At fifteen years old, my dad and I thought it was time to get a new computer. Computer books and I had become good friends for many hours a day the previous summer. Having that friendship, I told my dad I knew I could build a computer. We went to a store in Irving, which carries everything you need to build a computer. Inside we found an ATX case that holds all of the components, provides power, and keeps them from getting wet or damaged. The next thing we had to buy was the motherboard. That is one of the most important parts of the computer. That is what connects all of the components together to form a reliable system. Using electrical paths it provides a medium for carrying the signals or data to other parts of the computer so they can “talk” to each other. We talked it over and bought a PA-2013 motherboard made by FIC. It had one AGP for the video, one ISA, and five PCI slots for connecting components. It can hold up to 7

Building a computer is not just something you just decide to do one day. It does require hands on training and understanding of what each component does. If you are building a computer for the first time and something’s not working, you would have to have the experience to know what the problem is. Many people make that mistake every day. I hope you found this paper to very informative and helpful in the understanding of the pieces of plastic and metal that runs this world today.

68 megabytes of SDRAM, and has a processor speed up to 333 MHz. An AMD K6-III 333 processor was also added to our cart. That is the CPU (central processing unit), which does all of the calculations and is known as the brain of the computer. The CPU gets extremely hot and will literally melt unless you get a fan to cool it, so thinking wisely, we got one of those. If you want to be able to use your computer at all you have to buy RAM (random access memory). That speeds up your computer by taking programs and loading them into a super fast piece of silicon. Another item you have to buy is a video card, which obviously allows you to see graphics on the monitor. You want to make sure you buy a video card that fits the AGP slot since that what it is designed for. If you want sound you have to buy a sound card. A 16-bit sound card is usually sufficient. In this case you can buy an ISA or PCI interface sound card. If you want to get Internet access you have to buy a modem (modulator demodulator). A modem is what takes analog signals and converts them into digital signals for the computer to read. The standard today is a PCI 56 kilobit per second version 90 modem. Since we use the Internet a lot we bought one of those too. Another necessity is a CD ROM drive. Using a laser, the drive reads indentions in a coated piece of plastic to get information from it. A floppy drive is also needed to read information from disks. There is only one common type of floppy drive. That is usually a 1.44 megabyte 3.5 inch drive. One of the other pieces of hardware you need is a hard drive. That is where all of your information is stored so you can gain access to it at a

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