Health and Safety

Health and safety is paramount when installing and changing computer components.

the main danger is static electricty, there are a number of ways to protect yourself, one way is the

ANTI-STATIC MAT

This is a mat that has 4 metal point on it for attaching a;
A) Wristband that you put on
B) A crocodile clip that you attach to the computer case
C) A plug that connects to the mains

A ANTI-STATIC PLUG

This plug connects directly to the power supply of the computer, thus preventing static electricity

The final method SHOULD ONLY BE USED AS A LAST RESORT

Place your thumb on the power supply and on the computer case, this equalizes the charge between the power supply and the computer case

Input/Output Panel

The input/output panel is located on the back of the computer and connects to many different pheriphals. The Panel tends to contain a VGA port, 2-4 USB ports, Sound ports for audio in/out, parralel ports, an ethernet port and a mouse and keyboard PS2 port.

A VGA (Visual Graphics Adapter) port is where the monitor plugs into. It is a 14 pin port with 2 screw connectors to hold it in place. A Parallel port is used to attach a printer to a computer. It is connected via a 25 pin connector. The PS2 ports are for use by a wired keyboard and mouse, wireless versions use a USB port. The Ethernet port uses an RJ42 connector.

Storage Devices

Storage Media

Storage Media is a place to save data to. The storage media can be in a variety of objects, such as  Internal Hard Drives, External Hard Drives, USB pens, Portable Hard Drives and CD and DVD disks.

HARD DRIVES

Hard drives are drives that store data in a computer, unlike external and portable drives, Hard drives are located internally, i.e inside the computer. An Hard Drive can have different capacities, such as 250 or 500 GB (Giga-Byte), and can go up to 1.5 TB (Tera-Byte) in size. The are normally connected by a 4-pin connector to a ribbon (See Power supply for details). To Remove a Hard drive, first unscrew the connector screws on the side that hold the hard drive in place, then remove the 4-pin connectior gently, you should also remove the 20-pin power connector. Then gently pull the hard drive out of the computer casing. To reconnect the hard drive, carefully slide the hard drive into the computer casing, then re-attach the screws to make sure that it doesn't slide out. After this carefully re-attach by gently inserting the 20-pin power cable into the slot on the hard drive and the 4-pin cable into it's slot.

External hard Drives

External hard drives are just that, the same as an internal hard drive with the same capacity but are located outside. To attach an external hard drive connect the USB (Universal Serial Bus) 2.0 Plug into the external hard drives slot and connect the power cord to the external hard drive.

Portable Hard Drives
Portable hard drives are like external hard drives, but do not require a power supply, instead they run off the computers own power. All you need to use a portable hard drive is a USB2.0 cable, and attack it into a USB2.0 slot on the computer. They have a maximum size of 500GB, any higher and they would be a external hard drive.

USB Pens

USB Pens are a easy way to carry media. To use just insert the pen into the USB 2.0 Connector on the computer. USB pens vary in size, up to 32GB

CD/DVD Disks

CD (Compact Disks) are mainly a form of storage media for music file formats while DVD's (Digital Versitile Disks) can be used to store video, music or just plain data formats. These disks that can be written using a CD/DVD burning program and are affixed with RW at the end, for example CD/RW means that it is a Compact Disk and can be Written too, overwriting any other data on the disk.