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System Building
This article will focus on how to build up, overclock and optimise a system built around an Abit KT7-RAID motherboard and AMD Duron CPU. Although I focus on this combination of parts, the basic theory is the same even if you are building up an Intel based system. The main thing to remember when building your own machine is not to panic when things go wrong (as they almost always seem to do!). Usually you will find that it is something silly like not seating your graphics card properly, putting your mouse in the keyboard connector, incorrectly fitting the IDE or Floppy cable etc. It is very rare that you will physically damage any of your components as long as you take reasonable static precautions and don't do anything completely stupid! If you get into trouble whilst building your machine, you may find my Hardware Tips page useful. Even if you don't get into trouble, a visit to the excellent KT7 FAQ site is recommended.
Before you start building you should take the time to download all the necessary drivers for your motherboard. Although you can use the ones supplied on the CD supplied with the motherboard, these tend to be out of date. If you are building up a KT7 or KT7-RAID based system, then you should download the latest 4-in-1 and USB drivers from VIA's website. It is also worthwhile visiting Abit's website and FTP site to get hold of the latest BIOS release and Highpoint drivers, not forgetting that the BIOS revision and Driver revision should match. If there are newer drivers available for your other peripherals, most notably your graphics card, then this may also be a good opportunity to download these.
You should also make sure that you have you operating system(s) CD handy as well as a bootdisk. I tend to use my own bootdisk, rather than the using the unnecessarily bloated one created by Windows 9x.
Make sure you have a small and a large Philips head (cross headed) screwdriver. This should be all you need in order to assemble your machine, although a short, wide, flat headed screwdriver for installing the Heatsink & Fan may prove to be useful. I also have a small 'screw gripper' which I use to place screws in position and retrieve them when I loose them in the case!
My extremely useful screw gripper
Choose an area with plenty of work space and access to an earthed appliance. It is important to prevent static buildup, as delicate items such as the CPU and memory can easily be destroyed by static. I tend to touch the unpainted surface of radiators fairly frequently whilst I am building up a system.
Building up the motherboard
It tends to be much easier to install the CPU and memory on your motherboard when it is outside the case. Installing these components when the motherboard is in the case will leave you with less space to move and the pressures needed to install them may bend and damage the motherboard.If you are planning to overclock your Duron or Athlon CPU then you will need to join the L1 'golden bridges', found on top of the CPU, together. See the Hardware Tips page for information on how to do this. It is a fairly straightforward exercise, requiring nothing more than a fine tipped pencil and good eyesight, and will allow you to increase your CPU speed from the BIOS of an Abit KT7 motherboard. The performance gains can be substantial - given a good heatsink and fan you should be able to get somewhere between 850Mhz and 1Ghz from a low end (e.g. 650Mhz) Duron.
Once you have unlocked your CPU's clock multiplier, place the CPU in the Socket of the motherboard. The CPU is 'keyed' so that it can only fit into the socket one way around - if you look at the underneath of the CPU you will find that two of the corners are missing a pin. Pull up the Socket lever, place the CPU into the socket and then push the lever back down again. If your motherboard has a thermistor underneath the Socket (to measure the CPU temperature) then you may find you have to bend this over slightly in order to install the CPU. Don't bend it over too much though - the thermistor should touch the underside of the CPU in order to accurately measure its temperature. When overclocking it is extremely important to keep an eye on your CPU temperature, so you need to make sure at this stage that the thermistor is going to give you good readings!
Unlocked Duron 650 installed in the Socket
Once the CPU is in place, the next thing to do is to install the Heatsink and Fan. It is important to have a high quality heatsink and fan when building Duron or Athlon systems, as these processors can run very hot. If you live in the UK, overclockers.co.uk is a good place to purchase a high quality, branded heatsink and fan. Something like a Chrome Orb, the brand new Thermaltake Super Orb or the Globalwin FOP32-1 should be acceptable. It is worth noting that the Chrome and Super Orb's are slightly too big for the KT7. You will need to bend capacitors out of the way or cut away part of the cooler to get them to work. Mind you, as they currently offer the best price/performance on the market and are reasonably quiet they are still a good bet providing you are willing to do some modification. If you are feeling a little flush, you could always go for an Alpha or a Copper Hedgehog!
Ready to install the Globalwin FOP32-1
The first thing to do it to remove any protective strips from the base of the Heatsink. Underneath the strip there should be either some thermal paste or a thermal gel. Note that some heatsinks (e.g. the Chrome Orb) have two layers of protection - it is vital to expose the thermal compound before installing the heatsink. Other heatsinks may have four 'feet' under the heatsink which must be removed in order to make contact between the CPU core and the heatsink. For the very best results you may wish to remove the supplied thermal compound and replace it with a very thin layer of your own thermal paste.
Look at the location of the thermal compound to discover which way around your heatsink needs to be attached - the compound needs to cover the raised CPU core. Once you have oriented the heatsink correctly, attach the bracket of the heatsink to the hooks on the side of the socket nearest the capacitors (the right hand side on the above picture).
The difficult part - installing the Heatsink
Once the heatsink has been attached at one side, we need to force the clip over the hook on the other side of the socket. I tend to use a flat headed screwdriver like the one pictured above to perform this operation as it is likely to be very stiff. Modern processors run very hot and require a great deal of cooling. In order to maximise cooling, the heatsink must be attached to the CPU die as firmly as possible. Once the heatsink is in place, attach the fan's power cable to a fan header on the motherboard.When you have installed the processor, insert the memory module(s) into the DIMM socket(s). Your motherboard will now be ready to install into the case.
Building up the system
If necessary, install any supplied ATX back plate into the case. If its already compatible with your port layout, then there is no need to bother.
If you are building up a system from scratch, then install the floppy drive, hard drive and CDROM/DVD. If the 3.5" drive bay can be taken out for this job, then it is a lot easier to mount your components outside of the confines of the case.
If the case has a removable mounting panel, remove it & install the motherboard onto this externally to the main case. It is very important to ensure that there are no mounting screws that are not positioned under a motherboard hole. If there are, remove them, and if they are riveted in, cut them off with a hacksaw. If you don't your motherboard may well be seriously damaged (not that I have ever done this myself, of course!).
Slot in the motherboard and connect up the ATX power lead from the case PSU to the motherboard. Ensure that the case PSU is not plugged in when you perform this operation as the motherboard always receives power in an ATX system. You should not install any internal peripheral (AGP, ISA, PCI, memory etc) when the power to the PSU is switched on, as this can damage your components.
Insert a Graphics card.
Connect the 'power on' line from the case's power on switch to the motherboard header (see your motherboard manual to determine the position of this header. They are almost always at the bottom right corner of the motherboard if you are looking from the black ISA slots up towards the processor.)
Hook up the machine to a monitor & switch on the power. You should get a BIOS screen. If not, check the insertion of the AGP card - due to its dual layer of pins it can be a fiddle to seat. If this doesn't work, take a look at the "How do I track down fatal power on errors" tip in the Hardware Tips section. If you get to the BIOS screen make sure the BIOS has detected the correct CPU. If it has not then press 'Del' to go into the BIOS, Select 'CPU Softmenu III' and set it up correctly (e.g. to 650Mhz if you have purchased a 650Mhz Duron machine).
Once you have determined that the machine is operational, turn off the power and unplug the PSU power lead. Connect up your Floppy drive and IDE devices and install your PCI and (if necessary) ISA cards. At this point you may also like to connect the USB backplate to the motherboard. It should be noted that I experienced a number of problems when connecting non-hard drive IDE devices to the Highpoint controller (IDE3 and IDE4), even after installing the relevant drivers, on my KT7-RAID. At this point avoid connecting anything to the IDE3 or IDE4 channels if you have a KT7-RAID.
We are now ready to start installing software.
