Just modded my PC for the first time.

[Thumper17]

Hey, just modded my PC for the first time. As the title says. Upgraded the graphics chip and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was. I was just curious as too what kinds of tips you guys have for further upgrading? Any horror stories or first timer experiences?

Also, Is there any special way to secure the chips? Or is the bolt enough?

 

[hyperhammy]

Good for you. I have a lot of fun modding my pc. I had to teach everything myself and broke a bunch of pcs. I have learned and have since installed a new: Videocard, Ram and a Harddrive.

 

[Wormthong]

thumper i have only one piece of advice make sure you are electrically neutral with what your trying to adjust or wear gloves beyond that you will probably have to find out yourself.

 

[Wolfram23]

I wouldn't call that modding the PC, more of an upgrade. When I hear modding a PC I think of custom PC cases that are all crazy and stuff.

Anyway, if you want to post your system specs I or "we" might be able to give some tips as to what would benefit you the most.

I had a PC for about 3 years, a Core 2 duo on a pretty standard motherboard with an 8600GT which I ended up frying from heat (dust blocked heat sink). I initially bought it just to play WoW lol. So, after about a year with no GPU, I just finally bought a dream PC like 5 or 6 weeks ago, which I completely custom picked and put together myself. Felt good
And it kills games. I love it!

As to your gpu, it just clicks in and then the screw in the bracket is enough.

 

[wordsmith]

thumper i have only one piece of advice make sure you are electrically neutral with what your trying to adjust or wear gloves beyond that you will probably have to find out yourself.

This, this, this, a million times this. I was present when a mate of mine was putting together his new machine, spent £150 on a new motherboard for it. He was barefoot on carpet when he unwrapped it, he fried it with static electricity. Always remember to ground.

 

[hyperhammy]

Oh yeah I managed to short out my Ram unit once. I was hard to explain.

 

[DazZ.]

The bolt that comes with the motherboard/case should be fine unless you plan on offroad computing.
It's really easy to build computers now, they all fit together like Lego.

I did almost blow myself up taking a look at my mates computer though, I just unplug the monitor from the back and get a huge electric shock, he then tells me "oh yeah, don't touch the back, it's dodgy".

 

[mad825]

nice, lately I rarely do any moding however I do have some reasonable experience from all the basic components in a Desktop but haven't built one from scratch neither have I installed a water cooling system yet...

I would have to mention, this isnt my horror but if you are going to leave the PC plugged in the main dont leave it on while you are working inside, you wont get a nasty shock if you are grounded but you will have fried components.

you say that you have "Upgraded the graphics chip" you mean the dedicated graphics/video card? or the graphics/video on the mother board?

 

[Enigmers]

I built my PC pretty much from scratch when I was about 15. Before that, I replaced the RAM and graphics card in my old PC. Pretty much everything is labelled and easy to screw around with, though this varies depending on what case you have (mine has a "screwless" design, meaning I dpn't need a screwdriver to make any modifications).

 

[JRShield]

I build my own PC's, so I think I can mod about anything. No experience with water cooling and case modding though.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Only building from scratch really offers problems in my book and most of the tricky bits are set in stone these days anyhow. My last system didn't require me to install the spacers on the motherboard (to keep the board from shorting against the case, something I've seen people overlook somehow) or change any jumper settings. I even setup RAID entirely in software.

And, yes, the one bolt is sufficient. Should you manage to actually lose the card inside the sytem using only one screw, I'd wager something catastrophic happened anyhow.

 

[Shockolate]

The only modding I've done was to my Xbox, apart from installing som Ram and a new video card on my old computer.

The Xbox modding was a lot more fun though. We changed some of Halo 2's weapons.

Shotgun fired 3 Ghost's.
Sniper fired a Warthog at full speed.
Pistol spawned a tank on the player.
And my personal favorite, SMG that shot sticky grenades.

 

[dthvirus]

I installed a new video card, yeah it was fun. RAM doesn't really count: the only people who can't install memory are the ones too scared of opening the box.

 

[Jack_Uzi]

Upgrading/modding your PC is quite easy. The only real f*ck up I've ever made (is waaaay back) was when I overclocked my 333 MHz cpu on the jumper setting of my mobo. It reached 450 MHz but wasn't stable. Strange enough it didn't work properly after I've put it back to it's default settings :S

 

[Arcticflame]

When you get a new CPU, buy a new fan.

The reason for this is, push pins.
Let me say it again Push pins
PUSH PINS
The scourge of PC builders everywhere, the most irritating bastards ever. If I had a nemesis it would be push pins.

Basically what I am saying here is that it is almost worth forking out 50$ on a fan so that you can avoid having to use push-pins. Push pins work most the time, but every now and then you wont put on the fan properly, and not realise. This leads to your PC randomly shutting itself down because the fan isn't properly cooling the CPU -> Very bad.

It's not terribly hard to fix push-pins when you bend them, and it can be easy, it's just every now and then you run into push pins that are impossible to properly use.

 

[LWS666]

one important peice of advise, if you're upgrading the processor or anything that you need to remove a fan to get to make sure it's on tight. it took me like 2-3 weeks to find out my processors fan and heat sink was lose making it crash after 5 minutes.

 

[LWS666]

When you get a new CPU, buy a new fan.

The reason for this is, push pins.
Let me say it again Push pins
PUSH PINS
The scourge of PC builders everywhere, the most irritating bastards ever. If I had a nemesis it would be push pins.

Basically what I am saying here is that it is almost worth forking out 50$ on a fan so that you can avoid having to use push-pins. Push pins work most the time, but every now and then you wont put on the fan properly, and not realise. This leads to your PC randomly shutting itself down because the fan isn't properly cooling the CPU -> Very bad.

It's not terribly hard to fix push-pins when you bend them, and it can be easy, it's just every now and then you run into push pins that are impossible to properly use.

tell me about it.

 

[Thumper17]

To answer questions.

Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5200 @ 2.50GHz
2.50 GHz Performance Rated at: 3.75 GHz

4GB of RAM

My brand new GeForce GT 220 Video Card.

NVIDIA High Definition Audio

HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH40F ROM


I also have 1 TB of HDD


And how exactly do you "Ground Yourself" I was barefoot on hardwood when I put the new card in. Unplugged everything too.

 

[Locastus]

Good job.

First time I upgraded my PC, I installed a new motherboard, CPU and graphics card. I got everything set up properly and working, and started playing modern warfare multiplayer.

After about fifteen minutes the computer just died, with a wash of static electricity over my legs and a bad smell of burning.

Turned out that if you upgrade components, you really need to upgrade the power supply too.

Luckily, nothing else shorted out.

 

[LordDalawing]

Never mess the kind of RAM you getting in your PC.
First time i tried to upgrade mine i managed to put a 512 DDR in a SDRAM slot in my old computer... First boot up after : No more motherboard and RAM...