How to Setup up your Personal Computer

This is the first installment in our basic computer training online course. The article will deal about how to setup your personal computer after you take it out of the box.

Step one: completely unload the computer and lay all the parts out on the floor.

Step two: Take the largest part of the computer (the tower) or what some people refer to as “the hard drive” out and place it close to where you would like to set up computer. Here is a picture:

First we are going to plug in the keyboard and the mouse. Here is a close up shot of where we are going to plug this into the computer.

Next we are going to plug in the keyboard and the mouse to the connectors located on the back of the computer just like the picture above.

Step Three: Plug the mouse into the connector on the back of your computer, the connector for the mouse is almost always green. Here is the picture of the mouse connector and cable.

Step Four: Plug the keyboard into the back of the computer, the connector for the keyboard is almost always purple. Here is a picture of the keyboard connector and cable.

Next if you like you can plug in any usb connectors to the back of the computer. The usb connector is the long flat connector. There are usually places to connect usb devices in both the front and the back of most modern computers. There are a variety of devices that employ usb. Here is whatthe connector looks like.

Step Five: Plug in the monitor cable to the back of the computer. The monitor cable runs from the monitor to the back of the computer. Here is what the monitor cable looks like.

Notice there are 3 rows of connectors. Look for the female equivalent on the back of the computer. Here is a picture of the computer and again blown up so you can see what I am talking about. Also notice all the other connectors too.

Step Five: Now lets plug in your speakers and microphone into (if you have one) to the back of the computer. Notice the small round circles near the bottom. That is where you would want to plug the speaker and the microphone into. Usually there is some wording or pictures over it that explain which plug goes where. If you are really lucky your speaker and microphone cables will be color coded. Here is a close-up of where the speakerand microphone connect.

Step Six: Ok we are almost done. Now all you need to do is hook up the power to the computer tower and the monitor and then power them on. Remember to always use a surge protector to protect your computer and monitor. The power on buttons are on the front. There are a few tricks to this though as different computers have different ways of functioning.

Tip for computers: on some computer the power supply has a switch in the back. The switch must be in the on position.

Tip for monitors: some monitors have some odd setting in the front. Like 2 buttons or the like. There is really no way to predict what yours will have just follow the instructions that came with it.

Here is the back of the computer one final time. Notice at the bottom is the place where the power cable goes into.

Optional Step: If you connect to the internet you may need to connect your computer to the network. In order to do this run a LAN cable (also known as a straight through or Cat 5 cable) from your router to the back of the computer. A LAN cable looks like a really big telephone cable. Anyways here is what it should look like plugged in:

If you are confused about what a router or Cat 5 cable is please click on the link below to go to my article about how to troubleshoot your network connection.

From Personal Computer Setup to Network Troubleshooting

From Personal Computer Setup to Home Page