Today's gonna be a good day...

[tattooedhusker]

Cuz I'm building my own PC from scratch and my 1GB of RAM (memory) came in the mail 10 minutes ago.

 

Wooohoooo!

 

Now all i'm waiting for is my Video Card

[MCAT800]

Have fun.

I wouldn't know where to start on a project like that.

[husker rob]

i have always wanted to try that. i wonder if the have a book out there called "Building PC's from Scratch for Dummies"?

[AR Husker Fan]

i have always wanted to try that. i wonder if the have a book out there called "Building PC's from Scratch for Dummies"?

Actually, they do.

 

The hard part is matching components. Actual assembly is pretty easy.

[husker rob]

i have always wanted to try that. i wonder if the have a book out there called "Building PC's from Scratch for Dummies"?

Actually, they do.

 

The hard part is matching components. Actual assembly is pretty easy.

yeah, but does the book tell you to "Take Thingamabobber A and attach it to Do Hickey B"

[AR Husker Fan]

i have always wanted to try that. i wonder if the have a book out there called "Building PC's from Scratch for Dummies"?

Actually, they do.

 

The hard part is matching components. Actual assembly is pretty easy.

yeah, but does the book tell you to "Take Thingamabobber A and attach it to Do Hickey B"

Nah - they don't use those highly technical terms...

[strigori]

I built my current machine, and will build every one from here on out. For a first timer, as long as you get a motherboard that has a good manual, it isnt hard at all. I spent more time shopping and picking out what I wanted than actually building it.

[Nigel87]

I wouldn't know where to start. Is there any way I can get a fairly decent and modern system into my gutted IBM PS/2 55SX case? For some reason, I've always like the look of those computers

[strigori]

I am not familiar with that case, but as long as it is an ATX case it would work.

[Nigel87]

I am not familiar with that case, but as long as it is an ATX case it would work.

 

Sorry, that went right over my head. But I found this: http://john.ccac.rwth-aachen.de:8000/alf/ps2_55sx/

[strigori]

I am not familiar with that case, but as long as it is an ATX case it would work.

 

Sorry, that went right over my head. But I found this: http://john.ccac.rwth-aachen.de:8000/alf/ps2_55sx/

From the looks of that, I am going to lean to a "no". It doesnt look to be the right size for a modern board, and it doesnt have the depth for a vid card. If you want something thin and squat like that, there are what are refered to as 'micro atx' cases. But you do limit what hardware you put in there with the smaller size.

[AR Husker Fan]

I am not familiar with that case, but as long as it is an ATX case it would work.

Sorry, that went right over my head. But I found this: http://john.ccac.rwth-aachen.de:8000/alf/ps2_55sx/

From the looks of that, I am going to lean to a "no". It doesnt look to be the right size for a modern board, and it doesnt have the depth for a vid card. If you want something thin and squat like that, there are what are refered to as 'micro atx' cases. But you do limit what hardware you put in there with the smaller size.

I have to agee with strigori - that case almost certainly won't work. You need to get a newer model - Antec makes some good, reasonably priced cases.

 

One problem you'd almost certainly have - aside from the ones mentioned by strigori - is fitting a modern power supply in it. And while it ain't the sexiest component, next to the motherboard and CPU it's probably the most important. If you decide to build, put some money into it. Buy a brand name - again, Antec makes some excellent ones.

 

The next thing you need to do is decide on the motherboard and CPU. While price is always a consideration, I highly recommend getting a dual core CPU and the motherboard to support it. While you won't see much performance gain from most applications, it does enhance multi-tasking. That is, when your anti-virus is running a scan, and you want to burn a CD or edit a video, you can do so - each process uses it's own core. Also, they tend to be cooler and use less power.

 

Make sure you buy a great CPU cooler. The better ones are quiet - cheap ones make you think you're standing near a plane during take off when you boot or run the system. Zalman makes some excellent coolers - just be sure it's designed for the type of CPU you buy. And don't forget the thermal paste. Antec Silver is probably the best.

 

Once you have the motherboard and CPU nailed down, the next "big" decision, I think, is the video card. Even if you don't do any gaming or video/audio editing, you want a discrete video card - you do NOT want to use the video chip built into the motherboard. It will severely limit you. For example, if you want to run Windows Vista, you need at least a DirectX 9 video board with 125 MB of memory. If you can hold out, what you REALLY want is the newest DirectX 10 cards. But at the moment, they are sky-high in price and have flaky drivers for Vista, so if you can, hold off at least 6 months for the drivers to be fixed and the prices to drop. Vista has DirectX 10, and believe me when I tell you it makes a difference on almost every visual aspect of a computer.

 

With that done, the next thing is to consider storage and RAM. With both, get all you can afford. While 1 GB of RAM seems great, go with 2 if you can - it will make a difference with most operating systems. Go to www.crucial.com and you can actually buy use a selector system to get RAM that is specific to your motherboard. As for storage, I'm not necessarily wedded to any particular brand for casual use - but if you want the most speed, get the Barracuda drives. And buy them as large as you can afford - you'll fill them up.

 

If you are a gamer, you'll want a good sound card. There's really no other choce than SoundBlaster by Creative. Buy the model you can afford. If you aren't a gamer, and don't do any audio work, then you can use the audio chip on the motherboard if it has one (most do). If not, any sound card should be capable.

 

Next up is the modem (for dial-up) or Ethernet (for broadband). Damn near any modem will do. For Ethernet, go with a brand name - Intel, 3Comm, Linksys, etc. Unless you're streaming media, you don't need a Gigabyte version - just any off-the-shelf will do.

 

Optical drives - well, I can't recommend Plextor drives enough. They are a bit more expensive than others, but they just work, and they work for a long time. They burn to damn near all media; cheaper drives can be touchy on that point.

 

With all that, you're ready to start plugging things together. While it may look daunting, it really isn't hard. There are a tonne of books out there with instructions.

[huskernumerouno]

I,ll just go to DELL

[rawhide]

I've built three computers with each one more complex. My current is a 1 year old AMD Dualcore 4400 (Zalman copper cooler) with 2gb Ram RAID array w/4 320 SATA HD's and a BFG 7800GTX vid card. Why because it was there. ??? I'm now at the point where the Mac commercials are looking more attractive all the time. I enjoyed building them but now I want a machine w/o any hiccups or blue screens of death on occasion. It's usually some buttmunch program I installed causing problems and going back to a restore point and rebooting. REBOOTING SUX whew done. I believe that is the crux of the problem. Only top echelon people like ETR, AR and Blackshirt among others speak that programming language that I am not least bit proficent even understanding. I'm more mechanical attach this here, plug this here, etc.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

I think I would actually build a rocket on accident!!!!