Learning to upgrade computer by myself...help!

rockinfunzone · 09-02-2003, 11:55 PM

Hi everyone, I am new to this forum. I have been playing pc games for a long time but only now do I want to build my own 'strictly gaming' PC from the ground up. Now, knowing what parts to buy is the easy part, where do I go to learn how to install everything myself? Can you guys give me some advice or tell me where I can find some 'how to' articles?

BTW - How did you guys learn to install stuff yourself?

Thanks,

Nathan

dworks · 09-03-2003, 12:16 AM

I really can't give you any sites for I learned everything through experience, reviews and advice from people on beyond3d and futuremark forums. Practice is the best way to learn. I've built well over a dozen rigs and of course I've had my share of problems but that didn't discourage me in the least. I learn from my mistakes, just as any sane person would. Overclocking is the funnest part of building rigs. Just seeing the true potential of the system you build in both games and benchmarks have proved very rewarding to me, to the extent I may build you a computer for free :francesco: .

Syanide · 09-03-2003, 12:41 AM

I am building my new Rig soon, and Boy, there is alot to be learned, cant leanr it all from: one site, one teacher, one book - tis all in Experience from what you have done - i dont have that yet.... but i will soon

*DoInThIs4FuN* · 09-03-2003, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Syanide@Sep 2 2003, 11:41 PM
I am building my new Rig soon, and Boy, there is alot to be learned, cant leanr it all from: one site, one teacher, one book - tis all in Experience from what you have done - i dont have that yet.... but i will soon

I hope u have fun, I know I did... :thumbup:

molle · 09-03-2003, 01:47 AM

dude you will get it quick, building a system is not hard at all..might seem hard but its far from beeing hard.
when you got the parts you cant really do wrong, every part fits at 1 place and so on so it almost build it self

and i dunno where the fun is that some say, i didnt find any fun in something that is so damn easy

.
if you actually could do it wrong it would have been fun but you simple cant, well not if you dont use brute force while fitting the parts :P

so my tip is..just find out what parts a system need and off you go, your first system is done

but i must say it was much funnier (not that it was fun but still) to build a system 15years ago (i built my first system 15 years ago) than it is today, 15years ago every damn motherboard had shitloads of jumpers that had to be adjusted and so on (so it was not so good to loose the mobo manual), today you just plug all the shit in which is good but not as fun

beast · 09-03-2003, 03:57 PM

Putting together a computer is similar to putting together a puzzle.

When you want to build a puzzle, you just look at the outside packaging to see where the pieces go.

Computers are similar because if you ever get confused you can just look in the manual and they tell you exactly what to do.
The manual is something you should get familiar with, particularly the one for your motherboard.

So the next time you get a new system, or even your current system, grab your motherboard manual and it will explain quite a bit to you.

You may even learn about features you didnt know you had!

When all else fails you can of course come here to this forum and ask questions. I'd be more than happy to help.

Best of luck to you, and your computer building experience.

beast · 09-03-2003, 05:19 PM

exios is right, as far as how quickly a computer can be built.

It's always a good idea too read as many reviews as possible once you decide what you want to go with.

first you decide what cpu you'd like to get, amd or intel,

then you decide what motherboard you'd like to use.

once you know which motherboard to use, you'd look for reviews on www.google.com on that board. using the words motherboard review motherboards-name-here. Usuaully in these reviews, they'll have whats called a testbed, which they use multiple computer parts to test out that motherboard. It can give you an idea of which parts you should use to get maximum performance from that particular system.

Never rush into buying something, always read as much info on the product before you decide to build!

happy building, and good luck.

rockinfunzone · 09-04-2003, 12:22 AM

Cool, thanks for the info and encouraging words. I actually got an old computer from my bf's gf. I am just going to have it to fool around on, open it up and see how everything is put together inside. She was going to throw it away so i said I'd take it. Its pretty old, an Intel w/ 32MB with windows 98 and some other stuff. So I am glad to hear that it is so easy to put one together, and here the whole time we have been sending it off to some placefor them to work on it.

Yeah, i have been doing tons of searches about video cards and i plan to do more on every part I am going to get.

Anyone got any good sites for surplus / cheap parts?

Thanks again!

beast · 09-04-2003, 02:18 AM

four good sites to get hardware from, very reasonably priced:

http://www.newegg.com

http://www.mwave.com

http://www.pricegrabber.com

and for the most selection http://www.pricewatch.com

Hope it's what you're looking for

Greywolf · 09-04-2003, 07:52 AM

Once you have the parts putting them together is no problem at all.

My girlfriend didn't have a clue about computers when she bought her first PC... in just 2 weeks time she could dismantle it and put it back together in less than an hour :thumbup: