PC Build Part 2: Prepare

Annie Eby
6 min readJan 12, 2019

Familiarize with the motherboard.

You’re going to be spending a lot of time with the motherboard so it’s worth getting to know. If you’re not going to read the whole motherboard manual in advance (actually I didn’t, though I practically had by the end of the build), at minimum read one page: Locate the page diagramming the motherboard. With the motherboard in front of you and google at your side, identify each element on your board. You don’t have to know what everything means. Just generally knowing where things are (especially the small front panel connectors) will speed the whole operation. “The point of reading a manual: it is not to remember everything that is in it for later but to later remember 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 something is in it.”

If you’re only going to read a few things in addition to the motherboard manual, read the case manual and the heat sink instructions. (The heat sink is one of the first components to be installed and probably the most complicated.)

Know the BIOS.

All motherboards will have some kind of BIOS (Basic Input Output Service, aka firmware, system BIOS, ROM BIOS, ROM, flash memory). The BIOS is a program embedded in the motherboard that instructs the CPU how to talk to its specific hardware devices. Metal doesn’t talk. The operating system can speak computer, but it needs to know the territory. So the BIOS identifies all the hardware and the basic configurations and tells the operating system what it is talking to. Then the drivers you install for each component tell the operating system how to operate all those pieces. But the BIOS is the the very first interface between the hardware and you (with operating system above it, programs on top of that, and graphics on top of programs).

Every time you power your PC on, the BIOS performs a Power-On Self Test (POST). It checks to make sure all the hardware is functional and communicates that to the OS, initializing the system.

The BIOS can be updated and those updates are saved on the CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor). The CMOS is the small amount of memory on a computer motherboard that stores the BIOS settings; think of it as something like the hard drive for the BIOS.

Every time you power on a PC, there’s a screen that tells you how to access the BIOS. Test it out on your current computer. (The only way to get into the BIOS is before the operating system boots, so if you’re slow to respond to the BIOS prompt, you’ll have to restart the system.)

BIOS Components, Configuration, and Settings

Follow-up

These are some random questions we asked about the motherboard during our build, which I’m taking this space to answer.

  1. What is the lithium battery for? It’s called a CMOS battery; it’s like a watch battery and will typically outlast other parts, so it rarely has to be replaced. “The motherboard’s battery is used for low-level system functions like powering the real-time clock and storing a computer’s BIOS settings. On newer computers, the battery may only be used for the clock.”
  2. What is the square labeled Intel Z370 in the manual? I believe it might be the BIOS. You can tweak the BIOS if you’re planning on overclocking. Otherwise, don’t touch it. That’s probably why it’s under the casing (if it is, indeed, under the casing, which I’m still not 100% sure about). BIOS and UEFI — CompTIA A+ 220–901–1.1
  3. Where is the memory controller chip on the motherboard? The memory controller chip (MCC) allows the CPU and RAM to communicate. This circuit can be located in one of two ways, either inside the motherboard chipset, which is also known as MCH or Memory Controller Hub (located in the northbridge chip), or inside the CPU. The one used will depend on the generation of the processor you have. It seems that the MCC may be integrated into the i7 8700K and therefore not visible. What is a Motherboard Memory Controller?
  4. Where are the northbridge and southbridge located on the motherboard? I’m still not sure where these are. Here’s what they are: The Northbridge is the chip whose main role is to connect (provide a bridge between) the CPU and the RAM memory. It also connects the CPU to the AGP and PCI Express slots. The northbridge is connected directly to the CPU via the front-side bus (FSB) and is thus responsible for tasks that require the highest performance. The Southbridge is further from the CPU; it connects the CPU via the Northbridge to the I/O devices. I’m not even sure if these are ever visible. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Northbridge-and-Southbridge-in-computer-hardware

Prepare the workspace.

You need a sturdy table with excellent lighting. (You might still want a flashlight on hand. The motherboard’s text is tiny and the pins are tinier.) If you plan to work over the course of a few days, choose somewhere out of the way where nothing will be disturbed.

A note on time: For an experienced builder, it might take only a couple hours to build a PC. We did it a few hours a day over the course of a few days, which was a comfortable speed.

Organization

Nuts and bolts rolling around on the table, empty packaging strewn about your feet, unlabeled mystery parts separated from their boxes… such disorder adds unnecessary stress in a build, and could also cause serious errors. About halfway into my build (in the midst of aforementioned disarray) I wised up and gave every part its own shelf in the workroom. I recommend putting each individual component’s box and everything that came in it — including manuals, packaging, and parts — in its own separate area, like a shelf or box. If something isn’t being actively installed, it should stay in its labeled, designated area. Make a space just for tools too.

Grounding

Silicon is very sensitive to voltage. We feel static discharge at about ~3,500 volts, but it only takes 100 volts or less to damage an electronic component. The internet has its disagreements about the risk of electrostatic damage. I did not have an antistatic wrist strap, nor confidence about what constituted proper grounding, so I made everyone who entered the (carpet-free) room follow a somewhat superstitious protocol of wearing non-static materials (no wool), removing socks and shoes (rubber-soled is supposed to be okay), touching metal, and touching the chassis and the motherboard’s antistatic sleeve before touching anything connected to the motherboard. If you have a grounded metal pipe nearby, that’s ideal (we didn’t). In retrospect I should have just plugged an appliance (like a mixer or hair dryer or literally anything) into a socket (powered off) and touched that. Basically you just want something that goes into the ground. If you’re working on a humid day (above 60%), that also helps control ESD (electrostatic discharge). I’d also use a wrist strap if I were doing this again.You can read about ESD and come up with your own voodoo-protocol.

Guarding Against Electrostatic Damage

Read/watch.

I basically only prepared with a couple of resources:

How to build a PC step-by-step

31 Common PC Building Mistakes to Avoid

But throughout the build-week (when things got real), I got more serious about learning. While knowing more might have saved me some mid-build wtf-moments, I actually think this wasn’t a bad method. I probably wouldn’t have gotten much out of the CompTIA courses if I had done them prior to trying to actually put the PC together. Wtf-moments alter the brain to make incoming information supervaluable, so I think the information stuck a bit better by learning alongside the build.

CompTIA Fundamentals

CompTIA A+

I’ve linked other good resources throughout these posts.

Continue to PC Build Part 3: Build

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