Building Your First Computer... ahh memories

dubstar

format c:
Joined
3 Dec 2002
Messages
1,357
So lets hear some good and bad stories, the case, the board, the cpu, the vid-card, everything, did it blow up? did it run perfect until you decided you wanted to see if it would hold 4 beers AND your sandwhich?

Do's and Donts for first time builders....

:happy:
 
Metal is not the best conductor, thermal paste is, without it you CPU burns out within a second of power up, don't scrape the thermal pad off unless your putting paste on:D :D :D :D :D

Skazz( Just learnt that from my last thread in this sub-catagory)
 
Never ever, plug a little weird thing from the PSU that looks like e led light connector onto the fan plug in the motherboard, just, don't.
 
OH Boy do I have stories.... The two hardest pieces of equipment I have had problems with are the motherboard and the video card. I had to RMA a video card 5 times and the video card 4 before I got it working---It was a nightmere. Keep in mind that for each piece it was about 5-10 days for the RMA process to go through. Another problem that took alot of time several days and houres of technical support was that I had some of the metal supports that connect your motherboard to the computer case were touching the motherboard and I did not know it.---I have an excuse for that one-I was 11-12 at the time. I have had my share of problems and have concluded that software problems are much easer to fix that are hardware.
 
so plastic washers would have been good for you huh GMeagle..

im sort of scared to put my computer together in a month or two, im going to be asking more questions and posting more comments that right now (as hard as that is to believe:blink:)
 
Originally posted by dubstar
so plastic washers would have been good for you huh GMeagle..

im sort of scared to put my computer together in a month or two, im going to be asking more questions and posting more comments that right now (as hard as that is to believe:blink:)

Don't worry about it, but it's good to find an old piece of junk and tinker with it before you do.

Read a few guides, don't be scared, and you're set :)
 
I was stoned and put my heatsink on backwards. Fried the cpu :(

Also screwed the standoffs in the holes labeled ATX, instead of lining up the motherboard with the tray to see which holes actually needed the standoffs. Fried the motherboard.

Never again will I do that. :eek:
 
Originally posted by Nick M
Never ever, plug a little weird thing from the PSU that looks like e led light connector onto the fan plug in the motherboard, just, don't.
To late been there done that. The wire burned up real quick .

The one suggestion I have to a first time system builder is, find an old system tear it appart and put it tegether again, that way you have a little practice before you try to mess with your good stuff
 
Originally posted by Nick M
Never ever, plug a little weird thing from the PSU that looks like e led light connector onto the fan plug in the motherboard, just, don't.

rofl... what exactly is that connector for anyway??

i built my first PC without any problems... it was my 2nd PC that I forgot about the jumper for the BIOS... kept getting a blank screen when I turned the PC on. Realised after 5 hours of thinking "omg, i broke it" that I had to set it :)
 
I've only built 3 pc's myself so far, no probs as of yet
 
me built me first puter and the darned thing wouldnt boot up. After i got very angry :p i found out that it was a stupid dodgy ram module
 
DO NOT Flash Your BIOS in windows............oops :(

i wrote of my pc
 
I once fried my motherboard and PSU in one go by putting in a dodgy CPU. :eek:
And a pal of mine killed his hard drive when he disobeyed the Redline-Pin1 rule. :p
 
I have built 4 machines, and upgraded 3 of them at least 3 times.
All have worked fine apart from one, dunno that PC even when it was manufacturer made never ran nicely I think that the spot the case sat was cursed or something.

Basic tips, read the mobo manual for connector orientation
and always check everything twice before even plugging in the power cable.

Thermal paste (Arctic Silver III is a god send)
A CPU running at 70-80C will crash fairly easily when you try to install an OS (trust me I know)

Also dropping a computer is not recommended, though I have dropped one of mine and it has never been the same since, I now use it as a server it is so stable. (I dont think that an improvement in Stablility is the most common result of dropping)

XP Abuser, how the fk did you manage to FLASH your BIOS in windows, they all say they cannot run except in PureDOS
 
There are utilities that allow you to flash in widows, cos I tried it, only it said I wasn't allowed cos I had flash protection on, so I just went straight into the bios and did it

Skazz
 
well i had the idea of loading all the diagnostic programs on the cd with my MOBO and i had award bios and live bios installed for MSI motherboards i saw the update BIOS thing and i thought oowww updates are always good, i saw this thigs called CC i pressed it only to later find out it way short for Clear CMOS then i decided to click the update bios button when i did a box came up saying "system settings have changed restart computer now" i did and that was the last time it ever booted up i dont know if it was the bios or me ripping it to pieces but the processor didnt work and the memory was dodgy and kept showing BSOD on install of windows but it was under guarentee i acted like a complete N00b and " siad my pc broke i dont know what happened" and they gave me a new one with XP and a DVD rewriter swweeeeeeeettttt:D
 
... and a blank screen and conitinuous beeping live with you forever every time i update the bios i dont expect it to boot again

i can seriously say i pooped my pants
 
Originally posted by Ziptrx
I was stoned and put my heatsink on backwards. Fried the cpu :(

Also screwed the standoffs in the holes labeled ATX, instead of lining up the motherboard with the tray to see which holes actually needed the standoffs. Fried the motherboard.

Never again will I do that. :eek:

and people think drugs are good?:p
 
i decided to clean the arctic silver off my CPU and use this stuff arctic silver sent me called ceramique.

i was so stoned at the time and in low light that i didnt notice i had only half clipped the heatsink on, until i booted, 5 seconds later, CRACK POOF Smoke everywere, new mobo, CPU and raid controller card.

£350 later i upgraded to an XP2700 and the mobo is RMA able :)

im still licking my wounds at losing over 40GB from the raid arrays that i was gunna back up tommorow, yeh the tomorrow that never comes......
 

Members online

No members online now.

Latest profile posts

Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

Forum statistics

Threads
62,015
Messages
673,494
Members
5,621
Latest member
naeemsafi
Back