Boy, building a PC is easy

[[DHT]Osiris]

You realize there used to be a time when AMD chips were compatible with "Intel" motherboards
I think it was the AMD K6 and PII "slot" that they split from compatibility.

Of course, I used to have one. A given socket also used to last for a lot more CPU generations as well.

 

[rh71]

PCPartpicker has made it much easier now in terms of jumping in with both feet. I've done 3-4 machines in the past (yes I remember setting jumpers) but I keep my PCs a long time.. last has been 8 years and I'm in the middle of doing a new one now. So just as an example, 8 years ago I had to learn about the switch from IDE to SATA, and all the PCIExpress, etc. There's the various sizes and speeds on top of deciding what the card will need. PCPartpicker makes that easy now. So last week I decided to upgrade my Q6600 to something modern. I had no idea what M.2 was. Hell I just got done upgrading to an SSD a couple years ago, so not going to touch that. What's more - I'm just now learning about no more traditional BIOS and using UEFI instead. So I picked up a Z170 mobo (AT Hardware thread-suggested) with a Kaby Lake and the BIOS is not compatible - can't upgrade it through UEFI (won't boot, no video). This is where I assumed UEFI would load and I can update via Internet. Wrong. So ASRock has to physically send me a new BIOS to pop in and I've been waiting a week.

 

[x26]

Next up: I want a new car. Does anyone know a good place to buy steel and foundry equipment?

US Steel!!

 

[x26]

Yeah, especially when you got people saying that you should go to a SubReddit for PC building advice. This entire web site used to be devoted to DIY PC building, dammit! WTF happened to us?!?

It became the "Lunatic Fringe" just like the DNC!!

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

I just helped my son's friend build his first PC. He came over with the CPU, Memory, Case and PSU. I added some cables and showed him what to do. He built it, I just watched, for the most part. I explained what every part was and what it did as he installed them. In the end he has a working i5 system that cost him a lot less than any pre-built system. I think the whole build took like an hour with the explanations along the way. Installing the OS took longer, but that was pretty much unattended.

In my life, I think the only PC I ever bought prebuilt was a laptop...My first build was I think an 8086 and the first computer I used was a teletype connected to the U of M mainframe....I'm old.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I just helped my son's friend build his first PC. He came over with the CPU, Memory, Case and PSU. I added some cables and showed him what to do. He built it, I just watched, for the most part. I explained what every part was and what it did as he installed them. In the end he has a working i5 system that cost him a lot less than any pre-built system. I think the whole build took like an hour with the explanations along the way. Installing the OS took longer, but that was pretty much unattended.

In my life, I think the only PC I ever bought prebuilt was a laptop...My first build was I think an 8086 and the first computer I used was a teletype connected to the U of M mainframe....I'm old.

You're in good company. My first was a 386 when I was like, 10. It's never been hard heh.

 

[Darwin333]

Lol speaking of cases anyone remember that giant cube case on wheels? I remember seeing that thing as a kid and thinking "woaaaah that would be so cool for a server!" And now something like that would not really interest me, now it's all about going rackmount. There was a period of the mid 2000's where it was all about the bling too, there were much more case choices, and all sorts of mods etc like CFCL lighting, and case windows were pretty much standard. Fun times. Though now it seems that is making a come back with RGB Ram and stuff. I'm sure some people must be using LED strips too, you could make a pretty interesting blingy setup with the addressable ones and an arduino stashed in there that you can control from within the OS.

I think this is the one:

Think there was a brushed aluminium version too. If I recall you could fit two computer systems in there, like there was two separate motherboard, psu etc spaces.

I actually own one, got it in 2004 and it's housed my main rig ever since. Its size is a bit of a PITA at times but it's got way too much sentimental value for me to ever stop using it.

That was my last build without the top on, I was testing to make sure everything was working perfectly before cleaning up and putting the top on. With my fan controllers it's actually quite quiet, since I have so many fans (5 X 120mm and 5 X 80mm) I can run them all at bare minimal speed and still get a ton of airflow. I currently have 15TB of storage plus my SSD with room for another 2 HDDs, I could easily mod it to hold two seperate systems but have never had the need or desire. Another plus is I never have to worry about a cooler being too big for my case . It did come with wheels but never saw the need.

 

[sdifox]

never understood people who like to introduce noise in the electric power system of their computer.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Just realized my current build is going on 6 years old?? I have yet to have a need to upgrade anything other than video card and added some memory. Crazy. I actually built 2 systems at the same time then. One for my primary PC and another (cheaper version) for my virtual pinball machine.

 

[IronWing]

I actually own one, got it in 2004 and it's housed my main rig ever since. Its size is a bit of a PITA at times but it's got way too much sentimental value for me to ever stop using it.

With that beast, isn't the stove redundant?

 

[MrSquished]

I actually own one, got it in 2004 and it's housed my main rig ever since. Its size is a bit of a PITA at times but it's got way too much sentimental value for me to ever stop using it.

That was my last build without the top on, I was testing to make sure everything was working perfectly before cleaning up and putting the top on. With my fan controllers it's actually quite quiet, since I have so many fans (5 X 120mm and 5 X 80mm) I can run them all at bare minimal speed and still get a ton of airflow. I currently have 15TB of storage plus my SSD with room for another 2 HDDs, I could easily mod it to hold two seperate systems but have never had the need or desire. Another plus is I never have to worry about a cooler being too big for my case . It did come with wheels but never saw the need.

I have this case, it's a Fractal design Define R5: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q380LDY/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

2x120mm fans in there plus the PS fan which does not run most of the time. I barely hear a thing. Even now with the insulated case side off because I forgot to put it back on after checking something, and it's still whisper quiet. Obviously your case is noticeably larger, but 10 fans? That seems excessive.

 

[lxskllr]

With that beast, isn't the stove redundant?

He got that during the Preshott era. It would have worked well then, but chips are probably too cool now unless you're mining cryptocurrency

 

[Craig234]

There's a lot of stuff not included in Win Server because it's expected that you'll handle the drivers, instead of every damned server having like 30GB of esoteric drivers you'll never need.

EDIT: Also, OP is an embarrassment. I've put together more complicated lego sets than modern computers.

Why we have the ignore feature for people who lack reading comprehension and some personal qualities.

 

[Craig234]

It became the "Lunatic Fringe" just like the DNC!!

They don't make irony meter for that post under this presidency.

 

[Craig234]

To clarify, the point here was to help people who are used to this to be reminded what it's like for people who aren't, if you want to tell a friend 'just build your PC'.

But lots of good stories.

 

[VirtualLarry]

A few months ago, I invited a less-technical friend over, to have him build a new PC for his GF. It went pretty smoothly, but he was getting tired of doing it after an hour or so, so when it was fully assembled, he had me install the OS for him. (Win7 updates would have taken another few hours, although that goes faster now that there are "fixes" to the update issues, with the right patches installed first.)

Only problem is, he doesn't really remember how anymore, when I asked him recently. It seems he prefers to be clueless, about the art of PC building.

Edit: I suppose, the moral of this story is, it goes a lot smoother building your first PC, if you have someone assisting or directing, that has experience building them.

 

[Darwin333]

I have this case, it's a Fractal design Define R5: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q380LDY/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

2x120mm fans in there plus the PS fan which does not run most of the time. I barely hear a thing. Even now with the insulated case side off because I forgot to put it back on after checking something, and it's still whisper quiet. Obviously your case is noticeably larger, but 10 fans? That seems excessive.

Very nice case and I would probably have something like that if I didn't have my current one. Yes, 10 fans is a bit excessive and I had to get 2 fan controllers for them. Luckily it has a full 5 external 5.25" bays so space for them isn't really an issue

Hell if it wasn't for the crazy awesome custom paint job I wouldn't be nearly as attached to it and would likely have something similar to yours. On the flip side, I've had at least 10 different computers in that beast. I couldn't imagine any other case lasting me that long and through so many different builds.

 

[TeeJay1952]

Paid to have built:
3000
2500
995
995 was built at a computer show by a 12 year old while I drank a coffee. (1990?)
I built after that till 2010 and got a grey box for 700 because it was easy.

 

[Rubycon]

Remember the X CD rom speed craze?
Seems like it topped off at quad speed in '94 then 8X, 12X and even 16X P-CAV drives came out.
True-X at 42X and 72X showed promise as they didn't sound like a Pratt & Whitney firing up when accessing inner tracks. Their digital audio extraction was super fast but unfortunately plagued with errors.

My Plextor SCSI optical drives, both caddie and tray were very reliable. And DAE speed was nothing to sneeze at either.

And speaking of mid 90's back in the day with EZ CD creator it was considered nearly impossible to burn a CD at 2X speed on the fly without buffer underruns. And when you did make a coaster it was a big deal because blank discs were close to ten dollars apiece!

Let's not forget the slot loading craze. Loved the Pioneer 6X DVD drives.

USB flash drives replaced Zip drives. I never liked Zip drives. The Jaz drive was capacious and fast but since it was actually hard disk tech with flying heads the carts were very susceptible to physical damage. Syquest had their Syjet 1.5GB which was HUGE back in 1997. Faster than most hard drives. But also very failure prone. GTFF (guarantee to fail factor) about equivalent to JTS hard drives. (remember those?) At least the Quantum Bigfoot drives were reliable. But slow as pouring maple syrup at Kemi in January.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I remember when burners came out and that was HUGE. "I can burn music CDs at home!" They were expensive too, and like maybe 2X. I recall 52X cdrom, they were usually marketted like 52x16x8 or something, I think it meant 52x read 16x write, 8x rewrite, or something, I really don't recall for sure. Then DVDs came out and that was huge too. Then Bluray, but at that point I kinda stopped paying attention to optical as hard drives were starting to get big enough to do respectable raid arrays and such.

Never touched zip or jazz drives but do recall them being a thing and I was intrigued. By the time I remotely got intersted the click of death happened and then they just died, and USB sticks were starting to surface.

Before all that I used to have a regimen where I would keep setup files, like .net frameworks and crap like that so I don't have to redownload it. I would then burn to a CD that had all sorts of setup files etc. That was back in win98 days so had to reinstall often.

Interestingly I still have a lot of those around, and even have a lot of those type of setup files on my network. Suppose they're pretty obsolete at this point. In a way it's good I kept all this stuff if ever I decide to build a "throw back" win98 or win2k machine.

 

[MongGrel]

Remember the X CD rom speed craze?
Seems like it topped off at quad speed in '94 then 8X, 12X and even 16X P-CAV drives came out.
True-X at 42X and 72X showed promise as they didn't sound like a Pratt & Whitney firing up when accessing inner tracks. Their digital audio extraction was super fast but unfortunately plagued with errors.

My Plextor SCSI optical drives, both caddie and tray were very reliable. And DAE speed was nothing to sneeze at either.

And speaking of mid 90's back in the day with EZ CD creator it was considered nearly impossible to burn a CD at 2X speed on the fly without buffer underruns. And when you did make a coaster it was a big deal because blank discs were close to ten dollars apiece!

Let's not forget the slot loading craze. Loved the Pioneer 6X DVD drives.

USB flash drives replaced Zip drives. I never liked Zip drives. The Jaz drive was capacious and fast but since it was actually hard disk tech with flying heads the carts were very susceptible to physical damage. Syquest had their Syjet 1.5GB which was HUGE back in 1997. Faster than most hard drives. But also very failure prone. GTFF (guarantee to fail factor) about equivalent to JTS hard drives. (remember those?) At least the Quantum Bigfoot drives were reliable. But slow as pouring maple syrup at Kemi in January.

I'd almost forgotten ZIP drives, they worked in the day I guess, had one for backups on an old 386 at the time.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

To clarify, the point here was to help people who are used to this to be reminded what it's like for people who aren't, if you want to tell a friend 'just build your PC'.

But lots of good stories.

It's hard to build the perfect system. It's substantially easier to build a very good one that will work very well and that you'll be proud of. Plus, they'll be closer to the perfect system than any prebuilt.

Also, steps 9 through 11 apply to prebuilts too.

 

[Ackmed]

Remember the X CD rom speed craze?
Seems like it topped off at quad speed in '94 then 8X, 12X and even 16X P-CAV drives came out.
True-X at 42X and 72X showed promise as they didn't sound like a Pratt & Whitney firing up when accessing inner tracks. Their digital audio extraction was super fast but unfortunately plagued with errors.

My Plextor SCSI optical drives, both caddie and tray were very reliable. And DAE speed was nothing to sneeze at either.

And speaking of mid 90's back in the day with EZ CD creator it was considered nearly impossible to burn a CD at 2X speed on the fly without buffer underruns. And when you did make a coaster it was a big deal because blank discs were close to ten dollars apiece!

Let's not forget the slot loading craze. Loved the Pioneer 6X DVD drives.

USB flash drives replaced Zip drives. I never liked Zip drives. The Jaz drive was capacious and fast but since it was actually hard disk tech with flying heads the carts were very susceptible to physical damage. Syquest had their Syjet 1.5GB which was HUGE back in 1997. Faster than most hard drives. But also very failure prone. GTFF (guarantee to fail factor) about equivalent to JTS hard drives. (remember those?) At least the Quantum Bigfoot drives were reliable. But slow as pouring maple syrup at Kemi in January.

I had a Kenwood 72x, thought it was so badass. My SCSI drive was nice though, Plextor DVD burner. Speaking of high spinning speed data, the Raptor was actually amazing except for very limited space. I bought it just to get into the map on BF Desert Combat first... worked.

Gez, I went through so much money back then. Always keeping up with the latest in everything. Video cards especially were tough on the wallet. My phase change cooling PC was the most expensive though, added water cooling in it as well, ugh.

I did just finish a new build, and am pretty pleased with it. Very fast, 34" Asus WS monitor, almost top end on everything else. I just like doing it, wife thinks its hot too. That and working on my old car.

 

[lxskllr]

Remember the X CD rom speed craze?
Seems like it topped off at quad speed in '94 then 8X, 12X and even 16X P-CAV drives came out.
True-X at 42X and 72X showed promise as they didn't sound like a Pratt & Whitney firing up when accessing inner tracks. Their digital audio extraction was super fast but unfortunately plagued with errors.

My Plextor SCSI optical drives, both caddie and tray were very reliable. And DAE speed was nothing to sneeze at either.

And speaking of mid 90's back in the day with EZ CD creator it was considered nearly impossible to burn a CD at 2X speed on the fly without buffer underruns. And when you did make a coaster it was a big deal because blank discs were close to ten dollars apiece!

Let's not forget the slot loading craze. Loved the Pioneer 6X DVD drives.

I seldom used cdr, but I always burned at speeds way below the drive's stated max. I didn't need the extra speed since I wasn't using them much, and slower speeds gave more reliable burns.

 

[Kaido]

My Plextor SCSI optical drives, both caddie and tray were very reliable.

What's funny is that I think I only have one optical drive left in the house...a USB Bluray/DVD/CD writer I picked up for the odd optical disc that comes along.