Hi all, I've been thinking of moving away from pre-built computers and putting one together myself. From what I have seen, some manufaturers build Pcs with either cheap parts or build them poorly. The trouble is that I really dont know where to start. I've always been into computers but I've never been brave enough to put one together myself. I've found a couple of guides on the net (what looks like a good one at tomshardware) and I'm wondering if any of you guys out there could point me in the direction of some good ones or offer advice? Thanks very much, Steve
Wlecome to Bit! I'm sure Myself and others will be glad to point you in the right direction! I suppose the first question to really ask is what would you be using the PC for? and what budget are you on? As this could help us guide you into the wonderful world of components.
if you really havent got an idea where to plug bits in and where to put things the best idea is to find pictures of pc's and ideally have one next you so you can see how it all fits together. however i may be teaching you how to suck eggs so sorry about that lol. you cant really go far wrong tho tbh, and if you have any problems the internet is only a on button away
Great stuff. Should probably have mentioned that I've got a good idea of what I want in the box. It's mostly a gaming, dvd movie watching and photoshop machine. My current machine has served me well but it's time it was retired to the position of spare machine in the corner SO here's what I'm looking at... Black Cooler Master Mystique 631 Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Asus P5B-V 2 gigs of either Corsair Twin2x 6400 DDR2 (C4 if i can get it) or OCZ Platinum 6400 DDR2 OCZ Technology Powersupply ATX/EPS 600W - I want this pc to be quiet with power to spare for future additions Gainward GeForce 7950GT 256MB DDR3 - very quiet X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 320GB Seagate Barracuda SATA2 Creative Inspire T-6100 Speakers XP Pro I plan to use the above with my current dual monitor setup (one new 22" wide and my 3 year old 18") and my recently purchased Logitech Mx5000 I've priced the above at about 1700 euros ( think thats under 1200 sterling or so ) My main concern is that since im putting it together myself I want to be sure I've picked a good combo of parts and that I dont break them when I'm putting it together. I know where to stick the bits mostly (seen the insides of a few machines), just not how to set it up so that it doesnt explode
Props on the case choice you seem to know what your looking for because everything looks hunky dory to me! Most of the build is a case of plonking in the bits! You just need to know where your plonking them! i.e how does your memory sit with that mobo? - read the manual (an often overlooked procedure that can save your hardware from damage) Also, to increase heat transfer, you'll want to route your cables as best you can! if it's a modular psu - great, if it isn't, hide those extra cables somewhere (most tend to route them into the drive bay!) You might want to see how many fans this case has, and how man it's shipped with (often you'll get a case with 4-6 available fan mounts, but recieve only 2 fans) to aid with cooling. A good heatsink is pretty much a necessary requirement as stock coolers don't cut it if you ever overclock! The rest is just fiddling round in the BIOS really, ensuring youv'e set all your drives correctly - masters and slaves etc! There are some lengthy details on how to set your BIOS in the motherboards manual, and i really suggest reading it for a first timer.
Thanks for the quick replies 'Props on the case choice' - It's a beauty isnt it. With one of those I wont have to be jealous of my brother and his sexy black wavemaster The case comes with 2 x 120mm fans as far as I remember and the power supply isnt modular (although the new Corsair ones are, might look into that) You make it sound much less difficult than I'd feared. What about installing the OS? Have we reached the 'stick the cd in and let it do the rest' stage yet?
Installing windows these days is as simple as making Tea, well, i find it is anyway. As far as i know and someone please, correct me if im wrong, you will need SATA drivers before installing windows, so you will need a floopy disk running, so you need the bios set to read from HDD or CD/DVD first in the boot priority, with that set plonk the disk in and wait, some need you to press "any key" other dont so watch out, when windows starts the installation, watch the bottom, if it says "Press F6 to install third party raid and scsi drivers" and you have a floopy disk, press F6, its pretty straight forward from there, im sure someone else can add to my small tellings. Hope this helps, and oh, welcome to bit-tech You made the best choice Sam
When I started getting into building I didn't know much either. but I swear to God 90%+ of it is just knowing good manufacturers and which components to choose, that is the real art. The actual building is a tiny part of it and it's pretty damn easy.
sam killer is right, although i believe you can skip the part with the floppy unless your installing a raid setup or SCSI drives, when i put my PC together, ui literally put the CD in, and it booted straight to the format/install screen =) Just a pointer, when you are ready to intall windows, make sure you set the primary boot device to your DVD drive (this is simple, its just a bios task, no more than 5 steps really) and then save the bios and exit, windows will do the rest. Follow the instructions to format your drive etc etc. When you are done, to decrease the time it takes to boot, make your Hard Drive the primary boot device! You'll want to make sure you install in the following way (always ignor the found new hardware icon) All necessary Mobo+Chipset drivers> Processor driver(if you require one)> Display drivers+Sound drivers. It's rare, but occasionally installing in a dodgey order can cause unforseeable problems with the PC. EDIT: oh and its necessary to run a few benchmark tests to ensure that nothing is faulty etc! So you have optimum time to RMA a faulty component. Try PCMark (all tests, i.e triangles etc) to test the graphics, Orthos to make sure you haven't set up your CPU And Memory in the bios wrong (12 hours minimum really) thats about all i can think of. Good luck with your build!
Good product list, should run like a dream. Yeah most custom shops you pay to build you a machine will stick things like q-tec psu's in to cut costs, and other such things. Putting a computer together is relativly difficult to fluff up, unless you clean the motherboard with a static cloth, or put it together on a carpet wearing just socks. Or put it together in a puddle. You will be fine, from what i've seen the largest error many people make on the first build is to be sure to cover the raised motherboard fixing points with the insultated caps with the case(the ones not in use) to stop shorting it out. Good Luck, Welcome to the addiction
Switch the OCZ GXS 600 with a Seasonic S12-EP 550 or 650. They're more than enough, they're WAY quieter than the OCZ, and they actually fall within ATX spec for ripple.
how about the corsair hx 620? Anybody use one of these or is the S12 better? DriverHeaven, OC3d and even the mighty Bit-Tech seem to think highly of them
The Corsair option(s) are better than any of the OCZ ones. I practiced building my own by taking apart a Dell and then putting it back together On the first time I failed and had to ask a friend for help, but he knew less than I did How is that dual monitor combo working for you? I've got a 20.1" Samsung 204B (4:3 1600 x 1200 max) and want to go dual, but don't want another 204B and am thinking of a 22" widescreen.
Yup, most if not all pata or sata connectors are native, i.e. they are recognisable to Windows and don't require drivers for Windows to see them. Some use other onboard controllers, like SiL or Promise - these more often than not require you to use the drivers off the floppy disk that came with the motherboard (or a utility on the cd to make a floppy disk with the appropriate files on). Vista, in this case, is more flexible as you can load extra drivers from usb devices or another cd, XP is just limited to either a floppy disk or having the driver slipstreamed onto the install cd. As said, you'll probably have to change the boot order in the bios. Just put cdrom before hard drive under the boot menu and then save settings and exit. Then just let it plod through installing. It shouldn't take more than half an hour to install after it's done a full format on the hard drive (best to do it first time round, just in case it has any bad sectors).
The dual monitors are great. I've always been into photoshop and they are the buisness there. Also really handy for watching a movie and browsing the web at the same time, etc. I got myself an iiyama and its quite good. Ok so its a 6 bit panel but I didnt have the huge money for a samsung and have yet to notice any real image quality issues
I only mentioned installation of RAID or SCSI drivers as i had to, it was a warning that you may need to, thanks for the info kenco and overdosedelusion, hope i can get a new board that means i dont need to mess around finding a floopy drive Sam
All sounds good to me. As long as you have access to the internet and take your time to build it (i.e. do your homework), then building a PC is easy.
I've been thinking about adding a non-stock cpu cooler. Maybe a coolermaster Mars or something like that. Any recommendations? I don't plan on overclocking the cpu at the moment but I might as well plan for the future Oh and im considering the 320 t166 Samsung or Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB instead of the seagate as they are supposed to be even less noisey.
