How Long Did it Take For You to Get Knowledgeable on PC Hardware?

[jiyeon]

Hi, so at work, a lot of my colleagues have talked about how long/short it took them to get used to the terminology, equipment etc of the company that I work for, and when I mentioned how as an 18-year old, I took arond 5 months to learn what I know currently about PC hardware and how I built my own PC, they were kind of shook.

 

What amount of time did it take you all to get proficient knowledge on PC tech?

 

I for example, took around 5-6 months to go from "I don't know what's inside a PC" to "Ah yes, this PC has an i7-8700K 6-core CPU sitting on a Z370 motherboard, GTX 1080 Ti with 11GB VRAM, a 2x16GB kit of DDR4-3200 RAM, and has a 250GB M.2 NVMe SSD." Most of that knowledge came from watching YouTube videos by no-surprise Linus Tech Tips, Techquickie, Bitwit, Paul's Hardware, the usual suspecs, but it was all solidifed when I got my own PC that I could tinker around with, and finally when I built a custom PC from scratch, and about 10% of that knowledge was learnt at school.

 

It'll be fascinating to hear what kind of experiences you guys went through to get to the level of knowledge you guys have on PC hardware.

[mxk]

Being on this forum since I joined, and keeping up more on youtube is what helped me learn in the course of ~a month

[SenKa]

It more or less took me a year of self teaching. I would find an issue, fix it, break something else in the process, so-on. I never concidered myself a techie at the time, I just needed to fix things as I was too poor to replace them. Thus I never watched tech YT channels or even guides on how to fix my issues. Just kept trying things till it worked.

 

Now a days I can rattle off facts on most any piece of tech hardware on varying levels of usefulness.

[kelvinhall05]

I started getting into PCs around...2016? Maybe? Can't quite remember, but I haven't been in the game for too long.

[August Garcia]

If you are already able to use a computer for tasks like posting on Internet forums, you can learn the basics of computer assembly fairly easily within a month or so, though there is clearly substantially more to learn.

[Billy Pilgrim]

It took me a a few months at first as my interest increased, but even now I am still trying to learn more about the history of computer parts as well as more details about specific architectures and designs.

[Godager98]

I started when i was 12-13, I'm 20 now and I learn something new everyday!

[TheRandomness]

Took me a month to learn how to a build a PC, then a year or so to get good at recommending/picking hardware. 5 years later and I've sort of stagnated on the hardware side after teaching myself how a CPU mostly works.

[Terryv]

It took me about a month, but my learning was out of necessity. Because of that it went rather quickly.

 

The building part was actually the easiest for me, I have a strong mechanical background and it was basically like putting a Legos together.

 

I've had an interest ever since, and boy what a deep rabbit hole this is.

[Fasauceome]

When I started watching Linus my knowledge on PC terminology skyrocketed. I knew at one point that building your own PC was cheapest (not even sure where I heard it) and then used pcpartpicker to build some PCs for my friends, but then figured out just what was up with generations, SKUs, tiers, and what have you after my then friend and now business partner showed me LTT

[XR6]

Ever since I've had access to the internet. Maybe around 2012 or 2013 I started getting into computers, and my knowledge went up by quite a bit around 2015-2016. I think my obsession of tinkering with PC hardware started when a friend of my parents gave me an old computer from his PC store. 

Most of my PC knowledge came from the internet, especially talking to other people who like myself have a passion for PC hardware. 

The LTT forums have definitely helped out with my PC knowledge though. Last year I would've said "Yeah I don't see anything wrong with that PSU, you should be fine" whereas now I could list problems like loud fans/bad OCP and then I could recommend a good quality PSU. 

I'm still learning but I think I'm a bit more familiar with computers than most people of my age. Most people in my class don't even know what a hard drive is.

 

[LukeSavenije]

technically it took me 17 years... i learn more every single day

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

depends what you define as knowledgeable. when i was 13/14 i already knew a lot about Linux and how to install/setup Ubuntu and even how to install Windows games using Wine (which back then wasn't as easy as it is now) including manually installing stuff like directx on Windows virtual drives etc... 

 

and as @LukeSavenije said technically it took until now. i still learn every day. 

[Ja Krispie]

Same as @LukeSavenije

Been learning since I was around 5 and still learning to this day.

[JoeCoke]

I guess that depends on what you define as "knowledgeable".

 

I think this is what I'd define as "decently knowledgeable":

 

Spoiler

 

Knowing most common terminology such as:
CPU, GPU, RAM, PSU, HDD, SSD, heatsink, VRAM, DDR, FSB, BCLK, multiplier, VRM, vcore, IPC, die, PGA, LGA, etc.

 

Being able to identify all basic PC parts.

Being able to assemble a PC, and it feeling automatic.

Being able to identify a CPU socket, and knowing which CPUs belong to that socket.

Being able to identify what type of RAM a stick is.

Knowing how to monitor temps, and what temps are safe/reasonable.

Basic overclocking knowledge, and knowing how to test for stability.

Decent Windows knowledge, such as managing services, regedit,etc.
Some very basic Linux knowledge.
Basic understanding of networking stuff, like enough to get through a setup of PFSense without googling every last thing.
Knowing how to identify basic components, such as capacitors, transistors, etc.

Understanding partitions/formatting.

I guess to get to that point.... I dunno, I was like 17. Been using computers basically my whole existence, and I've been learning VERRY slowly since then. It all accelerated when I popped open my first side panel at 11. I was just very curious about it, wanted a PC to call my own and what luck, my family had plenty of "broken" PCs laying around. My knowledge of most things is still real shaky at best, and I'm always learning new stuff. I have A LOT to learn before I'm ready to save anyone.

[themctipers]

2015 learning about general hardware, how things work, and a general list of cpus/gpus and how their performance is

2016-2017 more about gpu and cpu perf in the real world instead of this is better than that because higher number, enough to recommend a part over another 

2018 more about laptop parts / upgrading old thinkpads

[Guest]

Depends how in depth we’re going cuz I’m still learning. 

[Bananasplit_00]

fall 2014 i got scammed into  a prebuilt for €800

early fall 2015 i built my first computer after like two months of reserch(LTT forum and LTT videos mainly)

 

its 2019 and im still learning stuff but by spring 2016 i would say i had a grip on most things? its pretty hard to remember but i have been slowly building knowlage on computer from like 2003 or so

[Computernaut]

Some knowledge trickled in for about four years and then I started watching LTT early last year and have learned a lot since then.

[Cereal5]

Learning to build a computer took me maybe a week of watching youtube videos before I just bought all my hardware. I started becoming actually interested in how it all works probably 3-4 years ago, and I've been learning ever since. The basics are easy enough to come by though.

[Amazonsucks]

Been involved with computers for almost two decades. Theres always something new to learn.

 

To know how to build a PC takes a few days to learn, but to know the technology landscape takes constantly researching the current and future technologies.

 

If you can assemble Legos you can build a PC. But to know the intricacies of semiconductor engineering or network topology and architectures of complex systems takes constant study.

[Ravendarat]

Jesus you all are young lol. I started learning in the 80's before I was ten, my dad was a programmer, but he was blind so he had this very basic voice module for a computer the university that he worked for supplied for him. It literally just read back the lines he had typed out on the screen. I learned basic programming from that. I kept that up till I graduated high school, then I went to post secondary and got my a+ certification. By the time I had achieved that I had grown to hate computers and more to the point computer users, not the knowledgeable ones but the ones that would need me from a tech support standpoint. If you were around back then you would know that people had a very basic understanding of how computers worked and more to the point many had unrealistic expectations of what they could do for them. I chose to never professionally enter the field and didn't even own a computer for about 4-5 years after that because my education had led me to hate them, and when I did finally pick one up it was just for very basic web browsing and email and other utility like things, no enthusiast purposes or goals. Fast forward to October of this last year, I decided I was done with console gaming and wanted to get into PC gaming. I just took a short cut and bought an Alienware laptop. Then I started doing more research and watching a lot of videos such as Linus and Jayz2Cents, that made me want to do more, started off by buying a 2080 ti and the AGA so I could use it with my laptop, then that snow balled into building a whole new tower, and now currently researching the steps to water cool the whole damn thing.

 

The point of my long drawn out post here is that technically I started when I was like 8 and was fairly proficient by 10 and kept building skills for another 8 years or so, then I stopped and by the time I got the itch to get back into it almost none of that knowledge matters anymore, everything has changed so I was back to square one in October, built the PC im currently using from ground up by January and that's all from forums like this and YouTube videos. My point is that if you have a bit of a knack for computers and a willing to invest time you can get proficient in a couple of months but the real question is how long will it take to turn proficient into efficient?

[Giganthrax]

About 6-12 months of watching Linus, Paul, and JayZ on youtube for fun.

 

Last September I built my first full system and it's working splendidly and I'm so happy I did it myself. Up until 2018 or so all I knew how to do was install a graphics card and reseat RAM.  

[zassou]

i have been dealing with computers since i was 6, playing maxis's simhelicopter at parents' win 95 work computer. "surfing" the 'net for the first time in 10 on dial up.

 

i live with the computer, i consider my own computer is part of my body, an organ. thats why i get to know them.

[Gino Motyka]

You never stop learning, For myself, I wasn't comfortable building my PC or assisting people to build there's until I bought a cheap system for $35 and tore it apart. I work on computers every day and whether its software or hardware it keeps changing. Hardware is easier to understand but the software still blows my mind sometimes. Like anything though the more you enjoy it the deeper your goes and not even notice it, just remember that for when you're talking to someone who just getting into it, you were like them once, Don't kills there enthusiasm but help it along