[Daleon]

/rant on

I used to love building machines, but now I hate touching them. I just want to take a sledge hammer to the case and HULK SMASH.... maybe getting old but I think its mainly parts themselves that have been really getting on my nerves lately.

I've gone through a number of HSFs lately, for Intel and Amd that are such a pain and impossible to install that I've cut numerous fingers. Those crappy plastic pins never all work, one or two always break or won't stay down. AMD ones that take a million pounds of pressure to put on and then you don't know if you've crushed the processor or damaged the board. Ones that take backplates that require you to pull the whole board out to take off. There all 2 feet tall with razor sharp fins. I HATE THEM ALL... with a passion.

Cases that are all cheaply made even when you spend a $100 plus on them. They have sharp edges, no room whatsoever to manuver a hand around and fans all over the place with wires all over the place. Many try and be cute with their screwless bays, but put a slight nudge on a drive and it pushes right through.

It just seems that for the last 10+ years PC's have skyrocketed in performance but gone backwards in overall ease of building. Much of it comes from how much your willing to spend. My CM Stacker 830 is a great piece of machinery, but you should haven't spend that kind of money for a good case. I build machines for pretty much anyone in my family, and many friends. Most of the time I foot the bill for family machines and none of them are power gamers or users, so there is no need to spend a ton on enthusiast parts. But there is no difference in the PC Parts market between low end user and low end cheaply made POS parts. Many parts are just DOA, have tons of compatibility problems, etc... I know if I spent $1000+ instead of $2-300 I wouldn't have anywhere near the problems, but hell I'm being as nice as I can footing the bill for $300 as it is. My days of building quick, well performing budget machines is over and the days of buying a cheap Dell that will be a slow dead piece of junk after a year or two is here.

/rant off

[Shiggity]

First of all, those stupid push pins are the devil. If i had to install those all day I'd go on a rampage

Secondly, I agree that the pressure required now for some things is rediculous. I cut my fingers a few times building my rig 6 months back and the pressure you need on the motherboard is just stupid. Half the time you feel like you're going to crack it while trying to get a solid HSF mount.

20$ per cut extremity charge to your family and friends imo

Leave the super budget PCs to HP and Dell, not worth the effort like you said.

[nicspits]

I understand the sentiments expressed here and can offer a few fun solutions. Rather than cutting ur fingers fins, try cutting urself with broken rotary tool discs!! Something I've been doing for the past few years when I started using big, motherboard mount heatsinks, was cutting out a square on the motherboard tray. This way I could access the 4 mounting holes by just taking off the side panel. Only took about ten minutes but when I first started, I found I wasn't very good with the dremel and got several cuts, now I go slower, takes 15 minutes, but no cuts and it's a lot cleaner.

Beyond that, I've stuck with Antec cases, no cuts on the cases themselves, light enough, and pretty smart designs. Built two comps with Antec 900s.

Lastly, at least get a free dinner and left overs from those relatives, show them your cuts at the dinner table as you carefully grab your fork to avoid squeazing with that finger tip that got caught in their HSF blades.

[ou_phidelt]

For most joe sixpacks a Dell is the most cost effective solution especially if you need to factor in an OS and monitor.

[yanks111]

I dont mind building computers, especially if the products are good quality.

What I hate is repairing/replacing hardware. Occasionally at my company they ask me to do this for them, and their computers are so dusty it is disgusting. Cobwebs, entire fans stuck from dust. Just gross.

[JonSimonzi]

I don't mind working with the hardware itself. What I hate, is when you build a computer for your every day person, they expect you to troubleshoot it for them as well. Since they don't know how to keep their computer's free of adware, spyware, and virus's, they seem to call you every other week to fix it. Why I refuse to build computers for anyone anymore.

[nicspits]

Originally Posted by JonSimonzi

I don't mind working with the hardware itself. What I hate, is when you build a computer for your every day person, they expect you to troubleshoot it for them as well. Since they don't know how to keep their computer's free of adware, spyware, and virus's, they seem to call you every other week to fix it. Why I refuse to build computers for anyone anymore.

*finger to nose* The first computer I built for someone, the guy lived an hour and a half away, it was all set to go and was protected on all fronts, I just to hold him not to download anything besides what I'd hooked him up with *insert 2001 program here*. Unfortunately, the guy was either a mechanic or a meth head. He'd call me up time and time again, 4 times a f'n week anytime of the day (I was in f'n high school!) asking if some *insert random C:\Windows\folder here* was necessary and if he should delete it or not.... Even after I told him, only call me if it's not doing something you want it to do and otherwise just use it and leave it alone, he'd still call asking if I thought crap like download speed enhancers worked.... I have become google, the destroyer of cell phone minutes and patience.

After a few weeks, it settled down, didn't hear from him for a whole school week, till that Friday night. Mind you I was not in my best Junior year of HS state of mind at the wee hour of 10PM and he totally killed my buzz, so I totally killed his desire to call me. I told him that was it, stop f'n calling, no matter what the issue or question or if anything breaks, yadda yadda expletive expletive. Obviously not something I'd do in my right state of mind but he got the point and I never, ever heard from him again.

Moral of the story, take your aggression out on what ales you? Wouldn't recommend with family though, they have other persons numbers, works both ways if they stiff you though.

[Mr. Roboto]

I've gotten to the point where I'm kind of tired of building them for myself. It takes way too long because I'm way too particular about wiring and making it look good. Then I have to install all my programs and get it set up the way I like it.

Now, building for other people is still fun. The computers are usually much more basic, so there are less components. Put it together, install OS, install updates, done. Plus you get some satisfaction once it's done and you give it to them and they are happy.

[Hitbox]

I love it. I re-build all the computers in my house.
And when I do, the good RAM magically moves into one computer

[JonSimonzi]

Originally Posted by Hitbox

I love it. I re-build all the computers in my house.
And when I do, the good RAM magically moves into one computer

I remember back in the day, my dad bought a new computer, and I swapped out his processor with mine, because his was faster, and stole half his ram. He never noticed, it's all the same to him.