelible Marker for the next time.
13)Auto detect didn't work
1 - It's not an IDE drive (manually configure)
2 - The cable is backwards (is power plugged in?)
3 - Try unhooking the data controller cable, reboot, wait through the errors, go into setup, rehook the cable and try again
4 - Make sure it is set properly for Single, Master or Slave.
14)I'm getting bogus, ever changing numbers in CMOS Setup - or - I got cute and changed some CMOS stuff.
First, print out or write down the current CMOS settings, especially for the hard drives. As a last resort, on most
machines, if you put a jumper over pin three and four of the battery connector, turn the machine on and off and put it back
to it's original position, the CMOS will reset and you can start over. See your manual.
15)I put a password into my AMI BIOS, now I can't get in!!!!!!!
Send me five bucks, then read on. 99% of these calls turn out to be a FAILED password setup. If you don't follow
directions to a T, the password resets itself to the DEFAULT rather than NO PASSWORD. The default password is AMI.
MODULE 3 - BASIC PARTS
The Basic Parts
There are a number of items you will need to get started if you are building a machine and they are easily obtained. All
compatibles have the following components:
*A Case
*A Motherboard (w/CPU and BIOS)
*A Power Supply
*A Keyboard
*A Monitor
*A Disk or Hard Drive (I/O device)
*ROM [Read Only Memory] -the basic instructions
*RAM [Random Access Memory]- your work space
*Controllers
The more useful options are:
A second Disk Drive or a Hard Drive;
a Modem;
a Mouse;
a Printer.
The extras include
a Sound card
a CD ROM
Stereo Speakers
Aa scanner
PREFACE
This article started at 5 pages. It has turned into a book. That's good in that I'm passing along lots and lots of information
that will save you days or weeks of trouble and lots of dollars. It's bad in that the technical jargon may turn you off. It
shouldn't. The actual building process is something you absolutely should be capable of doing. Here is a one paragraph
summary of what you will be doing:
You will buy a case, install the motherboard and set a few jumpers per the documentation. You will fill some empty
sockets with memory chips. You will put in a few cards and hook stuff up to them. You now have a computer. You will
turn on the machine and tell the computer about the stuff you have added. That's it. Really. The balance of this article is to
help you decide which monitor, drives, etc. to buy, and then gives lots and lots of advice for avoiding pitfalls along the
way. Each of these pitfalls caused me heartaches and headaches. I pass the solutions on to you so that you may avoid the
problems. There will, in all likelihood, be a debugging period. This is normal for any high tech project. You very likely
will not get every jumper right the first time, unless you are one of those people born with a horseshoe up the butt.
If you want to cut to the skinny, here is a short list of the parts for a recommended system:
You may, for $500, buy the following in one morning at a computer show-
A baby tower case with power supply, an 80386DX motherboard, 2 meg of 1 Meg chips (18 chips) or 2 SIMMS, a 512K
VGA Card, a Mono VGA monitor, a hard floppy controller, a 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 disk drive, a used 100 meg hard drive and
an AT compatible keyboard.
Buy what you can afford and solve the problems as you go along. It's just a logical process.
I have assisted many, many people in building machines, and there are basically two types. The first takes my advice,
begins the building process, and takes the time to read and develop the common sense knowledge necessary to finish this
project and learn a heck of a lot as they go. The second group wants me to be their brain, build it piece by piece for them,
and never crack a magazine or a book. I'll say it just one time: YOU HAVE TO READ TO GET ANYTHING OUT OF
THIS PROJECT. If you do, you will be AMAZED at how easy it is.
Step One Buy a Magazine! (!?!)
An indispensable tool is Computer Shopper Magazine, published Monthly and available everywhere. It lists the
CATALOG prices for everything you need, in all the various options. If you have three weeks to wait, you will get the
absolute best prices on whatever new and current you want (see Computer Shows for the exception). Otherwise, you will
have the basis for comparison for shopping elsewhere.
Spend an entire evening reading this magazine cover to cover- it is equivalent to an entire College Course in 6 hours.
Your head will be stuffed with new information and insights.
A Brief Description of Your Buying Options; advantages and disadvantages.
Computer Shows
Held around the area by different Companies- watch the local paper Business Section and the back of Computer Shopper
Magazine. Careful buying is the watchword. Buy all your Cables and miscellaneous parts here. These shows are getting
harder and harder to find. It's getting too tough to make a profit. It is ABSOLUTELY worth a 60 mile drive to buy at a
show to build a system. You will be in an environment where if a product can be sold at a $2 profit for $20, Harry will
undercut Chen and sell it for $19.
Ask lots of questions about other pieces from information you gleam here, from Magazines, and from Books you run
across. Knowledge is Power. They will mislead you to make a sale- but won't make any patently false statements. My
purchase of a 3 1/2 Disk Drive was a great buy until discovering from the Panasonic Technical Department that it won't
run in Motherboards made after 1985! But the Dealer mailed me a refund. Do be careful and do plan to fight someone
who doesn't want to give you a refund.
No doubt, you are taking a calculated risk. I am on my fourth bad Motherboard from one guy, but generally get very good
parts at these shows. They are, for the most part, name brand parts new in the bag.
Catalogs
As stated before, the main drawback is the wait; and don't forget that you have to add shipping and handling costs to the
price. Invest the dollar to call the Advertiser's Technical Line and ask questions: is this Hard Disk Controller MFM or
IDE? Is it 8 or 16 bit? (don't get thrown by this jargon- you will learn it quickly. It's analogous to asking Is it Front or
Rear Wheel Drive? 4 or 8 Cylinders? Someone who never drove a car would be just as thrown by those questions.)
I have had a real nightmare dealing with a Mail Order house in Texas. We were up to 4 bad shipments before we called
Computer Shopper, who laid down the law to the turkeys. An exasperated president called the day after we called
Computer Shopper and said "What do you want?" We told him, and we got it. Air Freight. Free. Most houses in Computer
Shopper are very reputable. Just be careful, and call the tech line and ask lots of questions. If they have no time for you,
you have no money for them. Do remember, though, that the parts are cheap because they are operating at a small margin.
Don't expect them to spend the day teaching you how to build a computer.
Discount Store
Some Discount Computer houses need careful watching, too. We have a local dealer whose prices can't be beat, but the
product he sells to schmos like you and me are usually the parts that didn't work when he put them into a system. He sells
them over the counter because it's more time effective than troubleshooting the part. He knows that 75% will come back,
giving him an easy RMA and the buyer will figure out what is wrong (wrong jumper, bad partitioning) with the other
25%. So he gets free troubleshooting.
When buying a piece that may take two or three times to install right- such as a Disk Drive- the extra money to buy from a
local store may be worth it. Questions like which pin is this jumper set on to make this Drive B and High Density? is
tough to answer AND make a profit if you are a Catalog Dealer. Make your decision based on how comfortable you are
installing the part. The best source of all is the sales and repair place you now use for work. Making friends with your
Service Rep gets you into the back room- where all the Used but working Parts are kept (and can be bought!!) Where do
you think all the parts went when you upgraded your AT to a 486 at work?
Computer City, a division of Tandy (yeah, Radio Shack) does a decent job at generally decent prices. But it's not the place
to buy parts. If you decide to give up and buy a system, this place is not the worst. But buyer beware! Make sure you have
read this article thoroughly and know what to look for. A better choice might be a medium sized chain like PC
Warehouse, who has yet to give me a bum steer. I had two Acer Monitors in a row go bad in 90 days - he replaced both
and switched to Panasonic.
Computer Store
BIG Companies get BIG prices having slick salesmen who frown knowingly at your questions. They don't want you to
buy a part-they want you to buy a System. Most of the big guys are out of the retail business, because business people in
this country live by a dual standard. They will buy from the big guys at work and pay triple price, but get a discount for
themselves. Once the ComputerLands of the business world figured this out, they went corporate.
Your first buy:
The Case
The XT
An XT style Case Allows for an 8088 based Motherboard or a Baby AT- most motherboards will fit in here. Most will
take ISA components. If you want to make this a long term learning experience, this case can't be beat for being easy to
get "under the hood". The ultimate is a "flip top" XT style case.
The AT Case
The "true" AT Case has become a dinosaur. It's a BIG case designed for an AT size Motherboard. Every motherboard I
have seen in years fits into a Baby AT configuration, and the new AT size cases have provisions for fitting a Baby AT
board. You would want to pick this case if you have saved money by purchasing a full size hard drive that will not fit with
two drives in a smaller case.
The Baby AT(Aw...isn't it cute??)
Uses a Motherboard sized to fit in an XT size case. My original choice. Most AT parts (except a full size Motherboard,
full size Power Supply (XT size) and some old 16 bit cards fit in here.
Absolutely DO NOT BUY "ultra slim line" and such cases. If a standard peripheral won't fit, you are headed in a woefully
wrong direction. I have recently seen some jet black systems. They are now available to be bought case only. Why are
computers white?. Why not paint the case mauve? What do you care? S'matter of fact, I recently did that. Painted my case
my fav'rit flava, cherry red. Looks cool. You still don't care.
The Tower
Sleek, elegant, and powerful looking. Used a lot for Servers, as it has extra bays for multiple hard drives and CD ROM's.
It stands vertical instead of horizontal. The Power Supply is usually bundled with the case.
The Baby Tower
This article just keeps getting longer. This item is practical and pretty reasonable priced. I picked mine up with power
supply for $129. They now go for about $35-60.
Expect to pay $25-80 for the case, up to $125 for a tower case with Power Supply. Buy with confidence from a computer
show or catalog. Hard to mess this one up. Look for reset button, turbo button, turbo led light, hard drive light. The
"digital display" on some cases is incredibly hard to configure for the novice. Save this feat till later if it looks
intimidating. Brush up on yer binary math.
Tower cases are different in one way - the power supply switch is usually wired to the front of the case rather than being
on the power supply. I mention this because it is the one circumstance where you will find 120 Volts inside of the case,
and on some poorly designed models, the connectors are bare. So if you see a switch on the front of the case, be careful
inside UNLESS THE POWER CORD HAS BEEN COMPLETELY DISCONNECTED!
In any event, the case must be large enough to handle standard add in cards. If it won't, you got problems.
Installation
Install the small speaker and LED's (light emitting diodes) and lock, if any, on the case. The speaker may get annoying.
It is loud. Radio Shack can help you install a little switch to turn it off and a headphone jack for private listening of the
annoying beeps. You need to mount these so that the wires don't pull out when you remove the case!
What are all those damn wires in the case??????
Don't Panic. Here's an overview of the most common.
Speaker:
Two wires coming from the speaker. Terminates in a 4 hole socket. The two wires will hook up to the "speaker" pins on
the Motherboard. Plug this in even if you have a sound board to be added at the end of building. Reverse the wires if you
don't get a beep when you turn on the machine. You may have to modify the four hole socket or move a wire to make the
speaker work. This can be frustrating. Two little tiny alligator clips hooked up to the speaker wires and run directly to the
pins on the Motherboard may be the easiest way to debug this. It is important to hook this up early in the process to hear
error beeps in the debug process. The operative pins are One and Four. The speaker jumper goes one of two ways - don't
try connecting to pins two and three or something... for some dumb reason, one of the unused inside pins is +5 volts, and
will fry the speaker.
Reset:
Two wires that plug into a set of pins by the same name on the Motherboard. The pins may be located back by the
keyboard connector. Why? I don't know. Ask somebody else. This is what will cold reboot your machine when you push
the RESET button on the case. Hook it up early. If you are working with a used power supply, remember that the PS is the
weak link in the system, and for a good reason - you want the $30 power supply to fry before the $500 Motherboard.
Banging the power switch on and off 40 times while you are building is not good - think of the switch as having x number
of uses before it fails. Hook up the reset switch and cold boot with it rather than the power switch. I remember one time
when I was working on a customer-friends computer to make $15 adding a 3 1/2. About the fifteenth time I threw the
switch (we had cable problems) the power supply died. Even though I ran to my supplier and replaced the power supply at
cost, he and his two other friends never called me again, and to this day their lips curl when they talk about me. Use the
reset switch.
Turbo:
When you push the turbo button on the case, your machine will toggle between high gear (say 66Mhz) and low (say
33Mhz). Plugs into a set of pins by the same name on the Motherboard. You will want to be able to slow the machine
down when you are trying to trap an error.
Turbo LED:
Two more wires. This will, when wired properly, light up the Turbo light on the case when the machine is in high gear.
KeyLock:
This may be in combination with the Turbo button above. Allows you to lock out the machine with a key. Also plugs into
the Motherboard.
Hard Drive LED
This is usually plugged into your hard disk controller to blink whenever there is hard drive activity. You will eventually
depend on this light to tell you when long operations are actually proceeding when you suspect the machine has frozen.
Also lets you watch for "thrashing". If the hard drive light is constantly or near constantly flashing when you are at work
on the machine, the machine may be desperately trying to keep up with the workload when memory is low by copying
unused in-memory stuff to the hard drive to make room in conventional memory. It means either
You need to install more memory
or
Your machine is not configured well. Becoming a smart user is learning how to tweak your machine to make it run
smooth. Just remember: if your hard drive is thrashing, a power outage could be a disaster.
Power Supply:
Two large white plugs and five or more medium size white plugs. These are the leads from your power supply. (The black
wires go together!) The two large ones hook onto the Motherboard, sending main power to the system. The five or more
smaller ones are the power for internal devices such as disk drives, hard drive(s), CD ROM, etc. One or two very small
leads off of the larger ones are power connectors for 3 1/2 inch drives.
CPU FAN
Two wires leading from a miniature fan sitting on a big chip. This is your CPU fan - 486DX2-4 and Pentium Chips have
heat problems. This fan is necessary - if it gets blocked or unplugged, the CPU will crash after it heats up.
Watch where your wires end up... recently I opened a machine that was having overheating problems. It turned out that
the bundle of above described wires (speaker, etc.) had "landed" on the CPU cooling fan, and was holding it still. You
may want to take some baggie ties and hook the wire bundle out of the way. Ask my brother.
Label these wires before you dis-assemble the unit.
The Motherboard
Now you have a real decision to make- once you make it, you have decided on the basic Architecture of the Machine and
there is no turning back. You now need to decide whether to buy a 8088, 80286, 80386DX, 80386SX, i486DX, i486SX
i486DX2, i486DX4 Pentium (80586)75, 100 or 133Mhz, one of the new clone CPUs or the Pentium Pro (P6). Buy with or
without Local Bus or PCI. Buy with or without Cache. Don't worry about the Motherboard being "Pentium Ready" or such
nonsense. When you are ready for a new CPU, you will be ready for a new Motherboard. Trust me. Many Manufacturers
of Motherboards. Buy whichever one you choose with the highest MHz rating you can afford.
Mini Glossary # 1 CPUs
8080 -
1979 - .33 MIPS (Millions of instructions per second) The original Intel CPU. Pre IBM. 8 Bit. CP/M operating System
8086 - 8088 -
The original PC and XT. About 4.77 MHz. Turbo at 8 MHz. 8 bit. (8087 Math Co-processor) The technology is now as
