Poll: Can you build a PC?

Lenny Magic

Hypochondriacal Calligrapher
Jan 23, 2009
756
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Well I did work experiences in a computer shop where I was instructed on how to build a PC. It was the only part of the experiences I really enjoyed since I gained a lot of knowlege about how PC's are put together. I don't really know about others but it reminded me a lot of lego :)

In terms of misadventures, I sliced the side of my hand open while prepping a case. Basically there is a piece of plastic which some cases have to block off the CD drive areas. I just shunted it as hard as I could and felt a pinch, pulled my hand out and saw a mighty wound. It was more horrific looking than painful, and I got to go home early for lunch, so yeah... Was awesome XD

Funniest thing I saw while I was there: A guy brought his computer in to have his power supply replaced, very simple thing to do, so it got jump forward in the repair queue. What should have been a 3 minute job was turned into an ordeal lasting more than half an hour, just becuase the guy who had brought it in had glued all of his wires into place.
 

gellert1984

New member
Apr 16, 2009
350
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I built my PC about 3yrs ago though I regularly rebuild it, last major upgrade resulted in this:

Coolermaster Cosmos Full Tower Case
60 GB OCZ Solid State HDD (just for windows 7 and startup/background stuff)
Asus GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 Dual DVI PCI-E Graphics Card
Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz Processor
ASUS P6T SE Motherboard
8GB DDR3 1600MHz Intel Exteme XMP
Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold 1000W Modular PSU
Coolermaster V8 Socket Processor Cooler
Seagate 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm
Seagate 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm

One Day I'll finally get around to replacing the 2 HDD's with a 2TB HDD...one day.

Logitech G19 Keyboard
Logitech G9 Mouse
Logitech G35 Headset

Edit, The only story I had was with this computer, for some reason it would only read 1 stick of Ram, swap them around some to see if one was dead, managed to get them all working, no idea why it didnt work that way to start with.

IMO most people could easily build there own PC but they arent willing to risk the money if they screw it up. I also wish I could make money off of this.
 

Rararaz

New member
Feb 20, 2010
221
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I went for the wouldn't have a clue optuon.

I think that I could maybe do it if I spent a lot of time looking it up first and researching, I have quite a few friends who have built several PCs so i would be more likely to ask them for help though. They say it is pretty easy but it doesn't really interest me.
 

RadiusXd

New member
Jun 2, 2010
743
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0
i have yet to assemble a computer solo, but I've seen it done a few times and well know how.
i would have assembled my most recent rig, but my computer mentor was there and i prefer not to work with delicate expensive equipment for liability purposes.
nevertheless, time for my specs.

CPU: Intel core i7-950 3.06Ghz
Motherboard: MSI X58-PRO-E
Ram: G.Skill-NQ 6GB Kit(2Gx3) DDR3 1600
Memory: 2x Seagate 3.5" SATA 500GB HDD (in RAID 0)
Graphics: 2x Gigabyte 1GB GTX460 (in SLI)
PSU: Corsair TX-850 ATX
Case: Termaltake Armor A90
Optical Drive: LG Blu-Ray SATA Writer
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

erm, not bothering to post keyboard/mouse specs out of a combination of both not really knowing what they are, and not caring.
screen is embarrassingly small... that is all.
 

Xan Krieger

Completely insane
Feb 11, 2009
2,918
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Gonna rebuild mine in a new case soon, waiting on the replacement power supply to arrive. As for the details, I honestly forgot, I know it's a 2.6Ghz quad core AMD processor with 4GB of RAM and a 1GB ATI saphire card. Only upgrade I made to it was when it came to hard drives, had a 160Gb and an 80Gb. Replaced the 80Gb with a 1.5Tb. Got a new case for my 21st birthday (which is Feb 13th) but since I won't be sober on the 13th I got the case now.
 

Wicky_42

New member
Sep 15, 2008
2,468
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Triangulon said:
Yeah a couple. My current is running on a Core 2 Quad Q6600 with an XFX GeForce 8800 GTX. Can't remember the rest off-hand. Can't decide when to upgrade/start again at the moment. Whether to go for an i5 setup now or wait for the new round of processors to get cheaper. To be honest, my rig runs everything at the moment with the exception of dx10/11 exclusives as I still use XP. Until I start missing out on games I really want I'll probably wait.
Similar spec, similar conundrum. I want to get one of the new i5 2xxxs, but it's such an expensive upgrade, with the new mobo and all, and I'd want new ram to get the most from the new chip - plus my graphics card's the crapper 8800GT, so I'd want to upgrade that too XD

I've been wanting to do animation and stuff, so the chip's prioritised, but, man, my graphics card is getting beyond its best before...
 

MercurySteam

Tastes Like Chicken!
Legacy
Apr 11, 2008
4,950
2
43
Yes and it's my dream to do it professionally someday. First thing though, must enroll in "Computer Assembly and Repair" at TAFE.
 

Serenegoose

Faerie girl in hiding
Mar 17, 2009
2,016
0
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Yes, I can. Put my last one together a few years ago whilst teaching my girlfriend how to do it for future reference. I hate hate hate building computers, because I'm always paranoid about doing something wrong. I build them because it's cheaper and gets me a better computer, but that's it.
 

CatmanStu

New member
Jul 22, 2008
338
0
0
Not my current machine, but have built one in the past. If you are going to be a PC gamer then it is nearly always the cheapest solution if you want a decent rig. Store bought PC's usually have pretty mediocre components.

As far as funny stories, when I built my first PC I had a mate who had done it before helping. I wanted to read the documentation that came with the motherboard but he wanted to go by his instinct. To cut a long story short, there was three RAM slots but I only had two sticks, I trusted my mate to choose the slots we used, we booted it up and nothing worked, it turned out the slot we DIDN'T use was the primary slot and it resulted in the secondary slots being damaged and me having two sticks with only one slot to use. I never let him forget that :D
 

Pjotr84

New member
Oct 22, 2009
132
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Over the years I've built about 15 computers, for myself and for friends/relatives. I'm normally not a technologically savvy person, so I'm actually quite surprised I've taught myself to build computers.

By the way, the downside to building PC's for others is that whenever they have a problem with their computer, be it hardware related or otherwise, they think I must have done something wrong when building it. Yes, not updating DirectX when prompted is kinda my fault, now isn't it?
 

Mr.Numbers

New member
Jan 15, 2011
383
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Mine is a custom made Naughty Dog machine costing over 6000 dollars. Raptor liquid coolant System. Everything else is from early 2005 :p But it can still run Crysis on Max settings so hey, I'm not updating yet ;)

AMD Athlon FX-53 CPU: $1450
Abit AV8 mother board: $230
Twin 1gb Corsair X1024-3200XLPRO memory sticks: $625
Abit RX800XT video card: $990
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro soundcard: $479
Logitech Speakers: Various
Logitech Keyboard: $179 last updated
Razer Orochi Notebook Gaming Mouse: $70
Currently a Blu-Ray player: $140
2x Western Digital 74GB Raptor WD7400 Raid type O: Sure it's small size, but it's the fastest on the market at the time, I can always back things up on an external and run them lightning fast on the Tower: $780
And a 1337 400 dollar case.
This computer has low capacity but EXTREME performance if your willing to mem test reguarlarly, those Corsairs just....MAN...I swear those things should have MELTED by now XD
I know this total is probably closer to eight or nine thousand, but I sourced the parts from work and my Dad got various job related discounts so the total was a lot lower.
 

purf

New member
Nov 29, 2010
600
0
0
I could, probably. Whenever I had to deal with the innards of my computer for one reason or the other, I was doing fairly well. But it fills me with all sorts of anxiety and stress. I pretty much hate it.
 

ZeeClone

New member
Jan 14, 2009
396
0
0
I've built every computer I've owned since my first year of uni. I've been through 6 revisions and about 4 different cases. I'll post the specs when I've finished building in it's current form - fun and games with the motherboard.
 

Bad Cluster

New member
Nov 22, 2009
154
0
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I often build for friends and family, and I like doing it. Its easy, all you need is patience to research the market and take your time with it, experience only helps to speed it up.

My current PC:

MOBO: EVGA E758-A1 LGA 1366 X58
CPU: Intel Core i7-930
RAM: 2x Corsair Dominator 6GB DDR3 1600 Triple Channel
GPU: 3x(3 way SLI) ASUS ENGTX480 1536MB GDDR5
HDD: 2x Crucial RealSSD C300 128gb (1:system, 2:apps/games)
HDD2: Western Digital Caviar Black 7200RPM 1TB (storage)
PSU: Corsair AX1200
Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840 RC-840-KKN1-GP Black Aluminum
+ very long list of extra wires, fans and sinks

I'm not going list peripherals since they are not important.

I've built it 4.5 months ago, a bit of an overkill, but it'll last me for 3-4 hassle free years. My previous PC lasted me for a little over 5 years, with RAM and GPU upgrade.
 

Taldeer

New member
Apr 15, 2009
135
0
0
Built three of them for myself and watched friends build many others throughout the years. There's a nostalgic part of me, masochistic as well, yearning for the olden days when you had to worry about hardware conflicts and driver mishaps :)) All my mishaps stem from that era (curse you, Matrox Millenium 64 MB graphics card drivers for Windows 98!!!). Pretty smooth sailing ever since...