Start by opening the metallic tray on the side of the case. The first real step is to mount your motherboard to the tray by matching the motherboard screw mounts with the holes in the tray. Next step is to install the system memory. I am assuming that you are using DIMM sockets on your motherboard like most modern PCs. Just push down the RAM sticks into the memory sockets on the motherboard and they should fit perfectly. (Donšt force them in though, you can be putting them in backwards...) Now, it's time to connect the IDE ribbon cables, floppy cable, and case wires. Always pay attention to which IDE is the primary channel and which is secondary. (Your hard drive is on the primary). Now plug in all the wires that connect to the power LED, hard drive LED, internal speaker, power switch, and reset switch. Finally, set your IDE Master/Slave jumpers on the back of your drives. The hard part is (believe it or not) over!
Slap the drives into your tower so that they match the front of the case (you may need to screw them into a metal gondola before, depending on your case). Now you can put the motherboard in the case finally. Connect the power in your 20-pin plug. It's hard to foul up here: there's only one place where this plug can fit. Now you can plug in the power and ribbon cables into the rears of the drives. This is pretty straightforward. Now, all you need to do before booting up is to install the video card. Just plunk it down into one of the white PCI slots on your motherboard and secure it with a single screw. Now it's time to boot! Turn the computer on to make sure that the computer reads the drives and the correct amount of memory. With this done, turn it off again. Now, put your sound card and modem into the other PCI slots on the motherboard as with the video card. (You might have to put the modem in an ISA slot though depending on how new it is).
Now, boot your PC up with everything in it! First, set your BIOS on the start screen and don't overclock your processor yet (Keep it at its standard clock by multiplier setting). With your BIOS set, you can now pop in your Windows 95/98 CD and go through the on-screen instructions! That's it! You've done it! For any troubleshooting or further details, e-mail me at jcoool@canada.com or visit one of the many webpages concerning this subject on the internet. With this in mind, always remember that salesman can tell you what you need and how much you should pay, but only you can build your own computer meeting all your exact needs. Happy computing!
