Your Motherboard is the backbone of your computer. It connects your peripherals into one cohesive unit called computer.

Before you actually install the Motherboard, you should first configure it. This is where purchasing a Motherboard with a coherent manual comes into play. The Manual will instruct you how to configure your Motherboard so that it will work with your CPU. This is accomplished by setting various jumpers and dip switches. A Jumper is a set of two or three pins that jut out from your Motherboard. They are set by either capping or uncapping them with a little rubber cap. If they are uncapped then they are considered off, if they are capped then they are considered on. Your manual will tell you which jumper needs to be capped, based on what type of CPU you are using. There are some newer Motherboards that are completely "Jumperless" and are configured in the BIOS, with a special CMOS, program.

Here is the basic procedure:

Each Motherboard has different configuration methods, so make sure to read the manual.

Set the voltage settings.

Set the jumpers to match the voltage for your CPU. Your manual should have a guide as to what your CPUs voltage should be or just read it from the chip itself.

Some boards are designed to detect the voltage automatically and then use the correct voltage. In this case, you will not have to worry about it.

You also have to configure your Motherboard so that it matches your Processor speed, and the Bus it was designed to work with. You tell the Motherboard about the processor through a roundabout way.You set the CPU speed by using a "multiplier" which is a number that when multiplied by the Bus speed equals the CPU speed. For example, if you have a CPU that was designed to work at 800MHz on a 100MHz bus, you would first set the Motherboard bus speed to 100MHz and would then tell the motherboard you are using an 800MHz CPU by setting what is called a multiplier to a setting of 8.0.

If your manual lists settings by CPU, just do what it says.

The last step to configuring your Motherboard is to make sure all the default settings are correct. This involves going through the manual and all the default dip and jumper settings match the ones on your motherboard.