Shadowhawk109’s n00bie Guide to Building a PC

Shadowhawk109’s n00bie Guide to Building a PC

Hello All!

I’m creating this little guide for the newcomers to OC Forums, that way they can get a little direction on what to buy if they are thinking about upgrading or just rebuilding a PC. If you have any input, please PM my OC Forums account!!!

Mods, if this needs to be moved or adjusted or anything, do so, but please let me know. Just PM me-I may not respond for a while, but at least I will get the message!

SECTION 1: PARTS

Building a computer isn’t nearly as hard as one might think. There are 8 basic parts to a computer, listed below. I’ll go into greater detail on those parts later on.
Buying parts is easy. Stores like COMP USA, Best Buy, and Office Max all carry basic parts.
It is advised, however, to order parts off the Internet-often the parts will be bigger, better, and cheaper. Two recommended sites are TigerDirect (www.tigerdirect.com) and Newegg (www.newegg.com).

1) Motherboard
2) Processor/Cooling Fan
3) Memory (RAM)
4) Power Supply
5) Graphics Card
6) Hard Drive
7) Floppy/CD/DVD Drive
8) Case

Of course, every computer needs an operating system. Make sure you figure the cost of an OS into your price. If you are short on cash, try running a version of Linux or buying an earlier version of Windows.

Section 2: EXPLAINATION

SECTION 2: EXPLAINATION

1) Motherboards
Buy whatever motherboard fits your budget first, do not go with preferances. I have had lots of mishaps and luck with both AMD and Intel based motherboards and processors (Mostly Intel bad lucks me, but thats a different story.)
Make sure your motherboard and processor match up-you dont want different sockets-that would be a gigantic waste of $$$.

2) Processors
Buy a motherboard that supports your processor, a processor that
supports your motherboard, and both that support your budget. A good guide for processors is found here:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=316870

Just match your mobo to whichever socket and price range you decide on.

3) Memory
Go with memory that can support your FSB’s (Front Side Bus) speed. Just check your motherboard's manual to find out what that is.

A good guide for memory is here:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=400612

4) Power Supplies
Power Supplies are one of the most important parts to a computer. If you don’t buy a good one, they can destroy a computer, especially if overclocking. Pick out a graphics card BEFORE you pick out a power supply, that way minimum power to the card is no longer a problem. A good power supply makes for the most stable results while overclocking. Some suggested brands are:

Here's yet another good guide made by OC Forumers:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=458204

Also with power supplies, make sure you are purchasing one that will fit the needs of your board.
Newer boards (boards that run the AMD Athlon 64 Bit proccessors or the Intel IV series) will need a +12v rail (look at the box/specs of the power supply to check and see if it has one). It's reccommended that at least 30 amps flow through that +12V rail.
Older boards will need a +5v rail, which means older power supply.

If this is too complex for you, you can always ask the good people at OC Forums for help!

5) Graphics Cards
Graphics Cards, also known as video cards, are the palm-sized PCI-e/AGP/PCI chips that make all the effort you’ve poured into your machine worth it. Setup is easy, just plug and pray. Installation of drivers is where the most problems occur, so make sure you get the most up-to-date set. I use AGP in my machine, and prefer Nvidia over ATI, so I would suggest the:

A good guide that is budget-minded and cost-effective can be found here:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=348365

I don't have a budget, thus I am stuck with my Socket A mobo and 6800XT AGP card, neither of which I complain about, since they work well.

6) Hard Drive
Hard Drives are what hold all the data you put on a machine. They come in various sizes and companies, so buy a size that fits your budget and need.
Western Digital, Seagate, and Maxtor all make good hard drives.
For speed, look for the Western Digital Raptor series-much more costly, but a lot faster.

7) Floppy/CD/DVD Drive
A CD/DVD drive is neccesary unless you have a file server. I would suggest getting a DVD Burner. It can read and burn both DVD’s and CD’s, and aren’t incredibly expensive. My personal favorite, and lots of people recommend it, is the

NEC 3550A DVD+/- RW DVD Burner

A single drive will work fine, but I would suggest getting two burners. This will double the speed at which you burn multiple copies, and allow for disk-to-disk burning, speeding up the entire process and saving hard drive space.

I would also recommend getting a floppy drive. They cost around $20, and are easy to use and transfer.

8) Cases
Cases are just for show-you could build your own, but that could be trick and time consuming. Make sure you get one big enough to fit all your parts-mine is EXTREMELY crowded with parts and cables. Cable management helps a LOT when building a computer-it allows for quicker removal and installation of parts.

SECTION 3: INSTALLATION

SECTION 3: INSTALLATION

I’ll do this by steps just to make it easier to read and understand. For the most part, the entire process is “plug and pray”, but there are a couple of tricky spots.

STEP ONE: The case is the starting point for building a computer. Just open it up and you’ve already begun building! Read ALL the manuals, and start looking at the parts, guessing what certain sections of them are for. This will give you a better idea of what you are doing. Before installing parts, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE NO STATIC CHARGE BUILT UP ON YOUR BODY!!! I cannot stress this enough-many a part has been wasted and ruined by careless installation.

STEP TWO: The first thing you should put in is the power supply-this will make for better wire management later on.

STEP THREE: The motherboard is easy to install, just screw it into the right slots in whatever case you buy.

STEP FOUR: The processor is also easy to install, just do it carefully. Slowly place the processor into it’s slot. When purchasing a motherboard and a processor, it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that you buy both parts in a matching socket. A Socket 939 Motherboard, designed for AMD processors, will not work with a Socket 775 Intel Processor. All you will have at the end is a colossal waste of time, effort, and money.

STEP FIVE: Place a cooling compound (often sent with a processor) on the processor case. Gently hook up the cooling fan to the processor’s heatsink, and plug in the power cable into the MOTHERBOARD. No cable from the power supply should go into the cooling fan for the processor.

STEP SIX: Place the memory FIRMLY into its slots in the motherboard. It’s important to buy memory that is supported by your motherboard-SODIMM memory will not fit in a PC3200 slot-pins are what really matter. Some kinds of RAM have different numbers of pins, so you need to buy RAM with the same number of pins as your motherboard allows. Also, make sure the memory is seated correctly.

STEP SEVEN: The next step in building a PC is to start hooking up all the power supply cables to the motherboard and case, and all the case’s cables to the motherboard. Be gentle-some power cables WILL fight you along the way. Make sure you are inserting the cables correctly. When you are done, your case’s fans and your motherboard should be hooked up to the power supply. The cables coming out of your case should all be hooked up to your motherboard. Consult your motherboard’s manual and your case’s manual to know exactly how to hook up the cables for the LED’s, reset switch, power button, USB Ports, and grounding cables, as these differ from case to case, and the order you plug them in differs between motherboards.

STEP SEVEN AND A HALF (OPTIONAL):
Fans and air control help a budget computer run faster. If you have a lot of money to spend, go with watercooling-this will help your computer run cooler and much more effictient.

Hook up your fans in such a way so that dust and warm air is blown out the back of your case, and cool air is sucked in the front. Four fans hooked up to the power supply aught to greatly improve the heat of your computer.

Fans suggested to me that would help are:

Yate Loon 120mm
Scythe 120mm fans


STEP EIGHT: Place the graphics card in its slot. Again, it is very important to buy cards that match up to your motherboards slot-an AGP card will not fit in a PCI-e slot. The newest motherboards have either one or two PCI-e slots for graphics cards only, older motherboards have one AGP slot for graphics cards only, and the oldest motherboards have only PCI slots in which a PCI graphics card can go into any slot. Two PCI-e slots enable SLI, but that can be extremely confusing, so if you are just a beginner, it’s best to just stick to one.

It is also important to buy a power supply with enough amperage to support your graphics card, especially if it has a fan. Certain graphics cards require a minimum amperage to be powered, so when selecting a power supply, make sure you pick the card out first!

If there is a fan, there is going to be a slot for a power supply cable in the card. Plug the power supply cable into the graphics card at this time.

If you have any other PCI cards, now would be a good time to put them in. If your motherboard does not have a LAN card, I would highly reccomend putting one in now.

Sound cards are optional-most motherboards have onboard sound. If you are a serious gamer, or are building the computer for video editing, then a sound card would be a good idea. Budget gamers should probably stay away from them. A good sound card is the Creative X-Fi.


STEP NINE: Hard Drives and Floppy/CD/DVD Drives are inserted now. The hard drive is the most important of these-you cannot run a Windows-based computer without one (I’m not sure if it’s possible to run a PC without a hard drive). To install a hard drive, simply make sure the jumper on the drive is set correctly (Slave v Master v CableSelect), plug in the IDE cable into both the drive and the correct motherboard slot (primary v secondary, for a hard drive use the primary, consult your motherboard manual to find out which is which, and make sure the red line on the IDE cable is facing the power supply), and plug in the power supply cable.

Next, you should put in a CD/DVD drive. While not neccesary, CD/DVD drives are not expensive, and make installing software a lot easier. The only other way to install or run software WITHOUT a CD/DVD drive would be to use a file-server, and if you have one of those in your house, you don’t need this guide.

To install a CD/DVD drive, again make sure the jumper is set correctly, plug in the IDE cable into the drive and the secondary slot on the motherboard (consult your motherboard’s manual again), plug in the power supply cable, and plug an audio cable into the drive and the motherboard slot (yet again, consult your manual). If you are using a sound card, and not the onboard audio on your motherboard, plug in the audio cable into that instead, consulting the sound card’s manual for placement.

Finally, I recommend installing a floppy drive. While considered outdated, I find floppy disks extremely useful, and defiantly worth the five minutes you will spend placing it in.
To install a 3 1/2” floppy drive, plug the specially made IDE cable into the floppy drive, and the other end into the specially made slot on the motherboard (again, consult your manual). Then, hook up the specially made power supply cable into the drive. It’s easy to tell which this is, because it will be the only one that fits in the slot for power on the floppy drive.

SECTION 4: CONCLUSION

SECTION 4: CONCLUSION

There you have it. Just screw on the side of the case, and you have just built a perfectly fine computer. Start installing stuff at this point, and if you run into any trouble, ask the good people at OC Forums for help!

Thanks for reading, and I hope this helps all of you out!

If I’ve forgotten anything, if there’s any typos, or if my information is wrong, please PM me right away!


Shadowhawk

im going to have to suggest that you add the epox 9npa+ nf4 and dfi ultra-d to the list of motherboards, the 3800 x2 to the processors, g.skill pc4000 black to the memory and replace the 7800gtx with a 7900gt or gtx since both pwn the 78. Anyway yeah nice little guide there, easy to understand. Thanks for puttin the time in for this!

I added your suggestions. Thanks for the input! I'm glad you like it!

Actually, the best memory configuration is 2x1GB, if that's too expensive, then go for 1x1GB and add the second IDENTICAL stick later. 2x2GB doesn't work too well in Windows, and some people have problems with OCing and such with that.

You should also recommend single core Opterons, all have 1MB of L2 Cache, while only the 3700+ and 4000+ has that much cache, plus the Opterons clock higher then the A64s.

A more highly-rated CPU on OCF is the Opteron 165, more cache and better OCability then the X2 3800+. I don't recommend getting the X2 4200+, it has the same amount of cache as the X2 3800+, but you can OC the X2 3800+ to X2 4200+ speeds fairly easily. If you really MUST get an X2, go for either the X2 3800+ or X2 4400+. But all the Opteron 100 series skt939 dual cores all have 2x1MB of cache and OC really well.

XFX isn't the only brand of video cards, eVGA is an extremely popular one as well. There are others to choose from, such as BFG.

You rather have one 7900GT over two 6800GTs. You get the extra open slot and the single 7900GT may even outperform the two 6800GTs.

I would also add a sound card as optional. The X-Fi can be had for around $80-90 now, great card and a big improvement over onboard sound.

Also, you should add a heatsink/fan section. Recommend some heatsinks to people, such as the Ultra-120 or Scythe Ninja, paired with Yate Loon 120mm or some Scythe 120mm fans, and they run great.

There are many other vendors to choose from, www.zipzoomfly.com , www.monarchcomputer.com , and many others. I recommend going to www.pricegrabber.com and looking around for the cheapest price for certain vendors.

Great guide, but there's a lot of factors to be put into this, keep up the good work!

All good, the PSU section leaves somethin to be desired tho...

I've edited it to hold you guy'ses suggestions. Thanks for the help!

I don't know anything about heatsinks, so that will come with more experiance in the computer world.

I've yet to overclock. When I do, I'll start suggesting parts based on overclockability vs. budget.

Zx2Slow said:

All good, the PSU section leaves somethin to be desired tho...

Click to expand...

Make some suggestions, as this is a nice guide and with a little tweaking would be a very nice sticky.

Sticky for a well structured guide thats simple enough that even my wife could understand

Shadowhawk109 said:

STEP SIX: Place the memory FIRMLY into its slots in the motherboard. It’s important to buy memory that is supported by your motherboard-a PC2700 stick of memory will not fit in a PC3200 slot. Make sure the memory is seated correctly.

Click to expand...

Actually, that's wrong. A PC2700 stick and PC3200 stick are the same externally. The only difference is the rated speed and timings.

Shadowhawk109 said:

It is also important to buy a power supply with enough voltage to support your graphics card, especially if it has a fan. Certain graphics cards require a minimum voltage to be powered, so when selecting a power supply, make sure you pick the card out first!
If there is a fan, there is going to be a slot for a power supply cable in the card. Plug the power supply cable into the graphics card at this time.

Click to expand...

Not voltage, but amperage. Looking at a PSU before you buy it will let you find it's specs. Normally, ATX 2.0 PSU's have a +12v, +5v, +3.3v and +5vsb rails (as well as many other rails, not important really). If you're building a modern computer (AMD A64/Intel IV series), you'll want a heavy +12v rail. Older computers (AXP) use the +5v rail more. For a newer computer, I'd reccommend at least 30A on the +12v rail (combined, or 30A on a single rail). I'd reccommend a Fortron/SPI powersupply for value, or a PCP&C or a Zippy for downright quality and performance.

Oops...

I meant PC5200, not PC2700. Fixed!!!
PC5200 is Laptop memory, I think-i'm not 100% sure.

Also editing the PSU section right now.

Thanks for the pointers!

This aught to make the PSU section better!

Shadowhawk109 said:

Oops...

I meant PC5200, not PC2700. Fixed!!!
PC5200 is Laptop memory, I think-i'm not 100% sure.

Also editing the PSU section right now.

Thanks for the pointers!

This aught to make the PSU section better!

Click to expand...

Nope, you're mistaken. PC#### is just the speed of the ram. The TYPE of ram is what you want. RAM comes in many flavors. We need not go back as far as the 486 days, but the oldest ram you'll find is probably Rambus. Other types are plain ol' SDRAM, then 168-pin DDR; 240-pin DDR2 is the latest, used in AM2 A64s and intel LGA775 chips. There are other properties to ram, like registered ram and buffered/unbuffered ram. Servers use registered and buffered AFAIK, but regular PCs use unbuffered, unregistered ram, without ECC (error correction). PC#### is the speed. Laptop ram, i believe are SODIMMS, either SDR or DDR. DDR2 ram normally has PC2-#### for the speed rating. SDR ram doesn't fit in DDR slots, nor do either of those fit in DDR2 slots. However, speed doesn't have much to do with what ram you can use in a computer (however, if you have a 200mhz FSB processor, you'll need PC3200 to run at 200mhz, or you'll need to run a divider). I can throw in PC5200 sticks in my PC3200 rig, and it won't be any different, aside from maybe timings and overclockability. Running PC2700 sticks in a PC3200 setup will either make the processor run faster than the ram, or underclock the processor to match the ram.

Whoops again...

Guess you learn something every day!

I just see laptops with "PC5200 MEMORY" and I think ooh thats Laptop Memory...

Now I guess that makes more sense.

Sorry to make you go through all that explaining. Im fixing it right now!

Well, this wont be much of a good guide if all you do is promote AMD and NVIDA products and plan to give buying advice for parts.

Giving advice to buy a 6800GT and put it into SLI.....

I think if you can remove the "bias" from the guide it could be more useful, dont get me wrong the work is appreciated, but this might as well be moved into the AMD and NVIDIA sections.

I dont have much experiance with Intel or ATI...

so when people who have experiance come along, they can help me!

Shadowhawk109 said:

I dont have much experiance with Intel or ATI...

so when people who have experiance come along, they can help me!

Click to expand...

seeing as how i have intel and ATi...

how can I be of service

i'd just get rid of the reccommendations altogether. PC builders should do their own research to find something that can help with their needs.

That being said, I prefer intel/nvidia. I've never used or built an AMD rig in my house. Not to say I don't like AMD, but i'd rather grab an intel for piece of mind. They make their own chipsets to match with their processor, so you'll be getting stable hardware (considering if all goes well). However, if Intel's current line of processors are complete doo-doo, i'll jump AMD. Go for performance, not name.

Same goes with nVidia/ATi. I run an ATi card now since I got a good deal on it. However, i still prefer nVidia. Almost all of my cards have been nvidia (from my old mac, to my dad's gateway, to my current rig a year back). This 9800p is my first ATi card, and i can't say it's bad. However, i'd grab a 6800 or 7800 AGP model if I had the cash. Again, that being said, i'll take either as long as they perform well.

btw, your first post says 2,000Mhz for FSB, and not 200... and AFAIK, AMD processors don't have FSBs, they use HyperTransport, and skip the northbridge altogether.

SolidxSnake said:

seeing as how i have intel and ATi...

how can I be of service

i'd just get rid of the reccommendations altogether. PC builders should do their own research to find something that can help with their needs.

That being said, I prefer intel/nvidia. I've never used or built an AMD rig in my house. Not to say I don't like AMD, but i'd rather grab an intel for piece of mind. They make their own chipsets to match with their processor, so you'll be getting stable hardware (considering if all goes well). However, if Intel's current line of processors are complete doo-doo, i'll jump AMD. Go for performance, not name.

Same goes with nVidia/ATi. I run an ATi card now since I got a good deal on it. However, i still prefer nVidia. Almost all of my cards have been nvidia (from my old mac, to my dad's gateway, to my current rig a year back). This 9800p is my first ATi card, and i can't say it's bad. However, i'd grab a 6800 or 7800 AGP model if I had the cash. Again, that being said, i'll take either as long as they perform well.

btw, your first post says 2,000Mhz for FSB, and not 200... and AFAIK, AMD processors don't have FSBs, they use HyperTransport, and skip the northbridge altogether.

Click to expand...

Also, there are good guides for recommendations in other hardware sections and things change so much it would probably be easier to link those guides vs. making your own recommendations. Instead sticking to "examples" vs. recommendations could save you some trouble.


ps I always wondered if it is good practice to ask a sticky thread creator if you can link their sticky/guide or is it cool to just link it?

OC Noob said:

Also, there are good guides for recommendations in other hardware sections and things change so much it would probably be easier to link those guides vs. making your own recommendations. Instead sticking to "examples" vs. recommendations could save you some trouble.


ps I always wondered if it is good practice to ask a sticky thread creator if you can link their sticky/guide or is it cool to just link it?

Click to expand...

If it's at the forums, it's probably publically viewable. Don't see what's wrong with linking it.

Hey All!!!

Sorry I havent been updating for a while...

i be on vacation-its really hard to post stuff in paridise, especially without a computer

I will fix everything you want me to in 1 week 3 days.

PM me anything you want me to do-that way I can check PMs when I get back rather than searching for this thread.


I again apologize for not being there.


Enjoy your break from me!