Building a Computer

Hey everyone. Well, I was studying for my A+ cert for a while, then kinda slowed down. But now, I wanna get back into it, and everyone tells me that hands on experience is an unparalleled benefit in studying for the test. It just so happens, I need a new computer soon too, because I may be moving out of my parents house, and its their computer,

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So I plan on building my computer from scratch, to get the hands on experience, and what I want to know, is if anyone knows a good, step-by-step tutorial I can use as a reference while i'm building? I've studied the books, but if I'm going to be building a computer on my own, I want something I can check as I'm going along. any references would be very helpful, thanks guys!

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Comments

bellboy

http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/ seems to be pretty good.

to be honest, i just started my first build with no real experience. i had previously put a mobo and 486 cpu i bought via ebay into a 286 case, and that was about it.

the hardest thing was probably getting the operating system onto my early builds. this was back in the days of windows 95 when i started, and i had to create cd-rom specific boot discs (those were the days), and in one particular machine (it may have been the one with the 2nd user 486 cpu and board), i had to borrow a friend's copy of windows 95 on floppy as the boot disc didn't recognise the i/o on the soundcard that was being used by the cd-rom (i probably didn't write the config.sys and autoexec.bat correctly, to be honest).

have fun!

axis_D

hey, thanks alot..it seems like a really good source, I'll let ya know how it goes!

carbunkle

also for buying parts I only buy from newegg.com really low prices and best customer service around.

axis_D

..newegg.com? Are the parts still good quality? how do they get the prices so low?

bellboy

economies of scale i guess. there's a firm that operates in the uk called ebuyer.com and theyir prices can be half that normally expected, but i assume it's coz they buy so many at once, getting discount from their supplier and then passing the items on to the consumers with little mark-up (if any) as a marketing exercise, as it will entice the customers to buy more products at the same time.

carbunkle

yeah just about any online retailer will sell for a lot less then a regular store.

wowitfoth

I bought a tower w/cdrom ,windows 95, 15"Mon., KeyBoard, mouse for $5.00 at a garage sale. I destroyed all software and booted it and everything ran. I picked some meaty files and hit delete!BLUESCREEN! DEAD! I wanted no shortcut. I had never been inside a PC at all! My sony Vaio prior to that was my first computer. I was scared to even open! Anyways I had it gutted and lying on a card table. I took my time looking and writing every number,model or brand. I was living with my sister and I found everything I needed online with her p.c. .Drivers, manuels,etc. . She let me have copies of her software. I knew as long I got to the bios I was fine. I had a Pentium Pro,4Gb. SeaGate SCSI HDD,64Mb. Ram! Smokin!LOL! , I found another SeaGate 2Gb, 2Blks. from my sister for $20.00!(luck) It had daul drives,Soundcard,PCI USB (For the optical mouse)I was also cautious of wasting money on it. It was a dual boot system. WIN98SE and WIN2000 Pro. ! Full works suite,Adobe Photo,Etc. I was shocked how much I got on it! I had it on a cable modem and I was really proud of that! Best five dollars I ever spent. I did the same for this one. Only I spent $250 used Duron750 overclocked 933! Now It is Athlon XP 1800+,256Mb! I have less than $400 In it now and it rocks! I want A+ now cause My Dream machine costs more than I can afford! GoodLuck Get the recycler classifieds good deals bored people!

Lexxdymondz

my personal favorite http://www.tigerdirect.com

Chadae

I like http://www.HardDrive.com. Im thinking about building my dream computer too.

Ghent

http://www.pcboost.com has the cheapest name-brand motherboards, cpu's, and RAM I've seen anywhere.

Chadae

would anyone say that it costs more to build a computer from scratch from lets say buying one from lets say dell, gateway or hp??

Ghent

Comparatively, yes. If you look at the prices to build exactly the same pc you get from dell, 3Ghz P4, 512MB PC2700 RAM, 80GB HD, WinXP Pro, and plasma monitor, your looking to spend a lot more then dell charges.

RussS

Depends on your source and the quality of parts. My latest cost about the same as a Dell, but I had a lot of high end parts rather than cheaper stuff.
The biggest things about building a PC yourself is not a cost thing, but the ability to customise it as you require. My first from scratch build was an Abit BX-133 and I still have that machine running sweetly. Started with a 600 celeron and now runs a PIII 1.something. This box had soft-switch jumpers which allowed me to play with different clock speeds and learn about overclocking relatively safely. Also had a RAID controller so I was able to configure RAID for my certification learning. Have put it in a couple of different cases over the years and now have it in an old server case and have 3 IDE removable drive bays in it and have a range of drives with everything from pure DOS up to XP and also a couple different version of *nix and one with Netware.

bellboy

i agree that a home-built system can cost as much as a bought system. but you do usually find that the spec will be better in the home-built system.