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What was your first computer upgrade and the first system you built from scratch

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Daddyjaxx

Member
Joined
Jan 5, 2005
Location
Ormond Beach, FL.
I think this could be interesting.

My first computer upgrade that I did by myself was 4mb to 8mb of RAM with a 2.4k to 9.6k modem. I think it was like 300.00 for both.

My first system I built from the ground up was a P166 I think. I screwed the motherboard directly to the case with no standoffs. :)
 
Well, I was given my first computer and learned about software first at a young age (8). I think my first upgrade hardware wise though was installing a 14.4k external modem lol. Well, thats the first I can remember. I know I played w/ HDD's and ram, I just have no recollection really! That was 20 years ago lol.

Also, the first system I completely built was an AMD K6 200mhz I believe. After that, I made the HUGE jump to a 1ghz Athlon when those came out (I remember scoring one for $200 on ebay, that was dirt cheap then!).
 
i am around the same corner. my first upgrade was the chip for the commodore c64 and my first build was an amd k6 233mhz on a shuttle board.
goodtimes
 
My first upgrade was when I was in 5th grade, I bought a CGA videocard at a Garage sale to replace the monochrome videocard in my 8086 rig. I had Megaman on 5 1/4 floppies and it was cool being able to play it in color after that.

The first computer I built from scratch was an AMD K6-2 450 with 64megs PC133, 17.2gig hard drive, and a 16MB 3dfx voodoo banshee. Though I had a Packard Bell right before that where I upgraded pretty much every piece possible.
 
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my first computer upgrade was around 2005 when i upgraded a Celeron D rig from 256MB to 1GB of ram. i suppose compared to a lot of the rest of you i'm a fairly recent addition to the community.

my first hand-built from the ground up system was a pentium D rig with 1GB ram and a 7600 GT. some humble beginnings.
 
Well apart from upgrading Amiga's and doing some tinkering with 486's (I was all for Amigas back then, didn't like PC's much) The first system I built goes something like this:

PentiumII 350
64MB SDRAM
something like a 6GB HDD
and if I remember right, a TNT2 M64 32MB

All hooked upto a 17" CRT that weighed about the same as a small car, lol
 
Wow you guys are old! :p My first upgrade was a pink biostar mother board with an overclocked amd sempron, 512 ram, and a 256mb agp video card. I remember saving up a lot of money to do that upgrade. I think that was back in 2002 I was 15 at the time. Brings back memories.
 
i havn't completely built a homemade system yet but i replace a mobo and processor on a old compaq i used to have, i think it was a asus spv-something and a old 200mhz intel pentium with mmx i think.

edit: there was an s3 virge in it, just looked at it now lol, worst card eva.
 
Wow you guys are old! :p My first upgrade was a pink biostar mother board with an overclocked amd sempron, 512 ram, and a 256mb agp video card. I remember saving up a lot of money to do that upgrade. I think that was back in 2002 I was 15 at the time. Brings back memories.

Hey, Who you calling old? I'm only 23! JK :p

the first comp I used as a Commoredore VIC-20, I must have been in nappies. lol. After that was a C64 but after my Dad got a Amiga 500 I fell in love with them. Didn't start getting into PC's until about 1997
 
My first system that I built myself... Hrm.

AMD Athlon XP 1600+
Some cheap Shuttle Motherboard
40GB Maxtor Internal IDE HDD
Some random CD-RW
256mb of some off brand DDR 266Mhz, I think.
Ah... A cheap case with an even cheaper power supply. I didn't know better.
(Coincidentally, the PSU failed quite early. I replaced it with a 450 watt Coolmax, that's still running strong. It's running my server, actually.)

Damn. That seems like eons ago. But, I guess it was only about 5 years ago or so. This was the first computer I had ever put together myself, with parts I ordered. I'd had a bunch of old P2 servers laying about that I'd been Min/Maxing for years before this, though.
 
The first upgade I did was to a Atari 400, bumped the ram from 16K to 64K, cost me big bucks too, I think the chips were about a buck-fifty at the time, that was a lot of money when your in College and have two kids.

My first build was a IBM Clone 8086, had a memory card that would take the base 640K to 1 meg. Two 5 Meg hard drives, one was MFM and the other was RLL so I had to have two seperate hard drive controlers. (The only bought parts were the processor, motherboard, memory, and the case) I worked at a Computer Rental Company and when something died if the Boss said toss it, I would toss it in my car, then I would try to fix it. Invaluable experance. Oh yea, had a CGA monitor that was tossed also.

:)

Hey Daddyjaxx, like your avatar!
 
first upgrade would have to be the ram on my computer now, a dell dimension 3000. went from 256MB to 1280MB. same computer i still have right now... :(.

first computer from scratch was a build for my friend a few months ago... AMD based.
 
my first upgrade was in my dads old compaq 5900z, we changed the video card. i started with pcs when i was 4. i just started building my first custom build. bu then again im only 14.
 
First upgrade was to add 8 MB RAM to a system that had 4 MB already.

First build was for my mother. AMD slot A 600 MHz.
 
my first build is the second one listed in my sig, with a few upgrades now.
I screwed the mobo in without stand-offs the first time, took me a month to realize why everything was misaligned. :D
 
First build is in the sig. First hardware upgrade (for this rig) was my 720 from a 5200+, but in general, we upgraded to a linksys router! Woo woo!
 
My first upgrade was to double my ram in a 386 desktop machine I had, using those stupid SIPP TO SIMM converters.

My first ground up build was also my first water cooled machine. An AMD 400 with 2x256 ram and a Matrox G450 dual head video card.
I built the water block, used a Danner pond pump and a Ford heater core...you couldn't buy water cooling yet except for a few handmade blocks.
I totally tricked out the case too with a glass side window, led spot lighting, paint, blow holes, and a relay system to start the pump, and it all sat on a box I built to house the cooling.

7 months later, I found OC forums and have been here since. :thup:

*edit: And I'm not old! I'm 6.29 (I count in dog years...it's appropriate).
 
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I guess my first build, rather not my build, but got it built from a hardware guy, it was a Pentium 4 i guess, around the 1997's, the second day i ripped it to components and assembled it again, after that it was a breeze and then went on to build some 15+ pcs for my friends and make some pocket money too :). It was during my engineering college days.
 
I guess my first build, rather not my build, but got it built from a hardware guy, it was a Pentium 4 i guess, around the 1997's, the second day i ripped it to components and assembled it again, after that it was a breeze and then went on to build some 15+ pcs for my friends and make some pocket money too :). It was during my engineering college days.

Um.. Pentium 2 was out in the 1997..p3 in 1999 and P4 in 2000 i think? etc. You must've been ahead of your time gahahahaha.


@op:

My first computer was given to us i think.. was a celeron 800 mhz, 128mb of SD ram, with some crappy 64mb geforce MX 2 lol. Barely handled warcraft 3/diablo 2 XD. Then we went to a store to get a newer system, 3500+ with 1gb of ddr 400, and 6600gt128mb GT.

Then all builds after that I built myself. Went to 2gb ddr2 with a 4400+ 2.2 ghz, with a 8500GT (replaced 2 weeks later by a HD4850), thennn upped to a 6400+ (waste of time/money), and now finally the rig you see in my sig. I'm more of an upgrader rather than 'obsolete' system then 'brand new' system person XD.
 
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