Remember the time when your father bought the first ever computer in the house? You used to observe him set up the whole system him and imagined yourself setting up the system in the same way. If you are a tech nerd you will surely relate to such situations. Unwrapping the new computer set, reading its user guides, spending hours setting up your systems is what all tech nerds love. Although it’s been never been easy. You can easily screw it up by messing up with your computer adapters, cables, and other components if you’re not careful. Here are five mistakes explained in detail that we all make and how to avoid them.
A Web of Power Cables
Your computer plugs do not support equal usage. For example, your computer’s internal power supply has two different kinds of 8-pin power cables. One for the graphics card and another one for the motherboard. But sometimes we make a mistake to forcefully plug the cables into the wrong pins even if the pins are of different shape.
Tip: Squeeze the little 6-pin and 2-pin together to create an 8-pin connector. In many GPU cards, they need more than 6-pin or 8-pin connector. And make sure to connect all the required pins.
Hanging Graphics Card
When we connect GPU with the case and plug into power, make sure not to leave it hanging there. You need to plug in your graphics card into a slot on the motherland. Remove the rubber shield from the GPU, so that you would find a slot to plug it into a marching PC-Express lane on the motherboard.
Tip: Don’t rely on the motherboard to carry all the weight. Push the graphics card into the slot and make sure to connect it with your card.
Plugging the Motherboard Cables Wrong Way
A motherboard is an important and sensitive component for the computer system. And if you are confused while plugging its cables, it might cause damage. The problem here is to see where to plug cables on the motherboard to make the system buttons work. Therefore, it is advisable to plug in the cables accordingly.
Tip: On the back of each tiny computer cable, there's a black arrow. Plug in the tiny motherboard cables in the slots before you insert other components.
Not Pressing Power Cables
There are several reasons for pressing power cables. Even if your motherboard or the graphics card powers up; and your system still remains off, you won’t be able to figure out what’s wrong there to make your computer work. But if you dig through the root cause, before calling the hardware expert or stressing out about it, give a tiny little push to your cables. In most cases, it works and starts your computer system.
Though these cables looked like perfectly plugged in, it is important to make sure by pushing them towards the connector. This might damage your computer system if not plugged in correctly.
Tip: Once you complete the setup of your system, make sure to check the computer cable connections properly before switching on the power button.
Squishing your Drive Cables
The hard drive cables sometimes don’t fit inside your case. And you continue squishing them inside enough to close the doors of the computer case together. But a mistaken step here is that you might have plugged them the wrong way!
Most large computer cases contain the hard drive ports facing away from the motherboard. And there’s a room beside the computer case for the hard drive cables. This way, you can close the computer case without stuffing them inside it.
Tip: Use right-angle drive cables. They come with your motherboard and doesn’t bend your cables. One end goes into your motherland and the right-angle connector into your drive.
Installing Ram, the Wrong Way
A modern RAM has a notch in it that makes it nearly impossible to install from backward. However, beginners try to insert their RAM into their motherboards from the backward side. So, whenever you install the RAM into your motherboard, it is important that you line up the notch in your RAM with the related ridge in DIMM slots. It takes some sort of pressure to get your RAM to click into place. It is important to not to take such efforts that looks like it might break your memory.
In most cases, it is easy to avoid but be aware of it so that you don’t accidentally force your RAM in a wrong direction.
Conclusion
Mistakes are common. And sometimes they happen regardless of our preparations and planning. The key point here is to be aware and not to repeat the mistakes you have been doing until today. Choosing the correct computer adapters, cables, installation guide will minimize the number of mistakes and your set up would not go wrong.