How hard can it be?

Thorbar

At the moment i'm considering putting together a computer myself but i'm a bit worried about how difficult it will be. I have a fair knowledge of hardware and I've upgraded my ram and sound card and graphics card on my old machine with hardly any trouble. Is there any half decent tutorials or guides or building your own pc or do the componants come with good manuals?

seamus

most components come with OK manuals, but motherboard manuals can be a nightmare if you dont know much about them. My advice: go get a PC repair kit(comes with all the tools) for about IE20 and have a knowledgeable mate standing by on de phone

WhiteWashMan

its a piece of cake.
if you get stuck, post here and we can tell you what to do

Doodee

Tis simple, just use yer head when it comes to certain things....maybe thats where i went wrong?

_CreeD_

if you've added ram and cards before then you should be fine. The main thing is be paranoid about static. Always earth yourself on the PC case (With the system plugged in but turned off) before handling any components. Also do not leave components lying around (Especially on your carpet....), stacking them on an antistatic bag is usually handiest (cards that is, HDD's are a wee bit heavy for that).
Most cables and cards are keyed, so if you have trouble putting anything in double check that you have them orientated correctly.
My checklist:

1. MBD, make sure there are no extra metal spacers on the case, ie. that there are no screw-points that are out of line with the MBD screwholes, under the actual electronics. IF there are just take them off, they will short circuit the MBD.

2. Ram Easy enough as you've done it before.

3. Expansion cards, don't tighten them too much (Enough to stop them wobbling about is all) as you may have to move your PCI cards around to get past IRQ sharing problems. ONly tighten them permanently when you have the OS installed and all is fine.

4. Hard Drives and CD roms. Know in advance just where they will be (logically), ie. which will be the primary and secondary masters/slaves. Keep the length of your IDE cables in mind when planning their physical positions inside the case. Usually it's best to have your Main HDD as primary master, CD as 2ndary master. If your cables aren't keyed then always remember the red-edge will go towards the power connector.
I recommend you buy Rounded IDE cables (Dabs and OCUK have them) as they are much easier to work with.

5. Just connect up your front button leads.

ALWAYS EARTH YOURSELF IF YOU WALK AWAY FOR EVEN A MOMENT, it's not worth the risk.

[This message has been edited by _CreeD_ (edited 23-08-2001).]

amen

try
http://www.tomshardware.com

there are some good tutorials on building your own pc

beaver

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by _CreeD_:
The main thing is be paranoid about static.</font>

This /is/ good advice, but in fairness, if you handle the components themselves carefully, the chances of frying anything are pretty low.

I've left cards, chips, RAM lying around on carpet and they still work fine...

Don't be paranoid, just be careful...

-Ross

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When I was young my mother told me not to look into the sun; so once, when I was six, I did...

Thorbar

Thanks for all the advice lads. I'm sure i'll be posting up here a fair bit fairly soon . At the moment i'm getting a list of componants togeter which I'll be asking ye if they'll all work together and if they're a good choice. Also I'm sure i'll forget some vital bit.

Fand

Asus motherboards have good manuals that bring you through the installation of parts well - that's to say, they're written in Geek, but are not completely incomprehensible.

Gladiator

the hardest part is usually installing the heat sink, especially if it your first time,
its really something that comes from experience, when i first did it i ****ed around with the think for 2 hours nearly killed the die, how i have it down to about 2 minutes,

theres allot of things you want to take into account when building a pc.

like get a spacious case, i love my globalwin 802 allso, thinkgs like this

you should probably post back when you decide what you want

Gerry

A few minor points:

A good idea is to buy the motherboard before the case. Either way, read the motherboard manual before installing it. Figure out exactly where you will be plugging in the front panel connectors. If I had a penny for everytime someone complained that their pc wouldn't work, only for me to find that they had the power switch connected to the wrong pins.

Also, try just booting up first with just a graphics card, ram, and cpu just so you get over the initial hurdle of getting a booting machine.

Take careful heed of creeds first point also

Install the cpu and cooler (and you might as well put the ram in as well) BEFORE putting the motherboard in the case. Do this with the motherboard on top of its foam bag, on a flat hard surface, to prevent the board flexing too much.

Take your time installing the motherboard, and make sure it lines up properly for your expansion cards, by trying a pci card in it before tightening the mounting screws on the motherboard.

Gladiator

thats why i liked the globalwin so much, it has a removeable Motherboard Tray which is very handy as you can imagine,
allso note to get some artice silver two for the cpu its good stuff

beaver

As Gerry sorta implied, bench test it first.

Besides making sure everything is working before you build it into the case, you'll see how everything fits together better than you will in the case.

Basically, put the motherboard on a bench (helps if you have like a block of foam under it to let the plates on the expansion cards hang over) and connect up the chip, fan, cards, ram, keyboard, mouse, various drives and the power supply.

It's much easier to fuc|< around with jumper settings and so on when the motherboard is out of the case. If ya like you can install the OS while it's like this so that when you build the machine you can just switch on and play.

By the way, if you don't have a switch to connect to the power jumpers you'll have to short them out with a screwdriver or something to turn the machine on. It'll just be 2 pins and they'll be indicated either on the board or in the manual. Be not afraid Also, a speaker to connect up to the speaker jumpers can be very handy for troubleshooting if you experience problems.

-Ross

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When I was young my mother told me not to look into the sun; so once, when I was six, I did...