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Getting Help Building Your Computer

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the everyone-needs-a-little-helping-hand dept.

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.

5 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. First Time (ohh err!) by T-Kir · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The first time I assembled a computer, I scratched the bottom of the motherboard on the mounting points. I completed the build, but was presented with random crashes. Found out the scratch spread metal filaments across multiple paths, fortunately rubbing the area clean solved the whole thing.

    Well now it's my turn to help teach one of my friends how to build a computer! A learning experience for him indeed.

    I do like his use of Lego men on the site, although the 'Red Shirt' Lego man was very lucky to survive (considering their expendability).

    --
    Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
  2. Re:Not all that bad.... by suicidal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The good thing for newbies is that for the most part, that isn't even an issue any more these days. So many boards are running practically jumperless. The last 5 PC's I bought / upgraded required NO jumper settings on the motherboard at all. It was pretty much nuts and bolts. Plug it in, turn it on, and go. Very smooth, very easy, you're up and running in no time flat. And the same goes with the last 50 servers I put together. The only RTFM was to connect the front panel switches and LED's correctly as the boards weren't silkscreened very helpfully. Clocks/multipliers/voltage is all pretty much automatic these days.

  3. Re:Not bad by Sonny+Yatsen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    First time I built a machine, I kept my other machine on and logged into chat so I can get realtime advice from the geeks.

    --
    My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
  4. Re:Skimp on the processor.. by oval_pants · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would have to agree and I was waiting for a 2600XP to come out before I build my new machine. However, Intel dropped the price of the 2.4 GHZ P4's and for $196 that is a steal.

    I'm surprised that no one here has mentioned overclocking. I plan to crank up the 2.4 quite a lot, and get an Alpha heatsink.

    What I don't understand, is all this talk of buying a "good" case. I have built 4+ computers all with low end cases. If you're clever, you find a way around thise things. Why spend 50 or 60 dollars, when you can get one for $20 (check NewEgg.com..it rocks!)? I would rather put that extra money into cooling or bumping up the video card a notch.

  5. Re:Harrowing? - Apple induction video by mccalli · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The whole thing was a crock we invented back in the 80s when the yields of the fabs was not exactly good.

    I used to work for a place that did a decent multimedia database, and one of the test videos we had was an Apple training video for engineers. Well, more like an induction video really.

    One of the sections showed an engineer patiently assembling a Mac Plus out of various components, and his boss coming in with a client to impress. Boss picked up a board, showed client who nodded sagely, then the two walked out.

    Apple's instruction to the engineer? Bin the board. They wouldn't allow it to go out having been handled by someone who might have inadvertantly aplied a static charge to it.

    Now - whether this was actually carried through in practice is another matter of course. But it was certainly there on their film.

    Cheers,
    Ian