Lab: Upgrade Hardware In Your Computer

Objectives

Upgrade hardware in your computer

What to do

You must open up your computer before you do any of these tasks. Make sure you are working on a computer that your teacher has allowed you to mess with. Make sure your teacher has also allowed you to work with additional parts you may use. You may need a screw driver to open up your computer and also replace some components inside. The following 4 sections of home you would upgrade parts in each category. You are not necessarily going to be upgrading the same parts that they cover, but it is generally the same procedure.

Optical Drive

We are going to be upgrading the optical drive from a DVD-ROM drive (left) to a DVD-RW drive (right).

Locate the optical drive inside your computer that you want to upgrade.

Remove the power and data cable from the back of the drive.

Take out the optical drive from its bay. This may require you to take out some screws on the side of the bay depending on what kind of computer you have. You will have to push out the optical drive from inside the computer so that it pops out through the front face plate (as shown below).

Take the optical drive you want to put in your computer through the front face plate the same way the other one came out.

Lock the drive into place (might require putting in screws you had to take out for the otherdrive).

Attach the power cord and data cable to the new drive.

Hard Drive

We are going to be replacing a 120GB hard drive (right) with a 160GB hard drive (left).

Locate the hard drive inside your computer that you want to upgrade.

Remove the power cord and data cable from the drive.

Remove the hard drive out of the back of the bay. This may require you to take out some screws on the side of the bay.

Insert the new hard drive into the bay the same way you removed the other hard drive.

Lock the new hard drive into the bay. This may require you to put back some screws you would have had to taken out to remove the other drive.

Attach the power cord and data cable to the new drive.

Memory

We are going to add a second 512MB memory stick (right) to an existing 512MB memory stick (left) to give us 1GB of memory for the computer. NOTE: This only works if you have a memory card slot avilable for the second stick. This covers taking out the original stick first and putting it back in just to show you how to properly remove a stick of memory.

Locate the the spot on the motherboard where your memory is held.

Flip the 2 white tabs on either end of the memory stick down to unlock the memory stick.

Carefully remove the original stick of memory from its slot.

Flip open the other 2 white tabs on the second slot.

Carefully put both memory sticks into the 2 slots. The white tabs should snap back into the locked position, but if they don’t make sure you push them up into the locked position.

Expansion Card

While expansion cards are actually covered in the peripherals lesson, this lab covers installing an expansion card because it goes along with upgrading the other components inside your computer. These instructions can be used for installing all different kinds of expansion cards. We are going to be installing a sound card.

Locate an open slot to add your expansion card

Remove the blank plate that covers the opening on the back of your computer. This may require you take a screw that keeps the plate attached to the case out.

Carefully place the expansion card into slot on the motherboard. Make sure that the ports on the card align with the hole in the back of the computer. Attach any screw you might have had to taken out. The outside of your computer should look something like the picture on the right.