This weeks lab was all about putting in a DVD player. The DVD I got was PATA and I set it as the master so my 2nd hard drive would be the slave. You need to make sure you have on your ESD bracelet. To install a DVD you need to take both sides of the PC case off. Then you slip the DvD drive into the bay, line up the4 screw holes and screw it in place. Next you hook up the data cable; in my case I used a 80 wire 40 pin stream line ribbon cable. Once this is done you plug in the power connector and bam your done with this Super hard task..lol! Now put the sides back on and your done. The empty bay. The cables all hooked up
This week’s lab I installed an ATX 500w power supply & two hard drives, one SATA (Serial), one PATA (Parallel), into our class room PC builds. The power supply goes to the back of the PC tower and is held in place by 4 screws. The hard drives are installed towards the front of the PC tower and are also held in place with 4 screws. The SATA & PATA both require different power hook ups and data hook ups. Even though there are adapters to hook up PATA to SATA connections and vice versa it is best to get a motherboard & power supply that supports the drive(s) you would like to have. My motherboard & power supply supports both. After the Hard drives and power supply were installed into the tower all I had to do is hook up the proper data cables between the hard drives and the motherboard, plug in the power supplies to the motherboard and hard drives & case fans. *Note I had to install the 2nd hard drive as a slave (since the DVD will be the master) to do this all I had to do is remove to jumper on the back of the drive. The SATA only has one drive per cable so setting jumps is not need for this type of drive.
1.What is the maximum amount of memory the banks on your motherboard can accommodate? Each slot can support a maximum of 1GB the motherboard has two slots so the maximum the board supports is 2GB.
2.What type of memory does the board support? This mother board supports single channel DDR2 533/667.
3.How many modules are install, and how much memory does each hold?
Only one 1GB module is installed. (type Wintec DDR2 5300)
4.Look at a retail site to determine how much it will cost to fill the banks to full capacity. Don’t forget to match the speed of the modules already installed, and plan to use only the size modules your computer can accommodate. How much will the upgrade cost? It will cost $17.99 for an exact match for the 2nd slot.
Hands on Lab
Today’s hand on lab was to install a stick of DDR2 5300 1GB memory in to my Biostar Viotech 3100+ motherboard. This is a simple task.
You need to make sure you have on your ESD bracelet.
On each side on the slot for the memory stick there is locking clip, push these into the down position. Now take you memory out of its’ shipping case and make sure that the notch on the bottom of the stick lines up the notch on the motherboard slot. If it doesn’t line up rotate it 180*. If this doesn’t line it up you might have the wrong memory.
Now that you got everything lined up push the memory stick into place until you here the clips snap into place. This will take a small amount of force to push in the stick, and it is best to have the case on its back to counter act this force. Sometimes the clips at the ends of the slot don’t latch in place; if not do this by hand to prevent chip creep. Below are a few photos from today’s lab.
Using your home or lab computer, open thecomputer case and examine the processor and cooler assembly. Answer these question:
1.What motherboard is installed?
Biostar Viotech 3100+ is the motherboard
2.What processor is installed?
A Via C7-D 1.8 GHz embedded CPU is installed on this motherboard.
3.What socket is the processor using?
The processor is not socketed, but it is based on the low profile NanoBGA2 package that measures just 21mm x 21mm.
4.Describe the cooler assembly. Does it contain a heat sink and fan?
The cooler assembly is embedded as well. It only has a hest sink. No fan. However they motherboard does have a CPU fan header. (I found this odd because the motherboard doesn’t have a mount built in the heat sink for a fan.)
Project 6-2
Assume the processor in project 6-1 has gone bad. Do the following to find the best replacement for this processor:
*Note: Due to this system having a embedded CPU I picked my home system to answer the questions below.
The motherboard on my home system is a Gigabyte MA74GM-S2 w/h a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+2.30 GHz CPU
1.Using the documentation for the motherboard, list the processors the board supports.
AM2+/AM2 is built for Phenom, Athlon X2, Athlon 64, and Semprons processors.
2.Find and print three web pages showing the details and prices of the highest-performing, moderately performing, and lowest-performing processors the board supports.
*Moderately-performing: The one I found for this was a AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition Dual Core Processor - 2.80GHz, Socket AM2+, 2MB Cache, 2000MHz (4000 MT/s), OEM for $49.99
3.Which processor would you recommend for this system? Explain your recommendation.
I would suggest the moderately-performing AMD Athlon X2 7850 Dual Core Processor - 2.80GHz. I suggested this one because the low end one is below the current level CPU, and I don’t think you should ever down grade a system. The high end one cost too much, a comparable CPU motherboard combo with similar performance to the current system is only $79.99. To be honest I would not bother replacing the CPU I would get the combo.
Now assume the core i7 920 processor that you saw installed in the chapter has gone bad. The motherboard in which it is installed is the Intel DX58SO desktop board. The owner of the motherboard has requested that you keep the replacement cost as low as possible. What processor would you recommend for the replacement? Print a Webpage showing the processor & its cost.
There wasn’t much to chose from the cheapest was a Intel BX80601930 Core i7 930 Processor - 2.80GHz, 8MB L3 Cache, 4.8GT/s QPI, Hyper Threading for $289.99. But before I would suggest this CPU I would do a usage interview to see if they really need this high-end of a CPU. If they do nothing but go to Facebook or some word docs, they could go ahead and replace with a MB & CPU bundle for much less then the CPU alone. Odds have it if the CPU went it because of something wrong with the motherboard, unless they were over clocking and in this case I’ll suggest they go water cooled.
