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Technology Thread: Building a Desktop Computer

Lulz at no sound working on your computer. What a noob.
 
KnightAtWake said:
Two fellow graduates from law school who knew that I used to build and a family member I met at a wedding who wanted a machine. The Frankenstien was a gift to my grandmother (who is 87 and can use a PC better than 80% of the people on this board).
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:laugh: Awesome. Defs jelly.
 
Amateur hour question. I have replaced vid cards and RAM many times and occasionally a hard drive or DVD drive (long ago), so I have basic skills. However, I have never built a system from scratch. Can any of you builders recommend a book or online resource that provides a solid step by step breakdown of how to assemble a machine?

Also, is it feasible to buy some kind of kit that you can then assemble at home? That would make me feel more comfortable that I wasn't going to get a bunch of noncompatible components just out of sheer n00bishness.
 
Deacon923 said:
Amateur hour question. I have replaced vid cards and RAM many times and occasionally a hard drive or DVD drive (long ago), so I have basic skills. However, I have never built a system from scratch. Can any of you builders recommend a book or online resource that provides a solid step by step breakdown of how to assemble a machine?

Also, is it feasible to buy some kind of kit that you can then assemble at home? That would make me feel more comfortable that I wasn't going to get a bunch of noncompatible components just out of sheer n00bishness.
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As far as kits - newegg has "kits," which is just a bundle of the parts you need but it will all be compatible.

I don't know about books but others might. However, all the parts I bought had clear and illustrated instructions so it wasn't hard. IMO, the hardest part is hooking everything up to the motherboard correctly but a decent motherboard should be clearly marked.

One thing that wasn't clearly mentioned but I had heard from friends and reviewers talk about was making sure you use the set-off screws. This sets the motherboard off the frame of the case so it doesn't short out.
 
Deacon923 said:
Amateur hour question. I have replaced vid cards and RAM many times and occasionally a hard drive or DVD drive (long ago), so I have basic skills. However, I have never built a system from scratch. Can any of you builders recommend a book or online resource that provides a solid step by step breakdown of how to assemble a machine?

Also, is it feasible to buy some kind of kit that you can then assemble at home? That would make me feel more comfortable that I wasn't going to get a bunch of noncompatible components just out of sheer n00bishness.
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DeacAlum2001 said:
As far as kits - newegg has "kits," which is just a bundle of the parts you need but it will all be compatible.

I don't know about books but others might. However, all the parts I bought had clear and illustrated instructions so it wasn't hard. IMO, the hardest part is hooking everything up to the motherboard correctly but a decent motherboard should be clearly marked.

One thing that wasn't clearly mentioned but I had heard from friends and reviewers talk about was making sure you use the set-off screws. This sets the motherboard off the frame of the case so it doesn't short out.
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Generally, the kits you can buy from Newegg aren't your best option. You often have to settle for lesser components. This isn't always the case, but I've always found it better to just buy the individual components.

There are a million guides to building a computer on the internet. You can do a Google search to check them out. There are also several books. I don't have any of the books so I'm not sure how good they would be.

If you are planning on doing this sometime soon, or in the near future, I'd be more than happy to lend my advice.
 
TWDeac said:
When I was still new to all of this, I was trying to upgrade a Dell (2001 maybe?) It was a miserable experience due to proprietary connectors, etc...

I'm not sure if they have changed their ways, though.
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Haha this happened to me. Ended up rebuilding the whole thing.
 
bojanglefunk said:
Haha this happened to me. Ended up rebuilding the whole thing.
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As it became more and more clear to me, I became pissssseedddd. I didn't have the money to completely rebuild as a teenager, but buying individual parts was feasible.

I was stuck with upgrading ram and the cpu only.

I was so stoked when I was able to buy 1gb of ram because Battelfield 1942 didn't take 1 minute to load anymore.
 
TWDeac said:
Generally, the kits you can buy from Newegg aren't your best option. You often have to settle for lesser components. This isn't always the case, but I've always found it better to just buy the individual components.
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I definitely agree you are better off choosing individual parts. There aren't actually that many parts so it's easy to make sure they're compatible. You're best off choosing your motherboard first then choosing compatible parts based off that. Or if you have a particular part you want, you can choose that and reverse the process back to the motherboard then choose everything else.
 
dot com said:
One thing to check when choosing a power supply and video card is to make sure the power rails and amperage will be sufficient.
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Exactly. Ideally, you want a separate 12v rail for each card in a dual card system.
 
there's some outdated info on there but the "best builds for 2011" page is very new and at least some of it seems to be regularly updated.
 
Deacon923 said:
there's some outdated info on there but the "best builds for 2011" page is very new and at least some of it seems to be regularly updated.
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Was just going to mention this. It does seem a bit outdated, but it gives a general idea.
 
Sweet! Getting to test out an HP Touchpad for two days!

I'm interested to see how it interacts with my Palm Pre 2.
 
I'm liking this touchpad.

webOS is really a nice operating system IMO. I wish the app support was there.
 
I'd be really interested to see the price breakdown on a mid-tier system ($400-$700) that compares favorably to deals you can get on OEM machines.

Even with labor and profit, the reason PC building basically fell off the map is that nobody can compete with a lean-based supply monster like Dell. They can simply demand components at a fraction of what Newegg can sell them to and end user for, even when discounted. Plus you have to pay for the OS as opposed to it being massively subsidized.

The benefit obviously is total control, complete customization, newer versions of components, etc. Then again, when your Video driver causes your HDMI capable sound card to present itself as non-compliant and breaks something, there's nowhere to go for support. Or when a component simply fails, you're the one who has to figure out what failed, prove it, and get it replaced instead of simply returning the machine under warranty.

Building a machine yourself is great for some, but it's not for everyone. And in general, I think most of the time when someone says "I build something for $500 that would have cost $1,000" they are not considering all the costs. Otherwise there would still be thousands of small companies building computers for companies like there was in the 90's.
 
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