• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Building my first pc

D

deadman_uk

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 30, 2003
Messages
2,036
I have a pc (specs are in the sig) but my dad is looking to buy his first ever pc and wants to buy one from the highstreet. I said dont do that, its really expensive and you arent getting value for money. I said buy the parts seperately so that is what he is going to do.

I said i would build it for him but i dont have alot of experience in building, the only thing i have done in terms of hardware is installing a video card, ram and hard drive.

So my first question is how easy is it to build a pc? I could take the parts to a shop but I want to learn how to build one, so what should i be careful about?

my second question is, I am not sure how powerful i should make the pc, i was thinking around the lines of this...

AMD Athlon 3000+ 64bit 939
MSI Neo2 Motherboard
512mb PC2700 RAM
Radeon 9600XT 256mb
120GB Hard drive

He wants it to surf the internet, edit photos and play average games. Is this pc a good choice to build?
 
That would be a pretty good system. The PC3200 RAM is needed cuz an Athlon 64 system uses a 200mhz bus, and PC2700 is rated for 166 mhz. A better vid card may be a 9800 pro. cuz I don't think they are that much more expensive, and that will last a bit longer, but the 9600xt should be good enough. Also, the 256 meg on the 9600xt is kinda useless. Building a pc is actually the easy part, mostly cuz everything will only fit one way. If you just look at everything, you will be able to find where it goes, just dont force anything into the board. The hardest part is configuring it and setting all your hardware up for the OS, and how to fix problems you may run into, such as attaching the heatsink wrong and having the pc shut off in 5 seconds.
 
Just remember to make sure your heatsink is attached properly to the processor, and dont force anything. ...and you should be set.
 
Installing the processor is what im worried about.. does anyone have any links that can help me with this?
 
deadman_uk said:
Installing the processor is what im worried about.. does anyone have any links that can help me with this?
Click to expand...

Not sure if you get PC Gamer (magazine) in the UK but as a special "Winter Edition" they have "The PC Building Bible." Besides going over every component, it has a 21-step plan showing how to build a PC, complete with detailed write-ups and pictures. At $10 USD it's a little steep price-wise but I picked it up anyway since I'll be doing my first build next week as well.
 
I think there is a newer version of pc gamer out now.

Hmmm could it be possible for you to scan the pc building pages of the magazine with a scanner and post them on here? the mods could then make this a sticky thread and it would help so many people out who are like me.
 
bro no offense but "search" or google, i'm sure would come up with a billion basic guides to building a rig
 
deadman_uk said:
I think there is a newer version of pc gamer out now.

Hmmm could it be possible for you to scan the pc building pages of the magazine with a scanner and post them on here? the mods could then make this a sticky thread and it would help so many people out who are like me.
Click to expand...

I just don't know if that will constitute a violation of copyright laws. If the mods say it's fine, I won't mind doing it.
 
Price out the system and make sure that you are really getting a better value. On this side of the pond you can often buy a PC for less than the cost of building one (or darn close). If you need help choosing parts, I highly recommend the system guides that almost every computer website puts out this time of year. The guides will help you make sure that your components are compatible and that you don't buy junk.

You might start with this one:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njg4

The folks over at Ars put out a nice guide also:
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/system-guide-200411.ars

Search Google for 'how to build a pc' and you will find a few very good 'how to' sites.
 
Installing the processor is what im worried about.. does anyone have any links that can help me with this?
Click to expand...
A64's are sooooooooooooo easy to install, well they were for me...Compared to say, a Duron
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top