Hi guys, I'm currently studying HNC Computing at College, and have run into a big assessment that involves building a PC. Sounds easy, but we have to do documentaries involving building the PC, investigate compatibilities and so on.

This is quite new to me, so I'm slowly adjusting to it, but could use a bit of help, particulary compatibility wise. Installing XP, and setting the PC is not a problem for me as I have done it before.

I am required to make a report that involves:

Investigating compatibility issues of CPU, Motehrboard, and Cases/PSU's *straight from the assessment paper*

Is there any websites, sources that I could use that would help me with that part of the assessment?

Thanks

Dave

I think it's basically meaning get a AMD chip and board to suit, or Intel chip and board to suit...socket types are important here. Also the correct type of RAM to fit the board, and the correct type of HDD (most are SATA nowadays, IDE/SCSI will not plug straight in).

Regarding cases, as long as the bits physically fit then all is good usually.
With some smaller cases, newer beastly GFX cards can be too long and foul the HDD bays.

PSU - The correct connectors is always a bonus, newer GFX cards require their own cable which older PSUs will not have. You don't really need to worry about power output unless you are loading the system with a lot of drives etc, and a beastly GFX card.

.... and then there is the issue with AGP, PCI, and PCI-E and different graphics cards not being cross-compatible with those forementioned connectors on the motherboard.

Compatatibilities would also involve checking specific memory against the motherboard as well.
Most motherboards have a list of memory which they have been tested with, if the motherboard manual is available to download online, it's usually listed in it somewhere.

Teh easy way out:

- once you've picked the most suitable OS to match the specs for the build and justified your choice, use a search engine (actually, use more than one ) and search for an HCL for that OS. E.g., Windows XP HCL

- If any of your chosen HW is not on the official compatibility list, reasearch the hardware manufacturer/retailers' forums, bug trackers etc. and show that you've concluded that it appears there are/aren't compatibility problems.

Also look at the bigger picture, if your solution uses SLI or Lol-fire, explain what kind of issues that brings in. If you use EEC memory, are there more/less issues that with non-EEC memory? Why?

Thanks for your help guys .

Would have got back to you sooner but was completely swamped with college work.

Once again, thanks .