User:Az990tony/edublog-beta-hw

The following system was built from parts purchased at [SWS Electronics and Computers ] a local computer parts store in Tucson, Arizona (USA).

• V3-M2A690G barebones PC
  • tower case
  • power supply
    • includes one black SATA power connection cable
  • M2A-VM motherboard
    • SB600 RAID controller
    • ATI Radeon 1200 Graphics
    • 8 USB ports
    • Multi-card reader SD/MMC/MiniSD/Compact Flash
    • One built-in NIC (1GbE)
    • includes one 18-inch red SATA connection cable
• AMD Athlon64 X2 dual-core 2.3 Ghz processor with heatsink/fan
  • The AMD single-core Sempron might have also met the CPU requirement
• Two extra NIC cards (PCI)
• One DVD-RW drive, attached on primary IDE-Master
• Two SATA drives, 160GB each.
• One 2GB DIMM
• One extra power-plug cable (converts white EIDE to black SATA power connector)
• One extra 18-inch red SATA cable

Assembling the Parts Together

Here are the parts purchased.

I had purchased two extra red SATA cables, but then learned that one was already included with the Barebones PC. Also, had to go back to the store for an extra EIDE-to-SATA (white to black) power cable adapter. The screwdriver #2 (shown with red handle) is all that you need for tools.

Slide voltage to 115.

Remove side and front panels.

Install the CPU.

This was tricky, and I watched some YouTube videos to see how others had done this. Basically, you raise the shiny lever (shown in the up position above), align the corner with the triangle on the chip with the triangle on the motherboard (it is the corner nearest the fan in the picture above). Line up all the pins, and push down into place. If it didn't work, lift the CPU up, and try again. Once in place, move the shiny lever back down to snap everything in place. If you fail to do this step correctly, you might end up buying another CPU.