Old Prebuild

Prebuild is composed of these parts:

• Card and Motherboard Sorting (Here's the HowTo)
• Evaluation I and II (Here's the HowTo)
• Advanced Testing (The HowTo for all component testing can be found here)

Teaching Prebuild

There's also some documentation out there for the folks who teach prebuild tasks.

• Card Sorting has a teaching howto. There's also a howto for teaching motherboard sorting. It's always good for card and mobo teachers to read these instructions first.
• If a person wants to instruct Evaluation or check out the cart, they need to get on the email list for system eval and be approved by 3 current instructors. The email list is also for people who are just interested in eval, or who have comments or suggestions or overflowing praise for the instructors. Yes, there's also a series of howtos for teaching eval. Instructors should read them.
  • Teaching Eval Overview
  • Teaching Eval I
  • Teaching Eval II
  • Checking the Cart

Prebuild Upkeep

A major part of the prebuild process is the mining of systems. A byproduct of this is a big mess (and a lot of parts). Once parts come out of systems they get put in their seperate designated places. Once the designated places fill up, a big mess ensues. This mess step can be averted, however, by a diligent pre-build instructor.

Pre-build maintenence falls onto the shoulders of the pre-build instructor (Reuse on the schedule).

Once volunteers are set up and moving ahead in their areas, a diligent pre-build instructor can begin the process of the shuttling of parts, and the process of cleaning. This step actually serves two purposes.

• 1 The cleaning step keeps the area in a state where volunteers can actually do some work, and keeps the chaos from creeping in

• 2 The cleaning step keeps the pre-build instructor from wandering away, hence they are available for questions from the pre-build students

What needs to be done?

Evaluation I and Evaluation II upkeep

Memory

Memory should be mined from all systems, both keepers and recyclers, and placed into proper short-term memory storage units (boxes marked memory)

At least one time per shift a pre-build Instructor should empty these boxes. Memory from the short-term memory storage system needs to be locked in the T.A.R.D.I.S. in the "incomming memory" box.

Nota Bene: It is important to leave behind a stick of PC-66, PC-100, and PC-133 RAM for Eval II student to use in the booting of systems

Extra Credit: find out what memory goes directly to recycling (SIMM memory), and separate it from "the good stuff"

Hard drives

Hard drives should be mined from all systems, keepers and recyclers.

Good Hard drives (see current keeper specs) go in a receptacle marked "Good drives", Bad Hard drives (smaller than keeper specs) go in a receptacle marked "Small Hard Drives"

Both receptacles fill up.

Good Drives go in the T.A.R.D.I.S. in the area marked "Incoming Hard Drives"

Small Drives go to their proper place in recycling

Nota Bene: Small hard drives going to recycling should be spot checked for size in case errors were made. It is also a good idea to throw too small drives into the recycling bin with GREAT FORCE so that they are damaged beyond use (to remove the possibility of data theft). (Except if you do this, and a good drive is in the recycle bin, you've just destroyed the good drive. Only do this after the recycle bin has spot checked for mistakes.)

Nota Bene, Part II: Make sure that the hard drives are being put in the proper receptable in recycling. We are now removing the controller board from harddrives. Make sure you are not putting drives that still have boards in the gaylord of ready to be recycled harddrive. Ask the recycling supervisor for help.

random expansion cards

Random expansion cards get removed from both keeper systems and recycler systems. Eval I and Eval II should both have a "short term card storage receptacle" (cardboard box).

When the "short term card storage receptacle" fills up to maximum capacity, it should be removed and replaced with a new, empty "short term card storage receptacle". The "short term card storage receptacle" that has reached maximum capacity should be placed in Card and Motherboard sorting to be sorted.

cdrom drives

While Standard cdrom drives are left in keeper systems, we still have to deal with the removal of cdrom drives removed from recycler systems (see current spec for details), and the removal of "special drives" from both.

When the cdrom storage area fills up, it will soon overflow into a mess. It may seem like a mess is predestined, but take my word for it, with diligence a pre-build instructor can keep the cdrom storage area tidy.

Currently CD-RWs and DVD-Roms go to the store to be tested (this is BAD, but it is the current process, hopefully this will change in the near future).

cdrom drives can go under the cdrom testing are to be tested.

Extra Credit: Culling of cdrom drives can be done on the way to testing. Mearly remove drives that do not meet keeper specs and send them straight to recycling. Any harddrive that is either listed as a speed of 12 or below, or that was manufactered prior to 1997, can be summarily recycled.

Random Drives

There are many "weird drives" that tend to pile up in Eval, from zip drives to tape drives. What can be done with them? Most of them are junk. It is best to show the lot to the Reuse Coordinator and to the Sales Coordinator. What they don't want, recycle.

Power Supplies

ATX power supplies have a small area for temporary storage that fills up quickly. What to do with them:

• sort out ones that are there by mistake (AT and below Watt spec)
• test the potential keepers with the power supply tester (be sure you put that thing back!)
• bad supplies: recycle
• good supplies: recieve them, and write "tested good" on the label, along with the wattage, and bring them to the store.

Random case parts

Inevitably, random case parts will get separated from their cases. This can be prevented, somewhat, by getting Eval folks to screw case parts in securely.