So how did you start building your computer

So how did you guys start? Did you all of a sudden want to build your own computer so you built it? lol Where did you learn how to do build a computer with all this mumbojumbo. So... how hard is it to build a computer? I want to build me one for gaming so bad it hurts me. I don't start to build me one for a lot of reason one being that I ship out to bootcamp in 2 months! so I wont be here for some time. The other one is money, I want the to build something that will run every PC game on the highest setting and right now I don't think I could build me one that will do that with a few dollars.

to the forums!!

I had started building my computers around the time I broke one. It was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 (serial number 000010100 mind you ) I thought there was something that would make it better. Tried to install another Keyboard in it as the old ones were crap. after totally ruining that comp I did get one installed at great expense. never really stopped from there.

I see you are going into the military. I been there, don dat too! believe me, you wont have any time to think of building a compy. I wouold say save up while you are enlisted and then you can of course gain the skills and knowhow to build. Then with the savings, build yourself the biggest, baddest rig you want (within your budget and reason! ).

Well at the time the only thing I could afford was a the cheapest dell which had a celeron running somewhere around 1ghz, so one sundey my mom tells me about a computer store and I went to check it out, it was more like a storage room with a couple of prebuild computers and some boxes around. Eventhough I had never done it before I decided to build my own pc and bought the parts and built it, it worked perfectly for a year which was when I found these forums and started upgrading it. My first pc had a shuttle Ak35gt/r with a Athlon xp 1800+ 256mb of some generic pc2100 ram, a geforce 2 mx200, 350w psu that came with case, and the weeks after I got cable, the 19" monitor which I still use and a 40gb hdd that died about a year ago, everything else came from my old pII. IT was easy, had no problems at all.

I didn't build mine but I will next time

good luck with the boot camp and the pc of course

Wow good thread idea! I remember when I 1st started building... It all started when I got a new computer game for my computer, and my computer couldnt handle it, so I went out and bought a new video card, and installed that by myself, than after that I got a new case, and labeled all the wires from the psu and the mobo and moved everything over to the new case, from their I got a new mobo, than some new cpus, than some new hds etc... The rest is history

I never actually have "built" my computer totally anew. It started out with a pII 300 system that my brother, sister, and I bought from a local computer shop. We kept upgrading and I eventually became the sole owner. While, I never actually replaced every component at once, so you could make the argument that it is just one computer , it is a completely different computer. Everything (except for maybe the floppy and ide cables) is different. Kinda silly, but It works for me.

aeiou said:

..... Kinda silly, but It works for me.

Click to expand...

Nothing silly about Upgrading, Fixing, building or modding your way. In the end, its still all yours!

Firstly, to the forums.

Secondly, how did I get into overclocking?

Well, it all started at the beginning of 2004, when I stumbled across www.overclockers.com. Having read a few of the Beginners Guide to building and overclocking, I found it quite interesting. So I saw the link to this forum at that site, headed over to www.ocforums.com (here) and started reading a few articles.

Building a pc sounds really complex but its really not that hard. Like others here, I was also motivated by the fact that my old Dell was hopeless for playing games.

As for the overclocking - well, I started out quite tentatively, eager to get more performance out of my machine yet afraid I might damage it. However, after asking numerous questions on this forum, my knowledge increased vastly.


The key is that overclocking knowledge isn't something you need to know all at once - you just pick it up step by step, as you need it, from a forum like this. So you might start with just a few slight tweaks, then advance onto something a bit more bold, and a bit more bold after that. Nobody in their right mind would instantly jump straight into water-cooling, for example -with overclocking, you tend to just get bolder as you grow more and more confident over time. Feel free to ask any questions if you need help

The whole thing started before I joined here, about September of last year or so. I decided to do it for the experience to be used for my major (hardware, which appears not to exist at this school; it's all business apps or nothing). Plus I was getting ticked off at my current laptop and wanted something beefier that I would be able to upgrade easily if needed.

I spent a month or two trying to puzzle out my parts list, then read the manuals until I had a fairly good idea of what I was doing. What I couldn't figure out from the manuals I got help with here

I started when I blew a modem in my third, then brand new Packard Hell P75 (yeah one of the first pentiums!). Had to replace the sound card too as they were on the same card! 14400 modem, what a boost.
It came with a pre-release certificate for Windoze95, because it wasn't out yet, but was contracted to be between PB and MS. I mailed it in and they sent me the CD before it hit the shelves.

A year later, I started replacing components in my Dell Dimension with the P133, ya know, a memory upgrade (that first 32 meg stick cost me $99) a high end 5 gig harddrive, then a video card.
That computer also saw my first case modding with cutting out the grilles and adding a cpu duct to the case fan...the heatsinks didn't have fans then.

My first build was an Epox board with an AMD K6-3 400...man what a fun system. Overclocking was a real pain with jumpers, and it was in a customized case with a window and custom paint. It was later also my first watercooled system.
A week after the watercooling was running, they released the 450 and my hunger to keep up was born!

I discovered OC Forums a year later, and haven't looked back.

Haven't built a system yet... will build one for my friend too...

I bought my computer from IBuyPower (Cheap prices, but crappy wiring, they've been getting crap reviews within the last few months )... I customized it fairly well (But I ordered a damned FX5600 =/) and all for only the low price of $1338 ($1 off 1337)

then i found the OCForums around 9-10 months after getting this comp (Dec. 19, 2004), and ive been modding since...

good luck in bootcamp

Yeah, you'll hate/love boot camp. I became a drill corporal in the next cycle, because my brain was rotted away completly by then
But on the bright side, I took my enlistment bonus and bought a motorcycle.

BTW watch your contract closely, I signed up not with the enlistment bonus, but with the college fund. Funny how my copy of the contract says college fund...it's in my closet.

Ya, watch the contract closely (all pages & carbons before you sign) I was supposed to get in for computer programming, Got Telecommunications. ya know...those fools that are first to sit on TOP of the hill and then get taken out! A buddy of mine who signed at the same time for the same thing, ended up Infantry

I started out with a 80486DX 33Mhz, 4MB ram and a Cirrus Logic VESA as my first build-up it was fun and, well all is history nowadays. Once you build, you never stop.

First computer was some old office hunk of junk, think it was a 486, no idea about the rest of it since it was my first foray in PC's. Took 2 days to figure out how install Rise of the Triad. After that came a Packard Bell pentium 150 (16 megs of ram woot). Then a couple Gateways after that. Trouble is, we never had any sort of internet connection up until a couple of years ago (like 5 or 6), so everything I learned had to be sef taught, as I hated reading technical books books. Eventually, taking them apart, putting them back together, fixing them after I broke them doing so, and re-installing Windows 95/98 a gajillion times, you start picking up on stuff.

Built my first PC about 3 and a half years ago, which was on my own money because I was still living with my parents at the time and they didn't trust me enough with their money. Was a Barton 2800+, gig Corsair Value RAM, 9800 Pro, all stock settings. I'm now on my second build with a 3200+ A64, gig OCZ VX Gold, and a 850xt PE on water, currently working to work out it's primo OC numbers

First thing I tried was replacing the video card in a Dell 7 years ago (upgraded to a Diamond Monster II, w00t!). Upon opening the case I was disturbed by the weak fan arraingement so I switched things around a bit and cleaned up the dust.
THEN I tried to upgrade the slot 1 Pentium II with a Celeron 533A on a slotket and the extensive research I did on that change lead me here eventually, although I didn't actually join and post until much later. That was also my first experience with BIOS flashing (which is so much easier now). I used softFSB to push the celeron upto 575mhz which made more of a performance difference from a Pentium II than I could have ever imagined.

And haphazardly my first build was a Socket 7 machine for my sister. I never did manage to get that thing setup correctly and ended up returning the parts. It wasn't until later that I built a Duron 750 based machine for myself that I came to appreciate real overclocking. At the time, building a machine for yourself was nearly half the total cost of a manufactured machine so it was really my only option.

Since then I've built around 50 complete setups.

I remember the very first PC I built from the ground up just to save on cost. Back then a decent PC was still over $1500 and monitor was extra. My first PC in 1991 or 92 was a 33MHz 386sx (DX and any 486's were expensive) plus VGA display with whopping 512k RAM and I had 4MB RAM installed. The only fan were inside the power supply.

I have gone through several builds and rebuilds (one or 2 parts at a time) since then with 486DX-66, 133MHz P1, 266Mhz P2, 500MHz AMD K6-2 (first CPU to be OC'ed), etc etc and currently

I'm on what will be my last: 2.4GHz P4 (OCed to almost 3GHz) It'll be the last because I plan to get 64 bit setup and almost everything I currently have won't be carried over to the new PC. Beside I'm tired of carryoing over some yesterday's hardwares into tomorrow's PC so I'll need more money than usual to replace most of the stuff outright.

New mobo, new RAM, new video card (PCI-e probably), replace 4x +R/RW DVD burner with 8x DL, + and - burner, new cooling setup, etc. My current 17" LCD display is showing some flickers and dropping colors so it will probably need to be replaced ventually. Probably hard drives will be the only ones kept from the old computer.

PS FWIW of everything I've upgraded or replaced, I think the power cord is the only original leftover from 386 era that I'm still using

The year was 1989. I had this high end 80286 PC and while online (1200 Baud modem connected to a BBS*) I was chatting with this guy and he explained to me about OCing my very expensive $3000+ system to a whopping 16 MHz screamer by changing the crystal on the board. So I did and I have been doing it on and off ever since. Why did I want to OC my system? Because this new game, Wing Commander had just came out and it was awesome and I wanted it to run a little smoother and I had tweaked my base 640K as far as I could. I had filled up a 4 banks of my memory an incredible 4 MB of RAM at $100 a Meg. and had even setup a RAM disk to no avail. I even bought a new incredible 1 MB video card. So this was my only option left to try. Anyway I eventually had to migrate it to a new case to help keep it cool. Before I was done I had pretty much replaced every part on the damn thing so I call this the first PC I ever built. My next PC a total powerhouse of a PC 386DX40 I built from scratch.ROFL

*Bulletin Board Service before the Internet really took off and yes before there were forums. LOL

I hated the fact that my parents had just unloaded a bumload of cash for a computer through QVC(1994), and i got bored one day and decided to take the really, really pricey computer, apart.built my own the following year, and have been going ever since. found this place a few years back, and here i am, just completing my first watercooled setup.

Thanks guys.

First I started with swapping floppy drives, hard drives or something like this. Later, I started working at a computer sales company. I told them I could build computers, as I thought I could handle it.

I didn't know how to put in a motherboard though, as I've never done it before, but I knew the rest. So hehe, the first day I wasn't sure how to put it in and the boss was like ... you don't know ? I thought you said you could. Well, they showed me how to do it, and I took it from there.

I wanted to build more computers but they wouldn't let me. I worked at shipping and receiving instead. Finally there was one day when someone didn't show up, or they needed an extra person on computer assembly, so they let me assembly computers for a day. That was so cool ! That's what I wanted to do when I joined the company.

Well, that was for one day. Later, I joined another company, where I was fixing up computers that were broken in some way. There were a LOT of computers to fix. I think I pretty much fixed all of them. That's where I kinda got my computer assembly fix. Then I've decided that I've had enough. I wouldn't do it for a business or anyone in any large or small quantities. Now I do it just for myself and maybe relatives if they ask.
built a more than a few computers for myself, some for my business.

So, .. it's not hard to build a computer. For me the first time the hardest part was how to put in the motherboard, how to set all the jumpers, and how to put in the CPU. Well, it's not hard. Find the holes in the chassis of the case, use the screws to put in the motherboard. Sometimes you need the stand-screws that go into the chassis, then motherboard and then regular screws on top. Then read the manual to set the jumpers for your CPU. More motherboards are now jumperless, so this may not be an issue anymore.
The hardest part is probably figuring out where all the little case cords go. (PC speaker, LED. Power Switch, reset, HDD LED, etc). But it's all in the manual again, just plug the right cord in the right place. So that's doable.
The rest should be easy. Plug the cards in, screw in HDDs/DVDs/floppy drives. (make sure you set the jumpers to Slave/Master/Single/Cable Select). Then Attach the cords, etc. If you have a question as to what goes where, I'm sure you can ask.