Boy, building a PC is easy

[Crono]

Is it worth using the cooler?
I understand the margin on these isn't that great, i.e. 4GHz wall.
Has anyone used one of these without a video card, i.e. IGP?
It would be interesting to run one with IGP only. You know, a WORK station?

If I was using another case I probably would have gone air. This is my first time using a liquid cooler and it's managing the temp fairly well, but I don't think it's necessary for anyone who isn't heavily overclocking. A large tower or dual tower HSF is advisable if you want to overclock, though; the included Wraith one with the 1700 seems to be fine for moderate overclocks.

I'm running at 4GHz, and even most people with a 1800X top out at 4.1GHz or a few lucky ones at 4.2GHz without using some crazy cooling like LN2, so the wall is fairly real.

Ryzen 7 doesn't have integrated graphics, I think only the Zen-based APUs (Raven Ridge) will have integrated graphics.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I've done it so many times now that it feels simple to me though. I still have to do a lot of research, but that's really part of the joy of the process to me. When the upgrade itch comes along I just naturally find myself seeking out hardware reviews. By the time I actually put a part list together most of the work will have been really done in my head. I could practically do the assembly in my sleep, and I've seen the potential pitfalls enough times to automatically account for them in my process.

I want to say it's all really easy, and much of it is, but it helps having a sizable body of experience behind me too. Problems that I deftly avoid without thinking about them these days might have stymied me for days in the beginning...

 

[Craig234]

I've done it so many times now that it feels simple to me though. I still have to do a lot of research, but that's really part of the joy of the process to me. When the upgrade itch comes along I just naturally find myself seeking out hardware reviews. By the time I actually put a part list together most of the work will have been really done in my head. I could practically do the assembly in my sleep, and I've seen the potential pitfalls enough times to automatically account for them in my process.

I want to say it's all really easy, and much of it is, but it helps having a sizable body of experience behind me too. Problems that I deftly avoid without thinking about them these days might have stymied me for days in the beginning...

I think that's right on, and I find the research part somewhat enjoyable also.

 

[Chaotic42]

I guess I'm lucky, I don't remember having any bent pins. The worst I ever had was a damaged trace on my Celeron 366 Slot 1 CPU. I had to remove it and redraw the trace with graphite every week. Good times.

 

[MrSquished]

10 builds all time and zero bent pins. I gotta think if you get a bent pin it's user error during the build phase. Unless anyone has gotten a bent pin straight from the factory?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah I find when I take the cpu out it goes straight to the socket, I'll always have the motherboard ready to go, already screwed in. I always feel like some kind of supervillain about to activate an evil robot when I insert a cpu.

"Bring me the chip" *slowly opens package* "Excellent" *inserts into socket*

 

[Craig234]

10 builds all time and zero bent pins. I gotta think if you get a bent pin it's user error during the build phase. Unless anyone has gotten a bent pin straight from the factory?

No, it was caused I'm sure during my build.

The Hyper 212 EVO I found quite hard to get installed right, and it had a whole lot of movement around on the CPU and I think that's how a pin got bent. Result was, two of four ram slots prevented the PC form booting if used.

I didn't understand they were the type of pins they were when I tried to fix it, and looked and saw a spot there might be a tiny piece of debris. So I took a kleenex and lightly wiped it over the spot. The wrong way against the pins, it turned out. With not enough pressure to bend more pins, but a tiny bit of the kleened caught on a pin.

Then still not realizing the pin angles, I tried to lightly pick off the fiber. I think that bent another.

By that point I realized the pin angles and couldn't find any way to straighten them until finally taking it to a jeweler. It was all too close to being a $175 piece of junk and needing a complete rebuild of the PC which I did not care to do.

But a jewelry shop of all things was able to do just enough straightening that it mostly works now, with just hardware hangs in some cases.

 

[Ryland]

And then you have all the parts, carefully assemble them and star having weird things happen, like onboard video problems. So you change out parts to fix that but fund that now the computer won't even acknowledge the power button. Which gets fixed by clearing CMOS except that now USB won't come live so you reseat the memory. Now it thinks is the year 5035 but windows starts. Man I wish I made that up but that was Friday night for me.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's the thing, building a PC is normally easy except for when it's not, because of some weird problem. Sometimes those issues don't surface right away either. I fought for years with one machine and Linux and weird issues. Cursor would get stuck in "click" mode (like you click on a link in a web page and then it's stuck in the hand icon and you can't click on anything because it's like if the button is being held down), or GUI would lock up half way through drawing a window, or I would start to get random squares show up, etc.... In windows, the same machine would not have any of those issues, except the screens would occasionally turn off and I'd get a message that the driver crashed. Turned out to be the video card. It seemed obvious at first, but I had TWO cards, and they BOTH had that problem (running one at a time) so I figured it could not be that and kept trying other stuff like different ram and even different Linux distros which would just get different problems. I ended up fixing both issues in both OSes by using a different card altogether when I finally caved and ordered another one. I hate throwing money at problems though. That's often what ends happening with these weird issues.

I still have those two cards and lot of random ram sitting on a shelf, basically $400+ down the drain as those cards are probably worth nothing now. They are GTX 560's if I recall. not even good for bitcoin mining lol. They'll heat up several rooms in a house though. Crazy how hot video cards run now days.

 

[foghorn67]

10 builds all time and zero bent pins. I gotta think if you get a bent pin it's user error during the build phase. Unless anyone has gotten a bent pin straight from the factory?

I got a bent pin from Fry's. It was used, and they tried to sell it as new. I noticed it was bent before I tried putting it in the socket. Hell of a time trying to return it.
Fry's...never again.

 

[Craig234]

I have hundreds in return credits at Fry's. They said 'you have to e-mail customer service before they can be honored'. Customer service e-mailed saying they have no role with them.

 

[Meghan54]

I got a bent pin from Fry's. It was used, and they tried to sell it as new. I noticed it was bent before I tried putting it in the socket. Hell of a time trying to return it.
Fry's...never again.

I was buying quite a few mb/cpu combos from Fry's during the ECS/Intel combo sets, when you essentially got the mb for free.

After a third combo with a "new" tray cpu that had thermal grease on it was sold to me as "new", I gave up on Fry's, after fighting with the CS people at the store for a refund. Microcenter became my go-to store. Screw Fry's.

Of course, Fry's CS people claimed the thermal grease was on there because "We test every cpu before we sell it," which is a complete lie.

 

[Kaido]

That's the thing, building a PC is normally easy except for when it's not, because of some weird problem. Sometimes those issues don't surface right away either. I fought for years with one machine and Linux and weird issues. Cursor would get stuck in "click" mode (like you click on a link in a web page and then it's stuck in the hand icon and you can't click on anything because it's like if the button is being held down), or GUI would lock up half way through drawing a window, or I would start to get random squares show up, etc.... In windows, the same machine would not have any of those issues, except the screens would occasionally turn off and I'd get a message that the driver crashed. Turned out to be the video card. It seemed obvious at first, but I had TWO cards, and they BOTH had that problem (running one at a time) so I figured it could not be that and kept trying other stuff like different ram and even different Linux distros which would just get different problems. I ended up fixing both issues in both OSes by using a different card altogether when I finally caved and ordered another one. I hate throwing money at problems though. That's often what ends happening with these weird issues.

I still have those two cards and lot of random ram sitting on a shelf, basically $400+ down the drain as those cards are probably worth nothing now. They are GTX 560's if I recall. not even good for bitcoin mining lol. They'll heat up several rooms in a house though. Crazy how hot video cards run now days.

Ah man, weird problems are the worst! I built a box a couple years ago that refused to do anything. Everything checked out, couldn't figure it out. Turned out it was a cheap case that was shorting out the board via the motherboard screw contacts (I didn't use my test rig to build it initially either, derp). After reading about a similar issue online, I made paper spaces & voila, it worked, so I ordered a bunch of little non-conductive washers:

https://www.startech.com/Computer-P...8mm-Paper-Motherboard-Washers-50-Pack~WASHERP

Dumbest issue ever!

 

[Craig234]

I was buying quite a few mb/cpu combos from Fry's during the ECS/Intel combo sets, when you essentially got the mb for free.

After a third combo with a "new" tray cpu that had thermal grease on it was sold to me as "new", I gave up on Fry's, after fighting with the CS people at the store for a refund. Microcenter became my go-to store. Screw Fry's.

Of course, Fry's CS people claimed the thermal grease was on there because "We test every cpu before we sell it," which is a complete lie.

You should have walked to the shelf and bought a motherboard then walked it over to the same staff, opened it, and showed no thermal paste - explain.

 

[onlylaptop]

My son figured it out at age 10 with no direction.

It isn't hard.

 

[Craig234]

Ya, if it all goes well, and you don't need a lot of information to get the right parts, that could happen. But it's a bit obnoxious and misses the point.

Or, perhaps I could talk to the 10 year old and have him explain his approach to diagnosing why 2 of 4 ram banks prevent the system from booting if used, and how he'd fix that and perhaps demonstrate it, and discuss the finer points of knowing to convert a HD to allow a 3tb partition and diagnosing if there's a problem.

But I know an 9 year old who could make a better post than I replied to.

 

[RossMAN]

Disclaimer: When it comes to build your own PC's, I'm an idiot. Please talk to me like I'm a 5th grader.

Bought my wife a Dell Inspiron 3847 http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/inspiron-3847-desktop/manuals

It has a 500GB HD I want to replace the primary OS drive with an SSD (128GB) and add 2TB for data, how? Before ripping out the 500GB it came with is there anything I need to do to preserve the Windows OS/license?

 

[SlitheryDee]

Disclaimer: When it comes to build your own PC's, I'm an idiot. Please talk to me like I'm a 5th grader.

Bought my wife a Dell Inspiron 3847 http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/inspiron-3847-desktop/manuals

It has a 500GB HD I want to replace the primary OS drive with an SSD (128GB) and add 2TB for data, how? Before ripping out the 500GB it came with is there anything I need to do to preserve the Windows OS/license?

Leave the OS drive in there and connect the ssd to a free SATA port alongside it. Then use the drive cloning software that will almost certainly come with your new ssd to migrate the windows install over to the new drive. Then pull the old drive out, mount the new one in it's place and the computer should boot up like nothing has changed. This step requires that the old hard drive have less than 128gb of space used up on it or else it won't fit on the new drive. You can either uninstall stuff/delete stuff to trim the size down, install your data drive first and move stuff over to it before migrating, and/or start fresh with a new windows install on the new drive to make that happen.

If you just want to start fresh with a new windows install you can also just plug in the new drive and install the same version of windows on it as the original had, using the serial number on the sticker that should be somewhere on the computer case as your license.

After either of these steps you can then mount the new 2tb data drive in any free bay in the computer, plug it in to a free sata port, and "probably" everything will work as it should from there. I say probably because occasionally I've had to muck about with disk manager to get a new HDD to be recognized.

 

[Rubycon]

Well Ryzen is a no go for us.

The 1080ti flies like an eagle though!

 

[BudAshes]

I was buying quite a few mb/cpu combos from Fry's during the ECS/Intel combo sets, when you essentially got the mb for free.

After a third combo with a "new" tray cpu that had thermal grease on it was sold to me as "new", I gave up on Fry's, after fighting with the CS people at the store for a refund. Microcenter became my go-to store. Screw Fry's.

Of course, Fry's CS people claimed the thermal grease was on there because "We test every cpu before we sell it," which is a complete lie.

Yeah this is the ultimate problem with a place like Frys. They have no issue just straight up lying to you.

 

[Staples]

It has a 500GB HD I want to replace the primary OS drive with an SSD (128GB) and add 2TB for data, how? Before ripping out the 500GB it came with is there anything I need to do to preserve the Windows OS/license?

It sounds like it would be better for you just to do a clean install of Windows. Be sure to burn some backup DVDs of the preinstalled DELL environment if they did not issue any with the PC. Their recovery program that comes with the PC should allow you to easily do it.

Unplug the current hard drive, plug in the SSD so that only the SSD is connected. Boot those recovery DVDs and Windows and hopefully everything (unless you got additional DVDs with the computer) will install on the computer. The sticker with the Windows serial to activate it should be on the computer case.
You have not touched the data on your original hard drive so if you find that you are missing something of need, you can always go back.
You can now plug in your original hard drive to have access to any data you had on it. All programs will need to be downloaded and reinstalled. Your OS drive is fairly small so don't be afraid to install programs to another drive besides C:

There is a chance that the computer will try to load Windows off your original hard drive if you have both plugged in but if that happens, come back and ask more. It is easy to fix.

 

[foghorn67]

I was buying quite a few mb/cpu combos from Fry's during the ECS/Intel combo sets, when you essentially got the mb for free.

After a third combo with a "new" tray cpu that had thermal grease on it was sold to me as "new", I gave up on Fry's, after fighting with the CS people at the store for a refund. Microcenter became my go-to store. Screw Fry's.

Of course, Fry's CS people claimed the thermal grease was on there because "We test every cpu before we sell it," which is a complete lie.

Oh yeah, free mobo with CPU. ECS. Only reading the paper for the Fry's ad.
Good times.

 

[RossMAN]

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Thank you both for the detailed and helpful replies, I'm a little less apprehensive now.

No need to backup anything as the PC is brand new and hasn't been used. I'd like to install an SSD and do a fresh & clean Windows 10 install.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

An older computer, circa 2010, was having issues so I decided to get a new one in late 2015. Took a few hours of research and shopping, a few hours of assembly, a few hours trying to transfer my fucking goddamned sonofabitch Windows 7 license accompanied by unnecessary phone calls with Apu (he was friendly though), and an hour doing drivers and installing the fundamentals. OS stuff aside, pretty trivial, and I don't consider myself to be a computer person at all these days.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

It gets easier the more you do it. My first build in 2001...eesh, literally half a lifetime ago!...that was a nightmare. I had no idea WTF I was doing and it took hours. The second one was much easier, iirc an AMD 64 3700+ when Socket 939 was brand new and BioStar wasn't a swear. All the ones after that in normal-sized cases have been "can do it in my sleep" easy. Except the front case headers as several other people have mentioned.

My specialty now is Mini-ITX and smaller cases, which present their own problems. But overall, I'd say it's easier to build one now than 10 or 15 years ago, and certainly easier than 20+ years ago if the training I did on Baby AT cases was any indication (rest in peace, 286 I accidentally managed to make light itself on fire somehow ). Actually with the advent of m.2 keys and Mini-STX boards that take SO-DIMMs and laptop power bricks, it's never been easier.