[Solved] Minimum Equipment for a Computer to Boot?

Forum Systems : Homebuilt [Solved] Minimum Equipment for a Computer to Boot?

CyberPower

An extremely basic hardware question: what is the absolute minimum equipment needed to get a PC to boot to the BIOS? Does it need RAM installed? A CPU? Hard drive?

Reply to warhammer3025

Motherboard, chip and ram will give you a post into bios
You could have linux on a usb drive as the Os, if you wanted to
Moto

------------------------------ Once you start watercooling, you are almost automatically inducted into the modding circles as well, because theres rarely a 'from the box, fits everyone' solution, its your ingenuity and resourcefulness that makes it all happen,
Reply to motopsychojdn

Best answer

Mobo
CPU
RAM
PSU

this will give you POST and the ability to program BIOS (with the aid of a keyboard)

Hehe, psu, good catch hugo :-)
Moto

You should also probably have a keyboard so you can interact with the computer in some way. Staring at the screen telling you that it can't find a boot disk sounds like loads of fun, but probably isn't terribly useful.

Reply to willard

Umm you will need a video card of some sort if you don't have onboard lol. Kinda hard to see the bios otherwise.

Reply to aaab

Thanks. One motherboard I had (a while ago, admittedly) had problems when I installed memory to all 4 RAM slots. Turned out the voltages were somehow set wrong in the BIOS; was wondering if I could get to the BIOS without installing RAM to make sure all the settings were correct before putting in the sticks.

Message edited by warhammer3025 on 02-10-2012 at 01:05:48 AM

Reply to warhammer3025

You will need to reset your BIOS. Usually there is a jumper on your motherboard that will reset the BIOS to defaults

Or you can pull out the battery and leave it for a few hours.

Reply to aaab