How long to build the system?

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Funky_Junk

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 1, 2005
Messages
353
Im getting ready to build my rig and was wondering how much time I should set aside to complete the build from start to finish. (Not including any drivers or software) Thanks.
 
First time 1 hour (not including troubleshooting, if needed, most likely this will occur with software)
Second time 30 minutes
Third time 15 minutes
Fourth Time < 10 minutes
Goodluck! Have fun! And take your time going through piece by piece. Learn where everything connects. Read every connector and jumper labels on the board. Spend an hour or so before just looking through everything and doign a dry setup, making sure you have every piece. The worst part about your first build is realizing your missing a stupid cable of nut and then having to hunt one down at some mom and pop high markup store because you "need" that part. It becomes a desire to build.
 
My first complete system build took 6+ hours, but that was because I was dealing with HDs that didn't want to play nice with each other, and had to run out to Wal-Mart to buy a pack of floppies to make a boot disk because the ones I had were corrupted...
 
It really depends on the complexity of the machine. For a "basic" rig- single proc mobo, ram, vid card, 1 HD, 1 DVD, 1 floppy & maybe a modem, not long at all. I've never bothered timing it. Half an hour maybe? Less?
My main rigs usually take a lot longer. Probably a couple hours. Of course the last three have been dual CPU setups w/ 3-4 HDs, 2 opticals & a bunch of cards. Plus I swapped & installed a bunch of fans, etc.
The longest build I've done was my AXP "iMac" conversion (see sig). After taking it apart putting it back together again would take at least a couple hours. If you count all the modding & part making the original build took days, spread out over a couple weeks.
 
General rule of thumb, if you think it will take an hour, double it to give your self some leeway. Also add at least an hour to load the OS and apps.

 
My entire computer took about 2 hours from start to finish. This included opening boxes and unwrapping parts, all the way past installation of parts, and even included installing Windows and drivers. If you have your parts laid out already, it should take no more than an hour. Oh, and I even managed to clean up the wiring in that 2 hours. The longest part of my setup was re-routing all the cables. I guess it also depends on how easy to work with your case is. Drive rails are a godsend.
 
Wow you guys all work pretty quick. In school when I had to rebuild computers(took Cisco/HP IT essentials last year) it took me maybe half an hour. But when I build my own computer, it usually takes me at least an hour if i don't run into problems.
 
If you're a first time builder set aside at least 2 hours, take your time and make sure everything is done right. Trying to do it too fast with little experience is how things get fried or physically damaged. I've built/rebuilt thousands of machines and it takes me about 10 minutes now start to finish.
 
Ground yourself :D

Takes me anywhere from 25 min to 1 hour plus depending on what I'm working with
 
Set aside an hour or two.. little bit longer if you're like me and like to gawk at and play with all the pretty things before they go inside the box.

Then you need a couple hours to troubleshoot, then format the HD and install the OS, then install all the patches and crap like that.

You can easily spend a good day or so doing this.
 
Took me longer to install windows on a SATA hard drive with no floppy drive than anything else...lol.
 
Building can take minutes... Troubleshooting can take hours. Write that and remember it :p
 
Phranq said:
Took me longer to install windows on a SATA hard drive with no floppy drive than anything else...lol.
Click to expand...
funny, i did that exact smae thing last week.
it sucked.
about 4 hours of trying workarounds, i finally just dug out a floppy drive and cable and plugged it in.

its a bitch.

-randyc
 
I usually go all meticulous with the wiring and such, so it takes me like 1 - 1.5 hours. If I'm just throwing things in there, maybe 20 minutes.
 
if its your first build it will take a while, b/c youll probably make mistakes similar to most of us on our first build ( cough fogetting to connect the power button wire )
 
If this is your first time, have at least a spare month to put it together. So that means, have ALL your hardware on hand, and then give it a month to put it together, make sure it works right, send back any borken parts, get the software up and running perfectly, make sure its stable, etc.

The actual building of it might take you a few days if you are really carful, take your time, and do some good wire managment stuff.

Some things are easy, like putting in the memory, video card....... etc. Some things are harder, especially if its your first time like putting on the heat sink with thermal grease, attaching the motherboard to the case, etc.

Always expect some stuipd little thing to take a long time to fix.... that's what I've found out. It could be the smallest thing, like the darn heat sink bracket does'nt fit with your motherboard when you try and screw it in..... or something random like that.

It's worth it in the end though, for sure!

~Good luck
 
K10 said:
is this an issue with all SATA drives?
Click to expand...

When Windows XP was written SATA was still not standardized yet, so it doesn't see SATA drives during install. I don't even think it does with a slipstreamed Service Pack 2 on it. I've even heard of people who slipstream SATA drivers into their Windows XP install disc.

SATA and BIOS are the main reasons I still have a floppy drive today.
 
well i tried for 4 days to install without drivers...i lost

just one key to building, buy quality parts

a $25 480w power supply is as good as dead :)
 
I usually take about six to eight hours per system build - long, I know, but I like to take my time when I'm dealing with $2000 worth of anything... :eek: It wouldn't be good to press the power button, only to find nothing works because you shorted out the mobo.
 
BillLeeLee said:
When Windows XP was written SATA was still not standardized yet, so it doesn't see SATA drives during install. I don't even think it does with a slipstreamed Service Pack 2 on it. I've even heard of people who slipstream SATA drivers into their Windows XP install disc.

SATA and BIOS are the main reasons I still have a floppy drive today.
Click to expand...

It depends on the SATA controller. For raid or separate chips, you'll probably need a driver disk. A lot of the chipset integrated ones are IDE compatible though, and will work just fine with the standard MS IDE driver. Of course, it won't see the drives as being SATA until you install the driver. It'll think they're PATA drives.
 
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