How was your pc building experience?

[djpabz23]

Oh since you mention its an air cooler remember to think about air flow. I have a v shappes zalman performa and i stupidly installed it blowing towards the front of the vase right in front of my rear exhaust so i had almost no air movement... The cpu fan was a little stronger so i had to reinstall the coolernfacing then other way to cool better. It still worked the first way just no where near as cool as the proper way with more air flow.

How can you tell which way is exhaust and which is intake?

 

Also, I decided to give my k70 RGB a try aka my first mechanical keyboard and wow, it feels so different!

[JustTooDank]

It was pretty fun other than having to disassemble after realizing i fucked up the cable management. 

[IMPERIUS]

haha, did you feel nervous at all?

Yes so I rushed everything

[djpabz23]

It was pretty fun other than having to disassemble after realizing i fucked up the cable management. 

How'd that happen?

[JustTooDank]

How'd that happen?

Using a H100i in a Fractal R4 and not having the clearance to plug in the cpu power bc the radiator was in the way. So I had to take that off and run the wires, then i stripped one of the fan screws lol. Then once I got it together, I realized I forgot to connect the wi-fi adapter, which I almost broke by trying to jam it in. For reference, its the Asus P8Z77-V Pro mobo and the wi-fi adapter has to go through the I/O shield in the rear (which has to be installed before you even screw the mobo to the case). Slight headache but I'm proud of my work.

[LamboLaddy]

My dad showed me how, so it was a bonding experience with absolutely no hiccups at all.

[Colt_0pz]

my first pc was a crappy dell laptop. my first desktop is the one i built. wasn't too hard but i got stuck once with mounting the cooler

[daniellearmouth]

Mine was......weird.

 

There were a few hiccups and moments that, honestly, made me rather irritated and want to stop, but overall it went well......mostly. I also got a friend to help me with the process, since this was uncharted territory for me (the most I did up to that point was install an NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT into a prebuilt value PC just so I could play Burnout Paradise).

The problems we faced were...well...

 

First of all was the processor. My rig is two and a half years old, and I have inside it an AMD FX-6100. We almost didn't, though. Why? Because... 

We dropped it. On the floor.

Fortunately, no pins had broken off of it, but we did have to realign them as they didn't fit in the motherboard's socket (more on that later). Computer brain surgery, yo!

 

Next was the heatsink. Noctua NH-D14. A humongous thing. So big, it simply refused to fit in the InWin Griffin case I bought. We then had a bit of a rethink, and since there was a computer market the following day, we decided to pick up a smaller Cooler Master heatsink.

 

Unfortunately, that was when something else happened. The system stopped posting properly, so we had to disassemble it and reassemble it, including the processor. We removed it from the socket, put it back in the tray, wiped off the thermal compound, put it back in the socket...

CRACK!

The socket's retention mechanism broke. The arm had no give on it, and the processor wasn't secure. Using that motherboard was simply a non-option.

 

We bought another of the same board (a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3), and a case which will absolutely fit the Noctua heatsink - an Antec Three Hundred Two.

Once that was done, I reassembled the computer in the Antec case with the newer motherboard, and to this day, it works just fine, with no noticeable issues with the processor, despite being almost bricked before it was even installed.

 

However, because of what it is I do nowadays (make games, edit videos and 3D modelling and stuff), it's slowly fading into obsolescence. It's served me well, but it's time for me to pick out stuff to replace my current setup.

 

That's not so say this system is dead or anything. Far from it - I'll be putting this system downstairs for the parents to use when I eventually upgrade to newer hardware, which - if I'm lucky - will be within the next six months.

[cragger89]

My first "build" was really a bit of recycling. I'd changed RAM and stuff since the age of about 12, but when I was 16, I bought a tower from my friend which was manufactured by Packard Bell (NEC). AMD Athlon 1700XP, MSI Board, 256MB RAM, etc. Generic stuff.

 

It was noisy as hell, so I opened it up and cleaned it, then decided to spend some money on round IDE cables, a bigger cooler with a larger, slower fan and the past required to install it. Changing the heatsink on that thing was frightening, but I also learnt to properly cable manage stuff with it. Everything worked fine, temps went down significantly. I later bought a Jeantech Butterfly case, a cheap "Jetway" motherboard and transplanted the lot, adding intake/exhaust fans to get the most out of it. I really enjoyed using that setup. I think I also added a Radeon 9700 Pro GPU for about £50.00 when they were old and I never once played a game on it, but I wanted to play with the hardware itself. That rig lasted a long time, I wish I still had it in all truth.

 

My first all new build is my current one which I did before Christmas, but I've been changing bits in it constantly this past month. 

[carguy86]

pretty messy.... (try shoving every psu cable EVER in monsterous lengths inside a teey tiny little mitx case) (the psu was a 700 watt no name from a dell xps and it had 1,5 meters of every cable)

[Guest]

I must of watched like hundreds of videos on how to build a PC before I bought the parts (I was 9 at the time) and I bought all the parts at once. The process of building was easy I must say. I just followed a guide while doing it.

[djpabz23]

Mine was......weird.

 

There were a few hiccups and moments that, honestly, made me rather irritated and want to stop, but overall it went well......mostly. I also got a friend to help me with the process, since this was uncharted territory for me (the most I did up to that point was install an NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT into a prebuilt value PC just so I could play Burnout Paradise).

The problems we faced were...well...

 

First of all was the processor. My rig is two and a half years old, and I have inside it an AMD FX-6100. We almost didn't, though. Why? Because... 

We dropped it. On the floor.

Fortunately, no pins had broken off of it, but we did have to realign them as they didn't fit in the motherboard's socket (more on that later). Computer brain surgery, yo!

 

Next was the heatsink. Noctua NH-D14. A humongous thing. So big, it simply refused to fit in the InWin Griffin case I bought. We then had a bit of a rethink, and since there was a computer market the following day, we decided to pick up a smaller Cooler Master heatsink.

 

Unfortunately, that was when something else happened. The system stopped posting properly, so we had to disassemble it and reassemble it, including the processor. We removed it from the socket, put it back in the tray, wiped off the thermal compound, put it back in the socket...

CRACK!

The socket's retention mechanism broke. The arm had no give on it, and the processor wasn't secure. Using that motherboard was simply a non-option.

 

We bought another of the same board (a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3), and a case which will absolutely fit the Noctua heatsink - an Antec Three Hundred Two.

Once that was done, I reassembled the computer in the Antec case with the newer motherboard, and to this day, it works just fine, with no noticeable issues with the processor, despite being almost bricked before it was even installed.

 

However, because of what it is I do nowadays (make games, edit videos and 3D modelling and stuff), it's slowly fading into obsolescence. It's served me well, but it's time for me to pick out stuff to replace my current setup.

 

That's not so say this system is dead or anything. Far from it - I'll be putting this system downstairs for the parents to use when I eventually upgrade to newer hardware, which - if I'm lucky - will be within the next six months.

I bet the anticipation of waiting to test it was killing you! I know it's killing me! I have a feeling that for some reason, my PC won't start! Also, when I was installing the CPU, i had to press the lever down so hard that it felt I was going to break. After putting more force, I heard these really loud cracking noises and here I'm thinking I might have messed up my CPU . Still very nervous about it even though I only have to install the easiest things to install (CPU cooler, GPU, and Ram).

 

I must of watched like hundreds of videos on how to build a PC before I bought the parts (I was 9 at the time) and I bought all the parts at once. The process of building was easy I must say. I just followed a guide while doing it.

I watched a bunch of videos and read the manuals.

 

I got bored of waiting for my GPU which arrives tomorrow, RAM and CPU cooler arrive on Monday I believe. Therefore, I started building my PC anyways following the manuals and what not. I'm just really nervous that I might have messed up down the line

[Guest]

I just said "fuck it" and I went to Microcenter and made compromises just so I could have the parts that day

[djpabz23]

I just said "fuck it" and I went to Microcenter and made compromises just so I could have the parts that day

Lucky you! I placed my order on the 20th, Only got 13 out of the 16 parts that I ordered! Tomorrow, my 980Ti arrives and I believe my RAM and CPU Cooler arrive on Monday  <_<

[Gikero]

How can you tell which way is exhaust and which is intake?

 

Also, I decided to give my k70 RGB a try aka my first mechanical keyboard and wow, it feels so different!

Most fans have arrows on the side indicating rotation and airflow direction.

[djpabz23]

Most fans have arrows on the side indicating rotation and airflow direction.

Awesome, thank you!

[Guest]

Lucky you! I placed my order on the 20th, Only got 13 out of the 16 parts that I ordered! Tomorrow, my 980Ti arrives and I believe my RAM and CPU Cooler arrive on Monday  <_<

Oh that must suck having everything but the most Crucial part of the computer (get it 'cause Crucial RAM ok then). 

[blueballs]

this is soooo personal

short story my uncles were behind me telling me how to put all of that stuff together

[qhnova]

Hi I'm trying to help my friend with this build, how's this look? http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qGZNHx

[djpabz23]

Oh that must suck having everything but the most Crucial part of the computer (get it 'cause Crucial RAM ok then). 

 

LOL. Sadly, I didn't get any Crucial. I got Avexir Core series to match my case and motherboard .

 

Hi I'm trying to help my friend with this build, how's this look? http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qGZNHx

what is he going to use it for?

[qhnova]

Playing games like ark and fallout

[djpabz23]

Playing games like ark and fallout

Will he plan on overclocking his CPU?

[qhnova]

I would hope so but I dont believe he will, he's not very familiar with computers in general, did you overclock yours and if so do you enjoy the benefits

[djpabz23]

I would hope so but I dont believe he will, he's not very familiar with computers in general, did you overclock yours and if so do you enjoy the benefits

I haven't overclocked yet since my system isn't fully built and will be my first "gaming rig" that I ever owned. If he's not familiar with it, I recommend an i5 rather than an i7. There isn't really going to be much of a performance difference unless he's going to render videos + use programs and apps which support hyper threading.

[qhnova]

I agree but right now I believe he has some extra money to spend so I might just let him go for the i7 even tho its probably better to invest in a gpu upgrade