So you’ve decided which components you want, but do you know exactly how to put the computer together? What goes where and what clips into what, this guide is intended to put your mind at rest and make it easy to build that PC of your dreams.
Component Selection
Building your own PC means you can handpick all components in your system. You can ensure you get good, name brand hardware which will have proper manufacturer support and driver support.
Price
In general, you can get more bang for your buck building your own PC. In many cases, you will find equally priced and comparable PCs, where one is pre-built and one would be homebuilt. You can buy PCs cheaper than you can build them, but when you consider the hardware choices within, the price is offset in favour of homebuilt. One thing to consider here is the value of your time. If you are a very busy person where time is money, then you most likely want to buy a pre-built PC. If you don’t mind taking the time, though, you can do better doing it yourself.
Support
The good news for do-it-yourselfers is that the community of people who do this kind of thing themselves is increasing. There is a lot of data on the internet, and community sources for assistance. I’m compelled to mention TSR Tech, where a community is available to help you out with your PC concerns and troubles.
Warranty
If you buy good name brand hardware, most of the components will themselves have warranties.
Software
Pre-built PCs often come with much software on it, most importantly the operating system itself. The actual price of the software is pretty good, because manufacturers get great deals on this software because they buy in bulk. On the flip side, though, these PC’s sometimes come with too much software (also known as ‘bloatware’) meaning garbage that you do not want and just clutters the hard drive and bugs you to hell. It can be quite annoying. On homebuilt PC’s, you might pay a little more for the software per unit, but you will get what you want and only what you want, plus you can set it up how you want.
I’m a big fan of the homebuilt PC. I’ve never used a PC I didn’t build myself. I think it’s a huge money saver. In my case, I build it myself, and then as technology progresses, I incrementally upgrade the machine. This saves a lot of money in the long run, because with a pre-built commercial machine, once it goes out of date, you pretty much need to start anew with a new PC.
Attached is a guide written for anybody wishing to build their own PC but not knowing exactly how to construct the PC.
(is it worth mentioning the CPU/HS can be done after putting the mobo in the case? (I prefer doing it this way due to paranoia about static - although it's more fiddly to do)
(is it worth mentioning the CPU/HS can be done after putting the mobo in the case? (I prefer doing it this way due to paranoia about static - although it's more fiddly to do)
You can put the motherboard in before the rest or afterwards, it really doesn't matter and I suppose it depends on how big the case is.
As long as you take the right precautions, it doesn't matter which way you do it.
I'd say for a beginners guide, making it less fiddly by doing it outside of the case will make it more suitable.
definitely need to add more detail about the ESD, although it is mentioned you should touch an unpainted metallic object at one point to ground yourself.
I'd be pretty confident however following that guide to assemble my next PC.
one question is, how do you tell what direction a fan is blowing/sucking air when its not on?
I'd say for a beginners guide, making it less fiddly by doing it outside of the case will make it more suitable.
definitely need to add more detail about the ESD, although it is mentioned you should touch an unpainted metallic object at one point to ground yourself.
I'd be pretty confident however following that guide to assemble my next PC.
one question is, how do you tell what direction a fan is blowing/sucking air when its not on?
The plastic 'beams' will be on one side of the fan indicating air flow direction, i.e. the air is blown in the direction of the plastic supports.
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[GUIDE]: PC Construction
Re: [GUIDE]: PC Construction
It is truly a heinous crime of typography.
