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

Daddyjaxx · 08-03-09, 05:37 PM

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.

doz · 08-03-09, 06:08 PM

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!).

BoT · 08-03-09, 06:31 PM

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

GotNoRice · 08-03-09, 06:44 PM

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.

Tserrof · 08-03-09, 06:45 PM

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.

jmdixon85 · 08-03-09, 06:48 PM

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

Bjm2587 · 08-03-09, 07:00 PM

Wow you guys are old!

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.

just dan · 08-03-09, 07:02 PM

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.

jmdixon85 · 08-03-09, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bjm2587

Wow you guys are old!

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

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

Jorlain · 08-03-09, 08:09 PM

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.

Rider200 · 08-03-09, 08:26 PM

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!

cderrow · 08-03-09, 08:31 PM

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.

Whig Bong · 08-03-09, 08:41 PM

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.

don256us · 08-03-09, 09:06 PM

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.

Adhoc · 08-03-09, 11:47 PM

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.

ChanceCoats123 · 08-04-09, 12:00 AM

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!

Diggrr · 08-04-09, 01:01 AM

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.

*edit: And I'm not old! I'm 6.29 (I count in dog years...it's appropriate).

visitkans · 08-04-09, 06:03 AM

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.

Mjolnir · 08-04-09, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by visitkans

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.

antipesto93 · 08-04-09, 08:35 AM

hmm 1st ever upgrade > Add a NIC card,
First ever pc build, SEMPRON 256mb

goodtimes...

08-03-09, 05:37 PM	Thread Starter #1
Daddyjaxx Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Duluth, GA.	What was your first computer upgrade and the first system you built from scratch 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. __________________ i980 stock speeds for now in Asus Rampage III Extreme on Win 7 Home Premium 3 X eVGA 480 GTX 3 x 2 GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600 @ 1600 1000w and 850w Corsair in MM Ascension Horizon Crucial 128GB Real SSD and 2 x 1 TB W/D Black 3x XSPC RX360 with Feser Shround and Panaflo Med EK Supreme HF and EK Rampage III block DD Satin 480 Blocks, 2 x DDC 18w XSPC Dual Res Dual DDC
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08-03-09, 06:08 PM	#2
doz Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Las Vegas, NV	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!). __________________ Asus P8P67 Intel i7-2600k @ 4.9ghz GSkill Ripjaws 8gb 1600mhz c8 EVGA GTX 680 OCZ Agility 2 240gb, Corsair Force 3 180gb, (2)WD 1tb Black HAF 932w/ Corsair HX750 Heat
	QUOTE Thanks

08-03-09, 06:31 PM	#3
BoT Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Los Angeles	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 __________________ Heat \| MainStation: Intel i7 860 \| EVGA P55 FTW \| Corsair Dominator GT 2000 \| ASUS GTX470 \| OCZ Vertex LE
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08-03-09, 06:44 PM	#4
GotNoRice Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Pleasant Hill, CA	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. __________________ Main Rig: i5-2500K @ 5Ghz - ASUS P8Z68-V - 2x EVGA Geforce GTX680 Superclocked in SLI - 16GB DDR3 1600 - X-Fi Titanium PCI-E - Crucial M4 128G - Antec TruePower Quattro 1000w - Corsair 800D LAN Rig: Q6600 @ 3.6Ghz - Gigabyte EP45-UD3P - 2x 4870x2 Quad-Crossfire - 6GB PC8500 - X-Fi XtremeMusic - Intel X25-M G2 80GB - Thermaltake Toughpower 1000w - Thermaltake Armor Jr. Server: Core i5 650 @ 3.85Ghz - Asus P7H55-M PRO - 12GB DDR3 - FSP 550w PSU Last edited by GotNoRice; 08-03-09 at 09:31 PM.
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08-03-09, 06:45 PM	#5
Tserrof Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: UVic	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.
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08-03-09, 06:48 PM	#6
jmdixon85 Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Cumbria (UK)	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 __________________ Main System/File Server/Secondary System/SmoothWall CPU: I2500K @ 4.8Ghz (H2o cooled)//Q9650/Q6600 @ 3.5Ghz/AMD Athlon 215 Mainboard: AsRock Z77 Extreme 4/Asus P5Q Deluxe/Gigabyte P35-DS3P/Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 RAM: 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz/6GB DDR2 800Mhz/4GB DDR2 1066Mhz/2GB DDR2 Video: nVidia GTX 460/nVidia 210/NVidia GTX295/Radeon 3000 HDD: 128GB SSD (System)/WD VR 300GB(Games)/ 80GB HDD (TV Recordings)/Samsung 160GB (Sytem), 4x 1TB (RAID5 Data)/3TB (Backup) HighpointRR 3520 RAID Card/VR 160GB (system) 1TB (Data)/160GB PSU: FSP 800W/Enermax 495W/Ximatek 500W/FSP 300W Case: Coolermaster HAF932/CM Cosmos S/Cosmos 1000 Audio: Toslink -> Pioneer VSX-820-K (Dolby TrueHD/DTS Master Audio)/Logitech X-530 i7/i5/i3 Overclocking Guide /Intel Core2 overclocking guide/AMD AM2 overclocking Guide
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08-03-09, 07:00 PM	#7
Bjm2587 Member Join Date: Aug 2008	Wow you guys are old! 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.
	QUOTE Thanks

08-03-09, 07:02 PM	#8
just dan Member Join Date: Jul 2009	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.
	QUOTE Thanks

08-03-09, 08:09 PM	#10
Jorlain Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Brainerd, Mn	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. __________________ Primary Rig___________________________2nd Rig Intel i7 860___________________________Intel Q6600 G0 @ 3.2GHz (400x8) XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 __________________Kingwin XT-1264 Gigabyte P55A-UD4P___________________DFI Lanparty DK P35-T2RS G.Skill Ripjaws 4x2GB 1600MHz 7-8-7-24____OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 2x4GB @ 960MHz 5-5-5-18 Radeon HD5850_______________________EVGA 9600 GT 512MB 2x 7200.11 RAID 0_____________________Seagate 7200-10 250GB Cooler Master HAF 922__________________Cooler Master CM690 Antec True Power New 750w_____________Ultra X-2 750w PSU Windows 7 Pro x64_____________________Windows 7 Pro x64
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08-03-09, 08:26 PM	#11
Rider200 Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Arizona	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!
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08-03-09, 08:31 PM	#12
cderrow Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Erie, PA	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.
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08-03-09, 08:41 PM	#13
Whig Bong Registered Join Date: Jul 2009	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.
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08-03-09, 09:06 PM	#14
don256us Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Bridgman, MI	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. __________________ Core i7-920 @ 3.66 \| EVGA X58 SLI \| 2x 256 GB Samsung 830 SSD RAID 0 \| 1.5 TB WD Green \| 6x4GB DDR3 1600 CAS 8 \|GTX 560 Ti \| GTX 660 Ti Folding AMD 1035T X6 \| Win 7 Pro \|Zalman 7000 Cu \| DDR3 1333 (16 GB) \| 500 GB SATA x 2 \| 240 GT \| Used part time AMD Athlon II x3 440 @ x4 B40 \| Win SBS 2008 \| 120 GB \| DDR3 1600 (4 GB) \| ATI 4200 \| 2 x DVD-DL \| Folding. 3800+ X2 \| 3 GB DDR3200 \| 240 GT \| 250 GB HDD \| 2 x 500 GB Green HDD \| Win 7 Ultimate \| DVD-ROM Folding. My Heatware Fold for team 32.
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08-03-09, 11:47 PM	#15
Adhoc Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: California	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. __________________ ManateeI: Phenom II x3 720 @ 3.4 \| Ocz DDR3-1600 \| Asus M4A78T-E \| Xfx 4890 \| WD Caviar Blue 600 Gb \| Corsair tx650W \| Antec 300\| Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit \| DugongII: Intel Pentium D 805 \| GTS 9600 \| RAM 2 gb Kingston \| WD 500Gb Caviar Green Power \| Vista/Fedora 11 \|
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08-04-09, 12:00 AM	#16
ChanceCoats123 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Illinois	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! __________________ Ed - "Aight it's pulling down... Thing is really tuned for LN2 though." This is the team you are looking for... 1EeNkR3VPihwHCGt2VKSjJHetiKHZt9U1e
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08-04-09, 01:01 AM	#17
Diggrr Underwater Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Gun Lake, MI. USA	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. edit: And I'm not old! I'm 6.29 (I count in dog years...it's appropriate). __________________ Rig1: C2D E8400 @3510 Ф Asus P5G41T-M-LX Plus mobo Ф 8 Gigs Ballistix DDR3 1333 Ф Asus GT520 Silent Ф 4 Deep Cool 92mm case fans Ф FSP 1U 460 Watt PSU External Watercooling: 40' Copper Coil Geothermal ground loop Ф Cooling modded MCP350 & MCP355 W/Swiftech white dual pump top Ф D-Tek Fuzion V2, 1/4" Rig2: Via Esther C7 1.5 @ 1.65 Ф Jetway 7F2WE1G5D mITX mobo Ф 1 Gig Generic Ram (max) Ф 120 watt Pico PSU. Life's Tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. ~ Benjamin Franklin Last edited by Diggrr; 08-04-09 at 01:10 AM.*
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08-04-09, 06:03 AM	#18
visitkans Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: London, United Kingdom	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.
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08-04-09, 08:35 AM	#20
antipesto93 Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: london	hmm 1st ever upgrade > Add a NIC card, First ever pc build, SEMPRON 256mb goodtimes... __________________ i7-930 3939A @ 3.8ghz 1.3v W/HT Cogage arrow + Akasa apache Gigabyte Ex58-Extreme GTX470 (unlocked 465) 6GB DDR3 OCZ Gold 1600mhz 1tb + 500gb F3's Corsair TX650W CM 690 II z-2300
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