Building your own PC
Section 1: The mounting the CPU
First you will need a motherboard! The board pictured below is the Abit KT7A board for AMD Athlon and Duron. Of particular importance to the whole assembly procedure is protection from static electricity (SE). SE can cause failures in your system from instabilities to total failure and are not covered by any warranties. To ensure you protect your parts from SE make sure you always ground yourself before touching them, and try not to touch components (try to hold parts by the edges, just like holding photos). Also use an anti-static wrist strap, or at least ensure you grab hold of the system chassis (a metal part) anytime you move such as walking or standing up or sitting down on a chair.
The large beige square socket is where the CPU is placed. Most systems now use ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) sockets to hold the CPU. To the side of the socket is a lever, which is opened by applying a small horizontal force to the lever (see below) to get the lactch around the catch hook.
The lever is then lifted to the vertical. The socket is no in its open state ready for the CPU (see below).
The photo below shows the CPU upside down. You can see the pin arrangement on the underside of the CPU. As you can see, some (2) sides of the CPU are missing a pin from the very corner. You can also see that the same number of pins are missing from specific corners of the socket. When the CPU is turned over, these corners are orientated to allow the CPU to sit into the socket. This prevents the CPU from being inserted the wrong way. The CPU should never be forced into the socket. In fact, the CPU should basically fall into position, with only a very small pressure applied to ensure even seating of all corners.
Once the CPU is seated, the leaver is returned to the closed position. There will be a small pressure required, however the force is still small and any child with the co-ordination to push the lever will have the ability to close it. So if there is heavy resistance, don't force it closed and ensure the CPU is properly seated. Below you can see the CPU properly seated.
The next step is to mount the cooling fan. All Intel and AMD CPUs now need a cooling fan. Incorrect installation of a cooling solution (or lack of cooling solution) will destroy most AMD CPUs and cause Intel CPUs to shut down. You can see on the cooler below, the base of the cooler is not totally flat. The raised edge of the cooler is designed to sit over the raised edge of the socket itself.
In the photo above, you can see the base of the cooler. On the base is a protective piece of plasitc covering the thanal transfer pad. This MUST be removed prior to installation. Below you can see the orange thermal pad after the sheet has been peeled away.
Below you can see how the notched section of the base of the cooler sits over the raised section of the socket.
On most coolers, it is easiest to fit one edge of the cooler retention mechanism first. This will depend on your cooler. If you are having trouble attaching your cooler, try swapping the end you attach first (the first is always quite easy, the other site is always more difficult). Below you can see we have attached the inside edge of the cooler, the side without the pivot latch.
Attaching the second side of the mounting mechanism is always a dangerous process. Proceed at your own risk! If you slip you can easily damage your motherboard. I find a combination of two screwdrivers does the trick, but I always ensure I hold the screw drivers such that even if the screw driver slips of the bracket, it won't go flying off. Even and slow pressure is important, and be careful not to get caught pushing the metal into the plastic, it will need to be pulled outward to get around the notch.
Once the bracket is over the notch, push it down until it clips under the notch, as in the two photos below
pushing carefully......
Finally the bracket clips over the notch and the cooler is mounted
The last step is to connect the CPU fan to the motherboard using the 3-pin connector (as shown above). Some motherboards require this fan to be on a specific connector so read the manual carefully. Connecting it to the wrong connector (as in a proper fan connector but not the one required by the motherboard for the CPU) will not damage anything, but will cause your system to automatically shut down as the system will believe the CPU fan has failed.