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Getting Help Building Your Computer

An anonymous reader submitted an excellent story about getting help when assembling a PC from scratch. I'm sure many readers here know how harrowing the experience can be, and will appreciate this entertaining tale of lilliputians helping in this rite of passage.

6 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. R2D2 == Ultimate Hardware Guru by StoopidMonkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

    C'mon...R2 would know what CSLK is! He can fix the hyperdrive on the Millenium Falcon with one arm and even hack into the Deathstar computers (heavily firewalled;). He KNOWS what CSLK is!

    Just another,
    Stoopid Monkey

    1. Re:R2D2 == Ultimate Hardware Guru by EverDense · · Score: 2, Insightful

      He might not. He is from...
      A long time ago
      in a galaxy far, far away

      --
      http://jesus.everdense.com/
  2. Re:Not bad by unicron · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Heh, no kidding. And everything fits so snug that you convince yourself that you somehow bought the wrong piece.

    --
    Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
  3. My first computer by geekoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    came in a kit, circiut board, and components.
    I had to soldier it together.

    Its really pretty easy these days, espcially compared the the DOS 3 days.

    We do live in a time where I can put together a system, and have linux up and running in about 45 minutes.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  4. Re:Not all that bad.... by jafiwam · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sigh. Ok. You are right. I cooked 2 fans (no CPU tho) on an Athlon 1ghz.

    Compound made do difference at all. The patch on the sink was plenty to bind to the CPU chip.

    It was the thermalpuke that was the problem. See, the fan is mounted on the big block of metal-alloy and blows air up through the spiral heat releasing fins. So the plastic parts and bearings and motor in the fan get REALLY hot during operation.

    I killed two of them with a Thunderbird playing Tanarus, it got hot enough to cook off part of my fingernail. (Hint, no touchee CPU, fan or heatsink if computer crashee due to heat.)

    I bought three fans from CompUSA for the same price as ONE thermalpuke. They have the same basic design, except the fan is mounted on the fins, not the base of the heatsink. That way, most of the heat is dissapated before it gets a chance to melt the bearings, fan, motor, and mountings.

    If one goes bad, no big deal. 10 minutes of messing around and I have the spare installed.

    Thermaltake should change the design of the fan/sing combos. It is a flawed design to have the fan mounted on the bottom rather than the top.

    The burnt out one sits on my desk as a reminder not to buy into the sparklie hype.

  5. in fact, get a *dell* case by lingqi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    yes i said the d word, yes i will probabbly be flamed. but honestly though. screw all the removeable motherboard tray crap, and the hard drive tray crap. and the whatever tray crap.

    I actually bought my parents a Dell 4500. the case is nice (not in a neon-modded, fan galore, translucent or liquid cooled fashion), and actually opens up (almost) like a mac. everything is easily removeable (except maybe the MB), and you never need a screwdriver. not once. not for any of the drives.

    if they sold 'em separate i would seriously consider it for a real case for everyday computing. light (relatively), easy access and reasonably quite. hey, why not. it's not like the case came with microsoft (well, the sticker, but that's endurable)...

    --

    My life in the land of the rising sun.