taking a computer to bits

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I recently inherited an really old computer from my brother and on Monday and dutyfuly ripped the bugger to pieces on my coffee table to see what the guts look like.

It was for an hour or so very interesting and I enjoyed it more that I thought i would, also there was no fear factor of braking the bloody thing as I have no intention of reassembling it.

I'm waiting for the same brother to give me a table he doesn't need any more so I can have a workbench in my spare/gym room and confine work to that area,

I now have a stripped computer on my coffee table and little idea what further use to put it to. I've been looking over diagrams in books and comparing it to the mother board to get a better feel, looking at the power cords and seeing if I can idenify the different bits... am I missing anything out

 

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what about putting it back together without any diagrams to see if you can, then make sure it works and if you have another PC why not network the two and see if you can copy data from one to the other.

 

I agree, ripping a jigsaw apart is easy, a 1year old could do it, but putting it back together? that's the real learning curve.

 

I scrounged an old p120 computer from work, rebuilt it and installed windows95 on it. I've convinced everyone else it's useful as I can practise working with dos commands on it. Really, It means that I can play some real old games when the fancy takes me

I agree with GBL - put it back together and resolve any issues you come across. Is a good learning experience

 

finding out the spec is your next mission...if you choose to except it



this message will now self distruct....

grim

 

Good stuff I'll get on that today

 

after you get it working, then wipe the hard drive obviousley after making backups then reinstall everything, doing things yourself is the best way to learn.

Yes you will make mistakes but you learn from them.

 

If all the components are scrap and you dont intend on using them again, i recommend opening up the hard drive and the cd drive, getting a look at how they actually function thus giving you an idea of what could go wrong in the future

don't open the power supply, it can be very dangerous, same with CRT monitors

 

I agree. Taking it apart is no trick. The trick is putting it back together correctly so it works again. I'm not proud. If I have to label pieces or draw a little diagram of what goes where and how, I'll do it. It's better to have some method of putting the thing back together correctly than to try to "wing it" only to realize you've forgotten where those "extra" bits go.

 

step one is to search for p0rn, step 2 is to back it up and then step 3 is reinstall covering your tracks

grim

 

It looks like I must re assemble it now out of pride. Unfortunatly I think I already Donald Ducked it cos I took the CMOS battery out just to have a little peak and never put it back in (I think I did it cos it was the little thing I knew what it was).

Old bugger would put it over 7 years old and basic. I'm looking up the specs now but even my untrained eye can pick out the lack of hardware in here.

This little beast seems to be without both a graphics card or a sound card, which confused the hell out of me for a bit there. Its very emmbarissing but I think I mistook the internal modem for the sound card... I managed to put myself right though

 

i have an old P3 933mhz as a keyring, although because i snapped off all the 370 pins it left it a bit sharp and it gouged a chunk out my N95

grim

 

if you've lost the battery just buy another one, you can pick them up from maplins for a few quid.

a 7 year old pc would be a late pentium 2 early pentium 3 or an AMD t-bird around 400-500mhz

grim

 

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=K7S41GX&s=


Located the mother board specs

 

Looking at the specs - I see that it has both graphics and sound on the motherboard....

Which is why you didn't see separate cards!

Harry.

 

Now that you've put it back together, and you've got the mobo specs...

...try to upgrade it to it's maximum specifications, cheaply. Or, at the very least, research where you would buy the components from, and how much it would cost, if you were to do so.

 

Just been on my first CompTIA course and the first 'Lab' ws to strip and rebuild a computer. Good stuff. Other activites included putting in an extra hard drive and something else. All good stuff

Feel a bit better tackling home projects now so :P to all you 'don't use the training providers' people

 

Well, bear in mind that a lot of people that feel IT is the career for them are natural "geeks", and have already got extensive experience taking computers apart and putting them back together again. They want to tackle the A+ as a foundation to their certification path.

I have been ripping the guts out of computers since i got my first PC, which was a 386SX with Windows 3.11 for workgroups on it. Since then, i have stripped and re-built more computers than i could possibly remember and I still havent studied the A+ nor do i intend to but if i did it would definetly be by self study. I see no benefit in paying somebody to read to me from a book Jakanory style.

So, it's horses for courses really.

 

You will find people on here saying you should self study and do not use training providers you will also find people on here who write books aimed at the self study market. See the connection Also some people see other people saying it and just joining in repeating what they say.