Pitfalls of building your own PC

[lefty2]

Last time I tried to build my own PC it didn't turn out too well. The PC crashed about once every day. After re-installed Windows several times, I determined that it was faulty hardware. It could be the memory, the motherboard, the CPU or the power supply (in order of likelyhood). I didn't have any spare components, so I couldn't determine which one was the culprit.
I just wondering what do do in this case? Supposing you buy all this stuff on Amazon, can you just send the whole lot back and say "one of these things is faulty, sort it out"

 

[Termie]

There are steps you can take to determine which component is faulty, even if you don't have any additional parts to test with. It all comes down to what type of crash you are having, when it occurs, and what your components are.

The key, of course, is to run everything at completely stock settings, no BIOS tweaking or overclocking, until you know the system is stable.

Amazon has a pretty good return policy, but I'm not sure they're going to "sort it out" for you, they'll just issue a refund. Honestly, though, that's not a very good way to handle it.

If you want to build a new system, you can post your goals in this forum and we can help you select parts that are likely to work together.

 

[bononos]

Asking Amazon to sort it out themselves is beyond the pale. They'll probably reply - you sort it out first and make you pay for shipping. Thats the thing about building your own box, you should be ready for flaky parts.

 

[lefty2]

Asking Amazon to sort it out themselves is beyond the pale. They'll probably reply - you sort it out first and make you pay for shipping. Thats the thing about building your own box, you should be ready for flaky parts.

Maybe the solution is just to replace the parts one by one until the problem goes away?

 

[lefty2]

There are steps you can take to determine which component is faulty,

Believe me, I spend a lot of time trying to trouble shoot this and there was no way to tell what was wrong, without physically replacing the parts. It didn't help that the crash happend so infrequently- in fact, that's the worst type of problem to trouble shoot

 

[piasabird]

You assemble one part at a time or remove one part at a time. What sucks is when it is just a lousy motherboard with intermittent booting issues. There is always a problem when you approach a computer by purchasing the cheapest components possible.

I have a suggestion. Find a computer shop that custom builds computers and take the computer to them and ask them to fix it. Sometimes it is something really simple that you missed like the CPU cooler is not plugged in or the motherboard is grounding out on the case. The Motherboard grounding out is a major problem. Then there are just video cards with bad drivers. Bad hard drives have been a problem and sometimes the RAM has bad problems, and sometimes in a case like yours it is a power supply problem or an overheating problem.

If you go on www.newegg.com and look up your parts you can look at reviews and see if that part has a lot of problem from a lot of different reviewers.

 

[piasabird]

Building computers is not for everyone. I purchased a motherboard from FIC one time and no matter what I tried it would crash playing games. So we tried replacing the motherboard with a new ASUS motherboard and everything worked fine. That does not mean that that is your issue.

 

[lefty2]

You assemble one part at a time or remove one part at a time. What sucks is when it is just a lousy motherboard with intermittent booting issues. There is always a problem when you approach a computer by purchasing the cheapest components possible.

I have a suggestion. Find a computer shop that custom builds computers and take the computer to them and ask them to fix it. Sometimes it is something really simple that you missed like the CPU cooler is not plugged in or the motherboard is grounding out on the case. The Motherboard grounding out is a major problem. Then there are just video cards with bad drivers. Bad hard drives have been a problem and sometimes the RAM has bad problems, and sometimes in a case like yours it is a power supply problem or an overheating problem.

If you go on www.newegg.com and look up your parts you can look at reviews and see if that part has a lot of problem from a lot of different reviewers.

That's good advice. Thanks for the answer, pisabird

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Believe me, I spend a lot of time trying to trouble shoot this and there was no way to tell what was wrong, without physically replacing the parts. It didn't help that the crash happend so infrequently- in fact, that's the worst type of problem to trouble shoot

What troubleshooting steps did you take?

There are software utilities that will individually (stress) test your components. Could it be bad RAM? Run Memtest. Suspect a bad HDD? Do a multi-pass zero-all data. Driver reinstall not fix a glitchy GPU? Try FurMark. Prime95 for CPU stability testing.

Individual component testing, RMAing bad or suspect components (most places will accept a random RMA or two because they know not all problems arise in all configurations), and a couple of OS reinstalls (preferably from different media or, better yet, a different OS completely) are usually enough to isolate a failure to a specific component.

Unless it's the motherboard. But if nothing works but everything passes the individualized tests, then it's almost always the motherboard.

So I'm suspicious your troubleshooting flowchart is flawed.

As far as the recourse you have when you BYO - we tend to have multiple working systems for parts swapping, and spares bins of older components. If you don't, and don't want one, then maybe a prebuilt would have been a better choice.

 

[lefty2]

What troubleshooting steps did you take?

There are software utilities that will individually (stress) test your components. Could it be bad RAM? Run Memtest. Suspect a bad HDD? Do a multi-pass zero-all data. Driver reinstall not fix a glitchy GPU? Try FurMark. Prime95 for CPU stability testing.

Individual component testing, RMAing bad or suspect components (most places will accept a random RMA or two because they know not all problems arise in all configurations), and a couple of OS reinstalls (preferably from different media or, better yet, a different OS completely) are usually enough to isolate a failure to a specific component.

Unless it's the motherboard. But if nothing works but everything passes the individualized tests, then it's almost always the motherboard.

So I'm suspicious your troubleshooting flowchart is flawed.

As far as the recourse you have when you BYO - we tend to have multiple working systems for parts swapping, and spares bins of older components. If you don't, and don't want one, then maybe a prebuilt would have been a better choice.

In my experience those hardware test programs are a waste of time. For instance, I once had a faulty DIMM. You could run the memory test for days and it always says "no errors".

 

[Mushkins]

In my experience those hardware test programs are a waste of time. For instance, I once had a faulty DIMM. You could run the memory test for days and it always says "no errors".

So if you don't want to troubleshoot, i'm not sure what you're looking for here. Amazon isn't going to sort out what part is bad for you, assuming it's not a software conflict.

Those tests arent 100% perfect, but they're a good starting point.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

In my experience those hardware test programs are a waste of time. For instance, I once had a faulty DIMM. You could run the memory test for days and it always says "no errors".

Yeah, but that's rare. You run the diagnostics first. If that doesn't isolate it, then you start looking through crash logs. (Assuming you've already eliminated software as the possible culprit.)

And you go, "Oh, hey, that really is a memory error!" and you swap the DIMM to confirm.

It's a process, not a magic button.

 

[lefty2]

Well, I'm just saying I've never seen any those hardware tests correctly identify a hardware problem. That's just my experience

 

[DaveSimmons]

Well, I'm just saying I've never seen any those hardware tests correctly identify a hardware problem. That's just my experience

I have.

But it sounds like you might be happier with a CyberPower or Alienware, or maybe getting a Dell and just putting in a new video card.

 

[aloser]

As everyone else has already said, if YOU can't be bothered to figure out what's wrong with a machine YOU built, maybe it's best to just buy something already built; the cost includes peace of mind that it's going to work out of the box and allow the freedom to send it back and say "here, you sort it out" if it doesn't.

 

[NickelPlate]

I buy PC components almost exclusively from Amazon anymore because nobody beats their return policies, just in case something doesn't work out to my expectations or some goofy issue comes up which can happen. Alot of times they'll even send UPS to your house with a prepaid shipping label to pick up your return at their expense. Newegg's prices are good but they have restock fees on alot of stuff which can get expensive and you'll have to pay return shipping.

But as already mentioned Amazon isn't going to sort anything out for you. They'll just issue a refund, credit or exchange.

My advice is to do your research ahead of time and ask questions here to determine compatibility between components you want and your chances of success will increase drastically. If you don't want to be bothered with that, then probably best to buy a pre-built machine from a system builder or pay extra and support a local B&M store who can provide support if something goes wrong.

 

[PowerYoga]

Start with the very basics: CPU + ram + video card. Run memtest for a few passes with 1 stick of ram to make sure nothing's wrong with the stick. Swap out the stick and re-test. If you're paranoid about the DIMM change slots and repeat. Make sure heat's not causing the crashes, I'd run intelburntest or some other burn programs to make sure.

You need to isolate the parts that are broken. If your ram, vid, cpu and power supply are all cool and running well but you still crash then its the mobo.

 

[mfenn]

As everyone else has already said, if YOU can't be bothered to figure out what's wrong with a machine YOU built, maybe it's best to just buy something already built; the cost includes peace of mind that it's going to work out of the box and allow the freedom to send it back and say "here, you sort it out" if it doesn't.

This. There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you want the (potentially) lower cost and increased component flexibility of a custom PC, then you have to be willing to accept the higher risk and time investment.

Many of us around here have the mentality that you're better off buying spares as part of the troubleshooting process because you never know when you can use them in the future. If you're not in principle willing to do that, then perhaps building your own isn't the right solution for you. Nothing wrong with that.

Generally speaking, people who build or upgrade their own PC's frequently will have built up a stock of old/spare parts (i.e. extra money) that they can use for troubleshooting. It's kind of an investment, money spent earlier will (may?) pay off later.

 

[bryanl]

Start with good components, such as a Corsair or Antec power supply and Crucial or Samsung memory. The memory voltage rating should be 1.50 or less, never anything higher.

The fewer components installed, the easier it is to find any faulty ones. So start with a barebones system and see that it passes Memtest86 overnight before installing more hardware. At first use only the motherboard's own video or a low performance video card that does not heavily tax the power supply.

 

[Davidh373]

I'd say try the process of elimination everyone else is mentioning. Usually what is crashing the computer is also definitive. Also, what kind of crash is it? Is it a freeze? Is it a BSOD? Does the screen flicker, go black, or freeze? Does the audio go crazy when it crashes? Does Windows display an error before it crashes? It's not only a process of elimination on the hardware side, but on the software side as well.
You seem to be very vague. Almost as if you wanted to be on purpose to get rid of the hassle. You want us to validate your desire to return the parts for no good reason. I work for an electronics retailer, and user error is a huge part of our return base. In my opinion, if you don't know how to use it, or assemble it, or configure it, or afford to part with the money for people to do all that for you, you shouldn't buy it. Just so you know, when you say something like you want Amazon to "sort it out" it comes across like you're mad at Amazon, while the only person to blame is you, or the manufacturer who you don't want to hassle with. You lose out on a good experience, Amazon loses money for your ignorance, they send out the part to the manufacturer to run tests on, it goes back to Amazon to sell as Open Box which they'll likely lose money on a second time around. It's not fair or beneficial to anyone once it gets to the point you're at. The best thing to do is be civil and clear with everyone trying to help you, whether it's Us, the Manufacturer, or Amazon.

 

[BrightCandle]

I have had a lot of parts with issues over the last 15 years or so of building PCs. Every fault is a little different, but I suspect I have about 30 to 40 parts that didn't work as they were meant to. In all that time only once have I had a fault that I had to take individual parts to a company so they could test them to determine the fault.

Because you can almost always determine the likely culprit in the end. If you test the memory extensively and you can't find fault there, and there are genuinely no errors showing up that could point to software issues but its still crashing well you can rule out the CPU (never had one fail, probably never will), its not the memory so it must be the motherboard. The question is then is it just faulty or is it a design flaw. At that point I like to send it back for a refund and replace it with a different board from a different manufacturer.

I have had a lot of faulty RAM, always confirmed by appropriate memory testing tools. I have had quite a few faulty motherboards, confirmed by eliminating every other component (remove them or test them in another computer), a bad GPU that was faulty bios (too low voltage) and quite a few bad PSUs. You level of trust for a component IMO goes from top trust to bottom:

CPU
Hard drive
Graphics card
Motherboard
SSD
Sound card
PSU
Memory

But if it was already working then its a different list because the components that move are more likely to fail over time. But for whatever reason the memory manufacturers often ship parts that don't work, and PSUs unless chosen carefully often have initial problems, again I blame poor QA in some of these companies. Sound cards are normally faulty by design, they seem to have a lot of compatibility issues with other cards and motherboards or odd software and hardware quirks. SSDs are getting better but I have had quite a few dead on arrivals there already. Motherboards are often both faulty on getting them are kind of tricky. They often cause crashes at weird moments and sometimes its been design faults and others just a bad board. But I have seen bad boards from all the big companies and I don't usually get another of the same type I go straight to their competitors board to rule out the inevitable design faults that comes from their rapid development cycles and pretty terrible QA on their software and hardware design. GPUs are all kind of faulty, I haven't had a card in 4 years where I didn't report at least 10 bugs with the software or bios. They are just fundamentally problematic due to their complexity and the rapid rate with which they change architecture is likely at fault. But these problems usually manifest with particular monitors or in particular slots of a board. HDDs might be dead on arrival but its really easy to tell, because you normally can't see it in the bios or if you can it wont format. Never had a bad CPU on arrival, ever. Both AMD and Intel quality test so well that across 10's of computers I have never seen a fault. If the machine wont power on its not the CPU, its probably PSU or motherboard but never the CPU.