Anyone built their own PC here?

[Newbie 0]

Is it hard? I'm not very technical, but i think i could probably plug a few components together. Let me know if you have tried and what the in's and out's were if you can.

Many thanks

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Slowfaller 0]

I imagine you'd need to be a rigger, then just sew the right materials and off you go. I don't know what you mean by plugging in components. A collapsable PC might be more difficult.

hardy harr harr

--"Someday you will die and somehow somethings going to steal your carbon" -MM

[Newbie 0]

Quote

I imagine you'd need to be a rigger, then just sew the right materials and off you go. I don't know what you mean by plugging in components. A collapsable PC might be more difficult.

hardy harr harr

You know - components - a motherboard, hard drive, video card, processor etc, all the usual stuff a PC has A collapsible PC, a lap top?

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Slowfaller 0]

Quote

A collapsible PC, a lap top?

Hell yeah.

When I first logged on I really was thinking of a skydiving PC. Then, after I read almost all the threads on the 1st page I saw yours again, marked unread. Thats, after thinking about it, when it clicked and I decided to post my smart ass remark. Its almost 6am and i'm off work in 2 hours, been a long night.

--"Someday you will die and somehow somethings going to steal your carbon" -MM

[Newbie 0]

LOL thanks mate, have a good day at work.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[sid 1]

it's pretty easy to put it all together, but the wiring can be a nightmare. I assembled everyting then took it to Best-Buy and had the Geek Squad check the wiring (which I had fucked up a little) before I switched it on...... It's the only way to go to get the configuration that you want.

Pete Draper,

Just because my life plan is written on the back of a Hooter's Napkin, it's still a life plan.... right?

[mr2mk1g 10]

Yeah. Read the manual that comes with the motherboard IN DETAIL. This is going to be probably the trickiest part till you get to the BIOS settings. Tiny jumpers scattered across the board and fiddly little wires will catch you out.

Other than that, whacking hard drives, optical drives (again watch for jumpers and primary/secondary drives etc) is easy; as is fitting things like memory, the processor, fans, and riser cards etc.

So long as you cover all the bases it really isn't that hard... it's just knowing what bases you don't know about that will catch you out. I'd say anyone with good general manual skills, a dose of common sense and ok computer literacy should be able to do 95% of it no trouble.

It's that last 5% you might be best off calling in a mate to help with if you get stuck. Otherwise really read those manuals - they ought to be able to help you out significantly.

Oh yeah then setting up the BIOS... someone else's turn I think.

[Newbie 0]

Thanks for the input mate. Did you end up building your own? Sounds like it.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Mostly_Harmless 0]

I have built my own. Its not very hard and there are lots of websites out there that will help you through it.
http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/index.htm
http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/pc_building/preparation/
http://www.buildyourowncomputer.net/learntobuild.html

If you need help with picking out components like the CPU, GPU, PSU, Motherboard, ram, etc... let me know I will try to give you a hand.

_________________________________________
www.myspace.com/termvelocity

[Newbie 0]

Quote

I have built my own. Its not very hard and there are lots of websites out there that will help you through it.
http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/index.htm
http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/pc_building/preparation/
http://www.buildyourowncomputer.net/learntobuild.html

If you need help with picking out components like the CPU, GPU, PSU, Motherboard, ram, etc... let me know I will try to give you a hand.

good links, thanks!

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[GTAVercetti 0]

A few years ago, I would say yes. When motherboards and modems had a bunch of tiny jumpers everywhere and you could plug the power into the motherboard backwards (and fry the machine), but these days?

Easy. Very few jumpers, if any. A good motherboard will have a manual that makes it easy to understand. My last board allowed the plug to only go in one way.

There are plenty of internet sites for help to. Give google a whirl.

Why yes, my license number is a palindrome. Thank you for noticing.

[outlawphx 1]

It's pretty easy. I got sucked into building machines for family and friends since the mid 90's, but now I just tell them to call Dell The hardest part is dealing with any hardware conflicts and driver incompatibilities that may arise. That's the nice part about ordering from a vendor like Dell, IBM, etc, and since margins are so thin nowdays, it's not really cheaper to build your own (unless your picking up used parts)

[Jeff.Donohue 0]

It's pretty easy, although what you discover when you do it is how important the cooling systems are. You don't think about stuff like fans and heat sinks when you talk about computers, but it turns out that they end up being hugely important. I built a Pentium 4 3.2Ghz monster that was supposedly going to have all my processor power needs for a while. I sort of skimped on the Power Supply (bad move) and used the heat sink that came with the Intel chip (hugely dumb move). Turns out, the system warmed up to a toasty 70 (centigrade), and after a couple of prolonged high drain activities (basically, playing Doom 3), it cooked itself into a very expensive piece of aluminum.

Lesson: don't skimp on cooling systems (get a water cooled system like a Thermaltake if you're going high end Pentium), and don't skimp on the Power Supply (get a brand name, like Antec, that has plenty of power -- if you're running a lot of devices, think 510W). Don't just pull the old power supply out of some old PC you have. It won't have enough wattage to run all of the peripherals and, more importantly, the fans and cooling systems.

[SpeedRacer 1]

I've was thinking about this last night.

I have a PC that I bought in 2001. I have replaced the CD player with a RW CD/DVD. When I upgraded from Win98 SE to win XP, I had to flash the BIOS.

Recently I just installed a new USB card with USB 2.0 (the ones in the original were USB 1.1)

Now it looks like I need to upgrade the video card (I got a 16 MB, I need at least a 32MB for dowloading movies onto my IPOD) and I need at least a 1.5 GHz CPU (got a 1.2). And I might need to eventually install a bigger hard drive.

So it looks like I'm not building a PC from scratch, but over time I'm just replacing one part for another. And I'm wondering if I should just buy a whole new PC, but I don't know which would cost more $. Plus if I do it myself piece by piece (as I need them) I will learn more about computers.

I've found that you can get really good prices at those "Computer Show & Sale" thingies that they set up at fairgrounds etc.

Speed Racer
--------------------------------------------------

[Newbie 0]

Thanks. Just out of curiousity, how much was it to replace your melted mess? Is watercooling easy to install (relatively speaking)?

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Jeff.Donohue 0]

I agree with Outlawphx entirely. The reason to build one is NOT to save money (you will spend more, guaranteed). The only reason to do it is, well, to get the experience of building it. If you like tinkering with stuff, it's fun...

One other thing, to echo outlawphx's comments, you want to spend a little time before you buy making sure of the compatibility of the motherboard, processor, and memory, in particular. You might have buggy problems with the peripherals, but you will absolutely beat your head against a wall if the basics of the system don't assemble).

[pilotdave 0]

It can be easy or it can be a total nightmare. I recently built a new computer, and before that (4ish years ago) I upgraded my old one with a new motherboard, processor, and all that.

The upgrade was the nightmare type, at least for the first 2 days or so. Started off smooth, got the processor and heatsync installed on the motherboard, got the motherboard in the case, FINALLY got all the leads from the case (for the buttons and lights) connected, and tried to boot. Nothing. I played for a long time with the leads to the power button since the instructions weren't very clear on how it should be connected. I ended up calling tech support from every component, including the MS paid tech support claiming I had a problem with windows, since afterall it wouldn't load, right?

To make a long and annoying experience short, I finally figured out that my zip drive was touching a capacitor on the motherboard, causing the whole thing not to work. Removed the zip drive and it worked fine... on day 3.

My new PC (a few weeks ago) was slightly smoother. I bought everything at http://www.newegg.com. They make it fairly easy to choose compatible parts. But since I hadn't kept up with what the latest and greatest components were, I spent a lot of time on there reading reviews and choosing my parts carefully. Probably spent about 2 weeks creating various wish lists until I finally nailed down exactly what I wanted.

So all the parts showed up and off I went. Step one, connect the processor to the motherboard. I read the instructions very carefully and came to a screeching halt when I read the note that "All AMD processors require thermal interface material..." Well I didn't have any thermal interface material. Damnit, something else to buy. The note went on to say that AMD's website has a section on processor cooling with suggestions on what type to buy. Well I searched that site for 10 minutes and finally found a little note on some random page saying all AMD heatsyncs come with thermal interface material pre-installed, but if the heatsync ever gets removed, new stuff needs to be applied. Ugh, problem solved. Shoulda known that... anyway, since I had done this before.

Anyway, the case I bought is great, but it came with about 5 different types of philips head screws and no instructions (the manual could be found online easily... I had it bookmarked before the shipment arrived). Had to figure out which screws to use to secure the motherboard, which took about 2 tries.

The motherboard came with a little cover for the back of the case where all the components plug in. The one on the case unscrewed easily, but the new one had no screws didn't seem to fit. Ended up having to leave it off, so my case has a big hole in the back around all the plugs.

Then came the real fun. My copy of windows XP is very old. Couldn't read more than 137 gigs of a hard drive. My drives were 250 gigs and 160 gigs, so that was no good. The solution is to format the first 137 gigs of one drive, install windows, get online to download service pack 2 which fixed the problem, then format the remaining space on the drive and the entire other drive. Pain in the butt, but it went fairly smoothly.

If you've never installed anything in a computer, I'm not sure I'd recommend trying to build a whole one. When something doesn't work, you'll need to be able to troubleshoot it. If you think you can do that, go for it. It's fun (in some sort of crazy way) and you can save a TON of money over buying from somewhere like Dell. (I priced the closest possible computer to mine on Dell, which was still nowhere near as good as the one I got... it was approximately double the price at Dell).

I think this'll work... Here's what I bought (plus a few more components that I didn't save on the wish list like a second hard drive).

Dave

[Jeff.Donohue 0]

My spectacular melt down killed both the chip and the motherboard, so it was about a $500 loss.

Watercooling sounds scary, but it's improved over the last few years, so that now one of the Thermaltake systems will not be all that hard to install. It used to be that people would sort of cobble them together from spare car parts, but I always thought that was way more hardcore than I ever wanted to get. The off the shelf Thermaltake units are pretty easy, but you'll spend time simply pouring the water in (it's like filling a ziplock bag with water by using a dropper). If water scares you, you can also find good quality heat sinks by searching places like www.newegg.com (although read the reviews with caution, I'm told that Newegg deletes many bad reviews). Just don't trust the Intel heat sinks, and take the temperature readings very seriously (find out what the specs are for your chip from the manual and don't stress them). This is doubly true if you want to overclock (force the chip to run faster than its advertized operating rate). (If you are doing that, don't do it out of the box, get the system stable and then work your way up).

The funny part about it is that I'm not really a tech guy (I'm a lawyer by trade), and if I can do it, a narcoleptic chimpanzee probably can.

[Newbie 0]

Thanks, ideally i won't be up for overclocking anything, as i know, while it can bring about an increase in performance, it also brings the associated mess of global PC meltdown/instability with it, which i'm not really into. Ideally i want to create a monster that won't necessarily need to be overclocked to handle the latest software/video etc, but will just be a bit of a powerhouse on it's standard settings, and will be future proof for a little while (i guess 2-3 years).

Anyway thanks again. I like your analogy of the narcoleptic chimp which about describes me when it comes to technical stuff. I'm up for giving it a go, i just have this horrible nightmare on spending a lot, and not knowing how to make everything a) fit together; b) work c) work properly and be stable

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Jeff.Donohue 0]

Dave,

Wow... I have system envy. That thing must FLY. Don't leave it on too long, though, it might become self-aware.

[AlexCrowley 0]

If you aren't afraid of hardware it's no more difficult than a 3dimensional puzzle.

Wiring up some of the bits is a little finicky but nothing horrendous.

Ars Technica does a great guide for building one of three PCs (godbox, hot rod and budget) - and it's stuff that matters rather than the overly technical stuff you'll find on other sites about building your own.

I put together my video/music editing workstation for about $900.

newegg.com is a good place for parts, crucial does good RAM.

TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

[mr2mk1g 10]

Oh, by the way: Go to www.ebuyer.co.uk They have everything you need, prices you won’t be able to beat, reviews and user feedback including ratings (great for those of us who don’t live and breath computer brands and their associated reputation) they do fast free delivery, they’re reliable and are extremely professional about any refunds / exchanges that might crop up. Its your one-stop-shop to satisfaction.

[wildcard451 0]

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Dave,

Wow... I have system envy. That thing must FLY. Don't leave it on too long, though, it might become self-aware.

If you like that one, you'll prolly love the one I am gonna build here in a day or two.

My godbox

And for me, it has always been cheaper to build them myself. You know what is in your machine and why something goes wrong when it does. And, most of the time, it will. At least once. Last one I built for an ex-gf took me 4 hours to figure that it would not boot cause I had one end of the floppy cable plugged in backwards. Oh well, comes with the fun of it.

Only downside is that when something goes wrong, well, you are your own tech support.

If you have never built one before.....don't even think about watercooling one. You have no need for it. Just get a good heatsink and a fan. Stock cooling WILL NOT CUT IT. Look at the heatsink I ordered with mine. Massive does not begin to describe it....but then again, I know I am gonna be running mine hard.

Don't forget to get thermal grease!

I think that is the end of my drunken ramblings for the moment.

[Newbie 0]

Thats a good price - sort of my budget too, and with a similar spec to what i had in mind.

Your story brough back glimmers of the only sort of techy work i have ever got myself into - trying to install an after market graphics card into my current PC. It took over 2 hours just to work out how to get the old one OUT (the littler spacer that was holding it down, the metal thing, i didnt know you could unscrew that thing from the front of the metal panel of the board. I tell you, when i put a screwdriver in that thing and twisted and it turned, it felt like the heavens had opened and God or whoever had smiled down on me, damn i sound like a geek here. Anyhoo, yes, i understand what you mean about it being a "oh my GOD im about to kick this piece of technology out the window - literally - but, oh ok, THAT'S how you do it. Well that was an interesting waste of an evening" etc.

So yeah, it's the one thing thats sort of holding me back.

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

[Newbie 0]

Quote

Oh, by the way: Go to www.ebuyer.co.uk They have everything you need, prices you won’t be able to beat, reviews and user feedback including ratings (great for those of us who don’t live and breath computer brands and their associated reputation) they do fast free delivery, they’re reliable and are extremely professional about any refunds / exchanges that might crop up. Its your one-stop-shop to satisfaction.

Thanks very much!

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts