First Boot and BIOS Setup

Now it the part we’ve all been waiting for.  The first time we press the power button on our new system.  Will it work?  If it doesn’t, where do we start troubleshooting?

We need to round up a few things before we can test it out: a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse.  Eventually we’ll need an Internet connection (preferably broadband for the downloading) to update the drivers for our components and some speakers to test out the audio. 

Let’s leave the case side panel off for now in case there are any problems, and hook up our monitor, keyboard, and mouse.  I’m borrowing the setup from my main computer, saving the cost of purchasing new components for this tutorial system.  If you’re not planning on using this computer as an additional workstation, I recommend borrowing the peripherals from another system like I did.

The ports are color-coded on the back panel of the motherboard.  Purple for the keyboard, green for the mouse, and blue for the monitor.  The connectors are keyed to only fit one direction, and the arrow or label on the connector faces the right-hand side of the case (if you’re facing the back of the case).  Also, make sure the power cord to your monitor is plugged in, and the amber or flashing green light is indicating that it is on.

While we’re back there, make sure the power cord to the power supply is plugged in, and the red voltage selector is set correctly for your country.  If you live in the United States, the selector should read 115V as opposed to 230V, which is used in most other countries.  Go ahead and flip the power supply power switch on by pushing down on the side of the switch labeled “1.”

Now that we’ve got the vital peripherals plugged in, lets get ready to turn it on.  The main things to observe are:

• The CPU heatsink fan should be spinning.  If it is not, turn the computer off immediately by flipping the black switch on the back of the power supply to the “0” position.  The CPU heats up very quickly, and without proper cooling, it could overheat within seconds.  The most likely cause of this is that the fan was not plugged in to the power connection on the motherboard.  This is located off the top, left corner of the heatsink.
• If this fan is working check the case fan and the power supply fan – they should both be pushing air.  If the case fan is not moving, the chances are that it’s not plugged in to the power supply.

Now is the moment of truth!  Press the power button!  Run your fan observations and correct any errors.  If all three fans are working and you heard a short system beep, great!  If not, refer to the common initial boot problems appendix

Let’s take a look at what the screen is displaying.  At the top, the information about the BIOS version is displayed.
The main processor, memory testing, and CPU brand name columns give you some information about what type of system this is.  If the name or speed doesn’t match the actual CPU that you put in, this is okay for now and we can fix it later in the BIOS.  This isn’t a very common problem for the type of processor we’re using, and is a simple fix later.

Below that section, a list of IDE channel devices is displayed.  Connected to the first IDE channel (channel 0 in computer language) is our Western Digital Caviar (“WDC”) hard drive in the master spot, and the Lite-On DVD drive in the slave position.  Perfect!  It detected both of them.  The master and slave for channel 1 should be “None,” since we didn’t connect anything to them.

Immediately following that information, we see a message that the Floppy disk(s) fail (40).  The BIOS is set to look for the floppy drive first, and since we don’t have one, it’s confused and doesn’t know what to do.  This is no matter, we will just tell the computer to not look for the floppy drive next time.  To do this, we need to go into the BIOS or “enter SETUP.”  Let’s press the Delete key to enter the SETUP menu now.

Tip:  For most computers, the “Enter Setup” key is F1, F2, or Delete.

The BIOS setup screen appears, so let’s go through each menu and see what setting we need to change.

Press “Enter” to open the selected “Standard CMOS Features” menu.

The first section of this menu lets us set the system date and time.  Go ahead and set it using the +/- keys to change the value, and the arrow keys to navigate between fields.

The following table will explain all of the menu options and let you know what the setting for each parameter should be.  Remember to use the arrow keys to navigate through the menu, + and – to change the values in the fields, and ESC to return to the previous menu.

When you’re done touring the BIOS and setting parameters, you’re now ready to save these new settings to the CMOS (memory for the BIOS settings) and reboot the computer to load these new settings.  Select the “Save & Exit Setup” item (usually pressing F10 will do the same trick) and press the “Enter” key when prompted by the confirmation box.  The computer will now reboot itself automatically.  Let’s see what happens.

This time, we didn’t receive the floppy drive error and our system continued until it found it was missing something to boot from.  This makes sense because the hard drive is blank and there’s no disk in the optical drive.  It says to “Insert system disk and press enter.”  We’ll take it up on its offer, so it’s time to open up the Windows XP CD package.

Continue on to the Windows Installation >>

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