Unit 7 P2 P2 explain potential risks to consider when installing hardware components M1 discuss precautions that can be taken to avoid problems

Potential risks when installing hardware: When installing hardware, a lot of cautions can be taken to protect the hardware or yourself. There are a lot of risks when installing hardware including; Electricity, damage of components, static energy. Precautions include using a anti static wrist band, anti static mats or grounding yourself, the easiest way is to use a wrist band that is certified to ground you to protect the hardware from being damaged. Anti-static wristbands can be bought online for around £7. If you do not have a wrist band you can touch your pc casing if it is metal to ground yourself. Make sure the PC is turned off completely and disconnected from any power source before you even open the case. Carefully disconnect the power supply from the motherboard to make sure there is no live cables or parts on the motherboard. Computers are very delicate and need to be handled with care to make sure you don’t break anything or hurt yourself.

Component damage: All Computer components are as delicate as each other, take very special care. Hard drives can be damaged if moved to quick or dropped, this is because there is a disc inside of the hard drive that spins it is very delicate. Hard drives use SATA cables, one cable for power and one cable for data, these have to be delicately handled and not forced in or pulled out hard as it can damage the pins inside the hard drive, which are un replaceable. RAM (Random Access Memory) can be damaged by static energy or if forced to hard into a memory slot. This can also damage the slot and make it unusable. CPU and GPU (central processing unit) & (graphics processing unit) have a lever to hold them in place directly to the motherboard, when the lever is lifted, the chip has a lot of incredible delicate pins on the bottom of there chip, these can be damage very easily and are also not fixable and will have to be replaced by a new chip, when installing, place the chip on top of the CPU slot very carefully, if it does not fall into the slot it is not in the place, do not put any force onto these chips.

Component Failure&Troubleshooting Components inside of a PC can fail over time. Trouble shooting the problem can be a problem In itself if you are inexperienced. If a computer is freezing completely to the point where it will not load anything and the mouse freezes, this is most likely the RAM or HDD This can be replaced easily if you know what your doing. If a computer beeps when turning on it most likely the RAM or video card, if it continuously beeps until turned off it is the RAM, if nothing is showing on the screen or a blurred or distorted image, it is the video card, both can be replaced if you know what your doing and use the safe equipment. If a computer runs out of memory, you can install a hard drive with a bigger memory size allocated, or you can clean the hard drive you have already using a PC cleaning program, e.g. CCleaner This will remove any unnecessary files

What to do if: Your PC is overheating; if your computer is overheating it is caused from components heating up and not enough Air getting inside the PC, simple fix, Upgrade the fans or add extra more powerful Fans. If the CPU or GPU is overheating, remove the CPU or GPU and clean the chip with alcohol on the shiny side, apply a thin layer of Thermal compound/paste, Silver Artic is the best company for thermal compound, it lasts long and keeps it cool. If you have a Virus; Backup your important data, Re-Install the operating system and drivers, If possible then buy an antivirus like Norton or Nero these programs will protect your computer from any threats, malware or key logging viruses that might be happening to you without you knowing If your computer wont connect to the internet; Check to make sure your Wi-Fi card is connected properly, you may have a USB adapter to connect to the internet or a PCI Wi-Fi card inside the computer casing attached to the motherboard in a PCI or PCI express slot. Make sure to handle with care and use anti static equipment.

What to do if: POST Problems; When you turn on your PC your keyboard will make a beep to say it is working, if it doesn’t beep, its not connected correctly, if it beeps a different code there is a problem with your PC, different manufactures have different beep codes for different problems with your PC Unrecognised hard drive; If your Computer is Booting from a Slave Hard drive instead of primary it may not be recognized, to fix this, boot into bios options, change the boot order to a primary hard drive where the operating system is installed. If your computer has too much hardware installed that takes a lot of power, your computers power supply wont be able to handle it. If your computer doesn’t turn on at all, check all power cables are connected properly, if It all connected fine, then your power supply has failed and you will need to replace it. Take extra caution and make sure it is not plugged in and left for 30 minutes as it could still have electricity running through it and could seriously harm you.

What to do if; Your getting no sound from your speakers; Check to make sure the correct driver is installed and is working, if not install the driver from the CD that came with your speakers or download the correct drivers from the website of the manufacturer that supplied the speakers and install them. Check to make sure your default playback device is set to the correct output device by right clicking the sound icon in the bottom right tray(windows) Each time your computer boots it resets the BIOS settings and prompts for the time and date; The problem is the CMOS battery, the life of CMOS batteries are around 5 years, they can be replaced cheap if you take the old battery to a Watch shop or computer shop, also can be ordered online and replaced easily.