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Some people are daunted by the fact that they need to replace their RAM or their MOBO is broken but its not all that bad

first of all ALWAYS read the instructions before this guide. Some items are very specific when it comes to installing hardware and many need you to install device drivers first. This will come on a CD and will need to be there before the hardware is installed

Secondly i would always have compressed air on hand to clean out the hardware slots before installing hardware.

Caution! Caution! Caution! Caution! Caution! Caution! 
You are about to be working on the inside of your computer. Make sure that you have carried out the following before proceeding :-

• Shut Down and switch off you computer.
• Unplug the power cord from the wall socket or rear of the computer.
• Give yourself room to move around, remove the PC case from the floor and put it on a table, or at least pull it out where you can easily work on it - Do not be tempted to crawl under your desk, inside your cupboard or squeeze into any other small area that your computer case lives in - You will simply make it more difficult and frustrating for yourself. Believe me I have tried it and it doesn't save you time at all, not to mention the effect it can have on your health.

Opening the case.

This is relativley simple. Cases have sides to them. These simply need to be unscrewed. Look at the back of the Pc. At the edges of the case along the sides there will probably be 2 screws that attach the side. Unscrew them and pull the metal side of the case towards you. This will give you access to the PC. Make sure you take the right side off as otherwise ou will not have enough access.

 This is what the inside of most cases will look like. The mess of wires is from the power supply. It is the source of all of yor computers power. 

 Were is says Expansion slots is were out PCI card will go. This is for expansion cards like USB card and wireless network recivers.

 The drive bays at the top right is were the hard drive and CD drive goes

The drive bays at the bottom right are were the pcs hard drives are installed 

 Adding PCI cards

 This is what is mean by a PCI card. As you can see along the bottom right is a row of what look like gold pins. This is what will fit into the PCI slot.

These are PCI slots. This is were the gold pins of the PCI card will fit. As you can see there is a brown slot at the top .This is an old style slot for Graphics cards. This is now being replaced by PCI-E slots. There is more info on this on the picture below.

You may need to remove the PCI slot cover on the case. It will probably be a long slilver piece of metal which will either unscrew or it may just unclip it

Then just plugg it in

Installing a hard drive 

This is also a pretty easy thing to do and basically just requires you to plugg in 2 wires.  There are two types of Hard drive SATA and IDE. 

SATA is the new type of hard drive that is replacing the IDE type. SATA requires these attachments on your motherboard (see picture below)

However IDE requires on of these attachments on your motherboard

 You can see the ribbon cable near the top of the plug. This is attached into the slot as show on the left

 The image on the left shows how you plug in a SATA attachment. 

Now you have attached the cable to those slots then its time to plug them into the hard drive.

The ribbon cable used with the IDE drive is on the left

 The ribbon cable pluggs into the drive as shown above. Also the cable on the right is from the power supply. This is plugged into the 4 pins of the hard drive

However SATA drives are different

 As you can see the wire above on the left is from the cable we have allready plugged into the motherboard. The cable on the right is from the power supply. You will need to use a converter like this is you power supply does not have aSATA connector

 The advantages of SATA hard drives is they allow quicker information flow and also the cables are tidier and allow better air flow

Now thats installed your ready to go

Installing RAM

RAM is about the easiest form of hardware to install. All it requires is you to plugg in the RAM. However once its broken you know its broken as you will be cursed with the blue screen of death. See my other pages

Again unplugg the Pc and open the case. Then you need to find were the RAM goes on the motherboard

As you can see in the image above the RAM slot clips have been opened. Just pull the white clips to the side to unlock the slot. Then unpack your RAM stick and plugg it in. When plugging in insert it directly in the slot and never force it in. You will need to line up the solid line of the RAM slot (seen in the picture below)

Now push the stick in untill the white clips close on the RAM stick. If they dont close and click when you plugg it in it isnt going to fit and you will need a different size of RAM.