"Build it yourself, it's easy!"

[vilhelm1992]

if it hasnt alrdy been said yet just buy the parts and get a local computer shop to put it toether for a small fee.. overall its alot cheaper then buying pre-made

[Xamffer]

Read the manual? Wth? That's for women.

[Malagan]

I'm no child, but I've never had an anti-virus.
I grew so tired of the warnings and pop-ups 'cause I could still not do much about it,
and the free trials expired and what-not.

Every time I get a trouble I just reformat windows.
Problem = solved.

[Cinderwild]

Does anyone know a good resource to learn as much as possible about computer parts, etc.? It could be websites or a book or something, but I am interested in this subject and would like to know more.

[sinofasin]

I buy my parts and send it to the tech to mount everything up. takes like 20 dollars, worth it imo

[Arteous]

manufacutred systems:

Pro-

1. Warranty covers everything send it back to get it fixed.

2. you know it will all work together out of the box (90% of the time)

3. it's working out of the box.

4. recovery system inplace to reset the pc out of the box software wise.


con-

1. When it breaks you have no pc and have to send it back. if you build your own systems you can usually swap back a piece and keep runing while waiting on a part.

2. upgrading can be a pain in the ass .. new video card yaay .. wait i need a new power supply because the cheap ass one inside barely can keep up with the hardware inside.

3. paying extra 800 bucks for a brand name stamped on the case. (i just paid 900 bucks for basically an i7 950 with 6 gigs ddr3 ram (board capable of suporting up to 3 nvidia or ati cards working in tandem 850 watt supply 1 gig sata drive) after market cooler and great cooler master case (4 case fans for better air cooling .. case supports water cooling if i decide to do it.) see how much that would cost you from alienware (dell's gaming department). tack on another 200 bucks to my price for a videocard and you're still coming in alteast 900 bucks under their price.

end result i'd rather build it myself allways.

and if having some kind of recovery system is the lynch pin .. those are free and available out there. My motherboard even comes with a utility to set it up AND use the bios to restore it. (first physical drive must be the hard drive with the operating system. leave some un partitioned space and boot with the dvd after the os is insztalled. then use that to back up the drive. google search gigabyte express recovery 2.

you will find a little extra effort you put in to understand and maintain that pc will go a long ways and save you alot of money. sometimes i think i should get some people together and setup a gaming pc service locally.

[Lovestar]

I've replaced every part in my system(s) myself so I'm not very intimidated by working inside the case.

Except for the CPU/heatsink. There's something about that part that just scares the hell out of me. I still haven't been able to bring myself to experiment with applying thermal grease and then risking sticking the mobo/CPU/cooler together.

That's the one thing that makes me hold off building a new one completely on my own.

[souplix]

Building a computer, relatively easy, considering what these machine's do for us it's amazing how it works with a handful of components. What I personally find difficult is when you get all your new shiny parts in and they look amazing, and you think how well everything is going to work, and you've been building computers for years, and you hook everything up and do it all by the book...

...and then it doesn't turn on. The game of, which one of these working parts isn't working, is the reason why most people go bald. Now you figure it takes a certain amount of knowledge to know, "This is where ram goes" it takes a lot more experience to see what is a common problem and what is likely the culprit.

[Jest]

I've replaced every part in my system(s) myself so I'm not very intimidated by working inside the case.

Except for the CPU/heatsink. There's something about that part that just scares the hell out of me. I still haven't been able to bring myself to experiment with applying thermal grease and then risking sticking the mobo/CPU/cooler together.

That's the one thing that makes me hold off building a new one completely on my own.

This is exactly how I feel about my own builds. I'm fine with pretty much every other aspect of building a rig on my own.. but the CPU and Heatsink are incredibly intimidating.

[Xuvial]

Today stock heatsinks come with with a pre-applied blob of thermal grease. Most heatsinks also come with 1-push-locks on all their buttons. You put the chip in (it can only go in one way lol), latch it, put the heatsink on top, press all 4 locks in (two at a time diagonally). It's literally foolproof.
Unless you're talking about aftermarket coolers, yeah those sound like they can become huge pains when you have to take out your entire mobo and sometimes you need the help of another person to get the bracket+heatsink on.

[Lovestar]

Unless you're talking about aftermarket coolers, yeah those sound like they can become huge pains when you have to take out your entire mobo and sometimes you need the help of another person to get the bracket+heatsink on.

That's pretty cool to know about the stock sinks, actually. But I've been put under the impression (from browsing discussions) that stock cooling systems are generally inadequate compared to aftermarket solutions. So I assumed it was par for the course to have to clean the stock grease off, apply Arctic Silver (or w/e), make sure it coats evenly without air bubbles/etc, and then rivet the whole thing down like a construction worker.

It all seems like a scary amount of spreading, hacking, and banging for something which is ostensibly a delicate and highly-sensitive component, on top of doing it all with your mobo as the work surface. Now granted I've never had the nerve to actually touch my CPUs, so my worries may be exaggerated.

[Wheeler]

When someone says that to me, I ask them if they'd like to build it for me for a moderate fee. They almost always say "Uhh...well", and politely decline.

[Stixxz]

touching the radiator before you touches ya hardware says hi :P works like a charm =)

Same with touching PC case works.