Hey guys, I am waiting for the December "What Hardware to Buy" to create a "Premium Build". I have been discussing it with my father as I am willing to spend up to 2,000 US $ on this. I will not be buying a monitor (unless there is a sweet deal on a big one somewhere), keyboard, mouse, speakers, headphones, or graphics card. So all other components are game...basically everything that goes in the tower. Here is why I am writing: My dad is giving me a hard time saying that if I custom build a PC and something goes wrong, the different manufacturers will say "so-and-so" is the problem, not ours. For example he said if you get a harddrive error the HD company will say it is the motherboard, the motherboard company will say it is the RAM, the RAM company will say it is the HD etc.... I don't want to make him mad, but I really want to build my own PC so I can get the power I want for a better price than buying a pre-built one. Which is what he wants me to buy...an $1800 prebuilt computer. I am not stupid and can read directions and forums, but I have not built my own PC before. Like I said I am going to get the parts from the "What Hardware to Buy", if i can find them in stock, so I know that they will all be compatible, and I am going to post a setup here for scrutiny. How "safe" is building your own pc, Error/problem wise? Thanks Oh ps, if anyone has any recommendations for a pre-built high end computer, link me please.
Its fairly straight forward if your not an idiot basically its matching the square peg with the square hole.. I've had the same machine running for 5 years and never had an issue, where as i've heard horror stories of dells et al back to the shop every few weeks and others which work fine from the day they are turned on. Only advantage is the warranty is for the box not the part so if something fails you don't need to dissemble the whole thing to get to the faulty ram for example
Asus, corsair, cooler master etc have individual warranties on their parts though, right? So if I had a problem I could send it in within the 1 or 2 year warranty period?
Every component will have its own warranty, yes. Ive never had a problem with warranty issues, If you get a faulty graphics card its up to the graphics manufacturer to replace it for example A lot or warranties are dealt with the place you bought them from for the first year though. Custom built computers dont come with any of the crapware that, prebuilts have preinstalled. With a prebuilt your basically paying for the convenience, and the aftersales support. But id bet that sending a pre built back for warranty, would take longer than if you had to send a single part back from your custom build.
the only problem i face when build a custom pc is if there is an error and you do not have another part to test with. i.e. in my 1156 build my motherboard had a problem but was it my memory motherboard or cpu or psu? because i had no other 1156 motherboard i could only presume it was the motherboard but with experience i was fairly confident low and behold i RMA'd it and a week later i had a new motherboard and everything is fine 95% of the time if you research your parts well you will have no problems but every so often you will get a bad part. but are custom pcs reliable , hell yeah i still have 8 year old machines working very well for me i doubt many pre built would do that
I was in the same position as you: 1st build and petrified that it won't work. I would suggest making sure you get your components from reliable retailers with good, easy RMA policies. My main fear was that I would turn it on and it nothing would happen. It would REALLY help to have spare components so you can test if the whole thing doesn't work. Also, might be worthwhile making the most basic system 1st (PSU, motherboard, CPU, RAM and hard disk) just to see if it works. Then add graphics card. Test. Add cooling and sorted! As long as you go slow and don't force anything, it's not easy to break components during assembly. Most things only fit one way into one place.
Are they reliable? Well, yes and no. Let me explain. On my first build, I bought a mobo/cpu combo from a site, then ram, then hdd, then etc. However, the mobo/cpu combo was not compatible with each other. So, in this instance, the reliability issue was user error / inexperience. Sure the website marketed them poorly, but I really had no idea what I was doing. As for the actual part reliability, to date I have never had a piece of equipment fail before 3 yrs. I take the appropriate precautions when building a computer... anti static wrist band, etc. So if it were to not work, I'd know instantly. Also, when you order your components, be sure to inspect the warranty from the reseller and the manufacturer. For instance, some manufacturers of monitors have a minimum broken pixel number that must be met before it's considered defective. You could have 6 busted pixels scattered through the middle of your screen irritating you to no end, but since it wasn't the magic number of 7 then your RMA is pointless. Just do the proper research and/or buy from dealers you trust and it won't be an issue. Like I said, the only time it was an issue for me was my own mistake. I've never had a faulty component.
I get the kids in our school to build the PC's. I order the bits, but they put them together. Ages ranging from 11 to 16 Last set of athlon 64's are going strong at around 4 years old, and only just getting replaced. I expect this set to last just as long. The kids building them have supervision from myself, but still dosen't chgange the fact that a PC built by a 11 year old has lasted 4 years, in a school and been used almost every day....... BTW. the school is EBD, so they get a hard life
This is good advice: don't choose each component individually according to the cheapest supplier you can find; be happy to pay a bit extra to use a single supplier or a small number with good reputations. People who will answer the phone and hear you out when the system doesn't work but you can't tell which bit is the problem. Makes life much easier if you are hesitant or don't have spares to swap out and prove which part is faulty.
I would also recommend you buy all of your components around about the same time, this way you can start building straight away and not have some of your bits sitting about in their boxes whilst you wait for some vital component to arrive. You should also set some time aside for the actual build and test and make sure you don't have any interruptions or places to be/things to do. There is nothing worse than having to rush something that you haven't built before, you can end up either making a mistake , damaging somthing or bypassing a step and saying you'll get back to it and forgetting about it. Best things I can say have already been said but here goes:- Buy good quality components, make sure you understand where they all go and how they fit, have good quality tools for the assembly, make sure you have enough workspace to not only do the build but to lay out the components as well, be careful with the delecate parts (especially the CPU pins), if a part doesn't fit are you sure your putting in in the correct place/correct way round?, read the fitting/fixing insutructions but be aware they may contain misprints (unlikely but I have seen it before) and last of all take your time during the build. Good luck, take your time and it should all go well, I can't begin to tell you the immense satisfaction you will feel when you turn on the power switch and the bios kicks in. I'll never forget just how good it felt when my first build lit up perfectly first time.
If you buy good quality stuff, handle, install and cool it properly it will run until it's obsolete (not taking into account murphys law, which occasionally dogs even the best of us).
So what's the etc? Is it overkill to use both a wrist strap and an anti-static mat, or is it sufficient to just use a wrist strap with the mobo/components resting on an anti-static bag (that's not grounded)?
Oh, a wrist strap is all that is necessary, assuming the strap is grounded. My "etc." is because I have access to anti-static VCT w/ static dissipative wax, grounded tables, and a wrist strap. Completely overkill for throwing together a PC.
i just build my pc next to a radiator and keep touching that every time i have moved some where has done the trick for me
here recomended companys motherboards-evga/asus/gigabyte ram-ocz/corsair/geli gpu-xfx(double life time warrenty) psu-ultra or thermalmake case-lancool/coolermaster/nzxt/silverstone/lian li/antec cpu cooler-antec/zalman/sythe/thermalright/coolermaster i would recomend building your own i have built 3 of my own and never had problems... i look up parts 2-3 months in advance and compair prices and pros and cons to decide what to get
A good point here is the 2-3 months of planning. It allows you to get all your ducks in a row and, in some cases, for prices to drop while you're verifying. Also, personal preference and experience with various companies differs amazingly. For starters, AMD vs Intel. People tend to be loyal to one side or the other, regardless of the actual computing power. (My own opinion is that G.Skill is another company you can count on for your memory needs, even though grritsshawn didn't list it) What I would also do... I would spend some time snooping around reviews. This can be really tricky in that you can get swept up over something minuscule, BUT if you see on a particular company's website a 50 page post regarding an error on a specific motherboard, I would avoid that motherboard. Not the company, but that particular product. And when you're also looking at reviews, take everything with a grain of salt. If 900 people say the product is fantastic, and 10 say it "never worked." I would assume that the product is very reliable.
I would disagree - overclocked, high-end hardware is inherently more likely to be unreliable compared to run-of-the-mill pre-built systems which don't really stretch the components.
