I learned a lot by building my own PCs, lots of trial and error. The very first time I ever tried I asked the help of a friend who said he was tech savvy, I had my doubts when he went at the motherboard hard with a screwdriver, using it as a lever to work in the heatsink onto the CPU. Lesson 1 was don't let other people touch your stuff, lesson 2 is be gentle and never force anything. I didn't learn that one straight away, though, because I tried upgrading some RAM but didn't realise that you had different types of sockets, I just bought RAM and tried putting it in, and when it didn't go I tried harder, and harder, until I cracked the motherboard. Lesson 3 was learn what everything is so I don't buy the wrong stuff again.

Silly me.

ManateeGag: That was dumber than usual.

Even though, on average, I enjoy Cracked (much more than the average Farker), Brockway is their worst writer by a long distance.

the only thing i've ever had troubles with in the past is getting a new mother board to accommodate everything. Other than that its pretty easy, pick beastly components and a satisfactory power supply. Was anything else supposed to be hard?

OK, so to threadjack about homebuilt PC issues - figure this one out for me:

I'm not sure when it started, but every time I cold boot my homebuilt PC these days, it has to start 3 times. Meaning that it starts, the fans start to spin, but before it posts, it powers down. It does that same set of things again, then it does it again, but instead of powering down, it posts. It doesn't seem to have any problems once it is up, and it can hibernate/come out of hibernate just fine, but why would it do 3 boots (and always 3). I would think a short or something would be more random than 3 every single time.

Is it worth tearing it down and rebuilding from scratch or do I just deal?

xanadian: Also: Building a computer these days, though not for the faint of heart, isn't exactly a Herculean feat, either. Just RTFMs, have a steady hand, and have some patience. If you can't do any of the previous 3, pack that shiat back up, return it, and dude...you're getting a Dell!

This. I've been doing it for over 20 years, and it's ridiculously easy compared to the horrifying maze of compliance & compatibility that it used to be when I started. I regularly build machines - typically, every 18-24 months - for home use, and I've done so at work when needed, as well. Compared to what it was like even a decade ago, it's like playing with friggin' Legos now.

soopey: Only hard part is trying to contort your fingers to get that fan power plug onto the most improbably placed header ever.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS

Also,

Built my first system recently after years of buying Dell stuff, and it was stupid easy. I even cheated and bought one of Newegg's package deals. Took me far longer to download and install drivers than it did to actually put the components together.

I like a lot of Cracked stuff. Seanbaby remains the funniest person on the internet. But that was bad. Now I know how people who hate Cracked feel.

ProfessorOhki: soopey: Only hard part is trying to contort your fingers to get that fan power plug onto the most improbably placed header ever.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS

Also,
[img218.imageshack.us image 614x434]

lol.

That reminds me.

Don't blow your wad on the video card/s. Wait a few months then get it/them.

Unless you don't already have one.

Outlawtsar: Is it worth tearing it down and rebuilding from scratch or do I just deal?

Got a spare power supply you can swap in? That would be my first guess. But it could be anything, I had a bad monitor cause all kinds of problems and take forever to troubleshoot.

I can't get to the article, but if you can follow a recipe you can build a computer. Just make sure all the stats match. Don't try and put an intel chip into a AMD motherboard, etc.

miniflea: Built my first system recently after years of buying Dell stuff, and it was stupid easy. I even cheated and bought one of Newegg's package deals. Took me far longer to download and install drivers than it did to actually put the components together.

THIS.

Outlawtsar: OK, so to threadjack about homebuilt PC issues - figure this one out for me:

I'm not sure when it started, but every time I cold boot my homebuilt PC these days, it has to start 3 times. Meaning that it starts, the fans start to spin, but before it posts, it powers down. It does that same set of things again, then it does it again, but instead of powering down, it posts. It doesn't seem to have any problems once it is up, and it can hibernate/come out of hibernate just fine, but why would it do 3 boots (and always 3). I would think a short or something would be more random than 3 every single time.

Is it worth tearing it down and rebuilding from scratch or do I just deal?

Your PC obviously has OCD.

StoPPeRmobile: ProfessorOhki: soopey: Only hard part is trying to contort your fingers to get that fan power plug onto the most improbably placed header ever.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS

Also,
[img218.imageshack.us image 614x434]

lol.

That reminds me.

Don't blow your wad on the video card/s. Wait a few months then get it/them.

Unless you don't already have one.

Guilty as charged. I built a desktop recently. My main machine went from being a convertible tablet which wasn't a complete slouch (dual-core 2.4Ghz/4GB RAM was passable for 2008), but the ATI HD3200 was... eeeh. So I was in the mind set of, "I want a desktop and one that will last for a while," and went a bit overboard.

/And that's the story of my GTX680

Treygreen13: StoPPeRmobile: ProfessorOhki: soopey: Only hard part is trying to contort your fingers to get that fan power plug onto the most improbably placed header ever.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS

Also,
[img218.imageshack.us image 614x434]

lol.

That reminds me.

Don't blow your wad on the video card/s. Wait a few months then get it/them.

Unless you don't already have one.

Or just step a few places down on the video card rankings. The cost savings on even a few slots lower than the top of the line are extreme. Then you can have something that is fine for 99% of the stuff on the market and if you do want to upgrade in 3 or 4 years, the graphics card you were going to buy will be about where the one you bought previously was in terms of price.

I know a quite a few people who take cards a few tiers down, but stick two of them in SLI/CrossFire and end up getting more performance/cost out of it than a higher end card.

FormlessOne: xanadian: Also: Building a computer these days, though not for the faint of heart, isn't exactly a Herculean feat, either. Just RTFMs, have a steady hand, and have some patience. If you can't do any of the previous 3, pack that shiat back up, return it, and dude...you're getting a Dell!

This. I've been doing it for over 20 years, and it's ridiculously easy compared to the horrifying maze of compliance & compatibility that it used to be when I started. I regularly build machines - typically, every 18-24 months - for home use, and I've done so at work when needed, as well. Compared to what it was like even a decade ago, it's like playing with friggin' Legos now.

This as well. Ridiculously easy to build nowadays...I think the most difficult part of my last build was getting the add-on RAID controller to work, and that just required 10 min of RTFM.

/CSB
//Remembers the bad old days when you had to solder RAM onto the board
///My lawn, off of it

Outlawtsar: It doesn't seem to have any problems once it is up, and it can hibernate/come out of hibernate just fine, but why would it do 3 boots (and always 3).

Rebooting exactly three times is a symptom of an incorrect Intel Management Engine firmware. It cannot load the saved values, and has to initialize (which takes two reboots) every time. Flash the ME to the level that matches your overall BIOS to cure it.

/Difficulty: Figuring out which level of ME is needed and the proper update procedure for your board will be on the level of learning what John Kerry ate for lunch on a given day in 1967.
//The guy who said power supply may be on the right track if it's not the ME firmware

Did you have to configure IRQ settings?

If not, your PC was not hard to build.

I actually liked most of Cracked, but this was unreadably boring and stupid. fark you subby.

Building PC's are for pussies. Try building a Mac server with off the shelf parts, then get back to me.

swahnhennessy: I like a lot of Cracked stuff. Seanbaby remains the funniest person on the internet. But that was bad. Now I know how people who hate Cracked feel.

I actually agree.
Farkers are always hammering on Cracked, and it's not THAT bad.

Damnit.

I teach computer building as a kind of fun adult ed class. It's not difficult. I spent about four hours explaining terminology and real-world distinctions between products, go through process of sourcing parts using Newegg and Amazon, give my students some time to figure out what they want and want to do, sign off that they're buying parts that work together (they spend their own money). After that, it takes about 90 minutes to assemble their parts for people who haven't done that before, 20 minutes to load Windows, another 30 minutes to handle drivers and basic software (thank you ninite.com) and a variable amount of time to deal with transferring user data, set up backups and configure weirdo software that's unique to any one student's needs.

In 12 years of teaching computer building classes - including a couple rooms full of developmentally disabled 14 year olds - I've had one person damage a computer part.

It's really not hard and it is a lot of fun.

Homebuilt machines are still cheaper than name brand. The more expensive the systems, the greater the differential. I couldn't touch an 8GB i3 system with an Intel 180GB SSD and 250GB HDD for the $530 it costs me to build one.

qsblues: Try building a Mac server with off the shelf parts, then get back to me.

Isn't "Server" OSX just a $50 add-on to regular OSX? Hackintoshes aren't that impressive either.

Building a computer isn't that hard, provided that you do your homework beforehand and RTFM before building. I have what is called by medical professionals "sausage fingers", and it still only took me ~3 hours to physically build my first "homemade" computer.

Of course, I spent ~100 hours with research and preparations beforehand, but better that then ending up like this guy...

My current home system is about 5 years old. I built it myself and went way over my needs in the specifications so that it would last at least 5 years. Despite its age, it's still way over powered for the things I do, which is typical online crap and video games. Since I bought it I've had to replace two parts. The video card died, so I was forced to upgrade to a newer and faster model (oh, darn). A few months ago the power supply died and required a replacement. Even if it were under powered, I could just replace the two dual-core processors with quad-cores (yes, the motherboard supports that).

mcmnky: Did you have to configure IRQ settings?

If not, your PC was not hard to build.

Did you optimize your conventional memory manually?

If you used QEMM, congratulations, you're an MCSE. :P