Assembling a Computer: Part 1

Hello All,

So this week I actually got my hands dirty and tried assembling a computer myself. Not the supercomputer, of course, only a desktop.

But the assembly of a desktop is very similar to the assembly of a supercomputer node, and it's very helpful to get hands on experience with all the parts.

I also got a much better idea for the cost of the whole thing. This computer costs around $630 dollars- with two terabytes of memory in the hard drive (that's a LOT), built in wireless in the motherboard, and an Intel i5 quadcore processor. Granted- this is better quality than a regular node would need to be, because this computer is going to be used for learning server programming, but still, this is a problem.

The processor is one of the costliest components- $200. So my goal of making 4 nodes in $1000 doesn't look all that feasible if I use only Intel processors, which are the best. AMD has good processors, but they use a lot more heat. In close quarters with four other nodes, that could be a problem. So that's a problem I'm going to have to solve in the next few weeks.

But anyways, I took many, many pictures while assembling:

Here are all the parts- assembling a computer is actually pretty simple! you have the case with all the wires, a hard drive, a processor (blue)...

And my favorite part:

The "Vengeance" memory pack (as you can see, computer science naming still goes along with the world domination theme.)

They look kind of like haircombs, and go into the motherboard as such.

 

I had to push surprisingly hard to get them in, while the motherboard was half in the air. When I asked why we didn't just keep the motherboard on the cardboard, I learned that pushing the motherboard into the cardboard with so much force would ruin the back of it.

This is the inner circuitry in the hard drive. You have to hold all the computer parts very very carefully, or you can ruin them. I learned to never touch any of the circuitry (anything on a green board). The hard drive goes into the bottom part of the computer with three screws. Less, and the hard drive starts to vibrate and eventually gets destroyed.

The most interesting part to me was putting the processor in. I'd read that processors have a zero insertion force, and had visions of some magical suction type process, where I would hold the processor over the slot and it would be sucked in to the correct position. Alas, this was not the case, but I'll show you how it does work.

The big black square in the middle is the spot for the processor- basically the "brain" of the computer.

You open a little latch on the side, and then you can see the tiny tiny gold plates.

Instead of suction, you have to match a small triangle on the processor with a small triangle on the CPU slot, and then just drop the processor on. If the triangle isn't there (like on ours), you can match by looking at the back.

You then close the latch, and the big black square just pops off. You then screw the motherboard in, and the heart of the computer is done. I didn't believe it when someone told me they could make this in 30 minutes, but it's actually not very complicated.

All that remain are pesky power wires and installing fans. That will be part 2 of this series, and I hope to bring it to you either tomorrow or the day after.

Best,
Anvita