just recently I finished building my computer, But I hadn't powered it up yet. So when I did power it up, everything was working just fine. Until I realized the two IDE connectors (IDE is just a ribbon cable that plugs into your drives) were not showing up on the BIOS setup. (The BIOS setup is the setup you go though when you don't have your operating system installed yet.) My mom and I figured out the problem was that the jumpper (which is a little plug in that tells your computer it's the master drive) was on the optical drive. (which is the dvd, cd, blu ray reader/writer) So we had to take the side off the computer and take the jumpper off. When we repowered up, the two drives showed up on the BIOS setup. So then we were ready to install the operating system. We have Vista so we tried installing it. We couldn't instal it because it was the upgrade version so we had to have Windows XP all ready installed to install windows vista. So my mom and I installed Windows XP succesfully, but the internet wasn't working. So we had to install the drivers, which are like progams that have to be installed that are allready on the motherboard but just are not running yet. Then we installed vista succesfully. We had to reinstall the drivers though. Then everything was running great. But I had to download and install 70 updates and counting. The powering up of the computer was succesful.
Reflection #3
Right now my 8th grade project is going really great. Last monday I got all the parts to my computer. I was so happy. I didn't get to actually start building my computer until Tuesday. On Tuesday I got the case all ready for the motherboard to go on. Then on wednesday I put the motherboard on. After doing that, then I put on the cpu. Ontop of the cpu I put the cpu fan on. The cpu is the proccesor in the computer. Then I put the memory on the motherboard. When I mounted the motherboard in the case I pluged all the led lights from the case in. After doing that I had to do a lot of reading about the power supply. I had to read a lot because I wanted to make sure that I connected everything to power before I turned on the computer. On friday I succesfully got the power supply in the case ( with the help of my mom) and connected everything. I can't wait until it's up and running.
Reflection #2
For my 8th grade I'm still buying and building a computer. Just recently I finished all the reading in this really helpful computer book. After reading I took notes on a whole bunch of different things. My mom said after I finish the notes I can buy the parts. At first I was going to buy a bundle of computer parts that came with a case, cpu and motherboard. that bundle is called a barebone. But the problem was I couldn't find the right barebone. so I decided to buy each computer part separately. After awhile I found the right combonation of parts. The ending price of everytghing was about 500 dollars. And for 500 dollars I got a quad processor, Asus motherboard, l.e.d. fan, power supllyy with changing l.e.d. lights, black case with blue l.e.d. lights, and 4gbs of RAM. I think I'm ordering everything in the next couple of days. The hardest thing to find in my bundle of computer parts was the RAM. It was really hard to find because the RAM has to work with the motherboard, and I wanted 4 gb of RAM with a speed of 1066mhz. I really looking foward to getting and building my computer,
Short Proposal
For My 8th grade project I would like to buy and build a computer. I hope to learn a lot about the main componets in a PC. I want to do this because I think it will be fun and chalenging to build a computer. My passion in this area is in sixth grade I took apart a comuter and really liked it. I just wanted to go more indepth in my learning about PC's.My old computer has been having problems so it would be cool to get a new computer. On showcase I will bring the computer to school and have a poster board on all the parts I learned about computers.
Reflection 1
For my 8th grade project I am buying and building a computer. My first proposal was accepted. The second proposal I don't think was that hard to write because I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do for my project. My mentor is Mrs. Mahafy. I'm looking forward to working with her. My project is going good so far. I have done a lot of research and reading for my project so far. I think my time line was reasonable. Hopefully I will finish some dates on my time line sooner than I placed them at.