The Truth About Building Your Own PC

[Fr8ty]

This community is great, but what I'm about to say might offend some of the dedicated pc builders and tech savvies, but I believe it is the truth. I built my first pc 2 years ago and it has been a wonderful experience. I had almost no trouble shooting errors (except not flipping on the on switch on the back of the power supply my first boot which freaked the hell outa me) and I have had a great time exploring this area of technology. Now pc building has become a lot easier imo and is much easier to do now adays. I honestly believe the adult lego metaphor for pc building is an accurate representation of it. I even helped my friend build a pc who was originally going to buy a prebuilt system to begin with. But last night was my first major error. I have a define S case from fractal and I am cooling my cpu with an h100i v2. Now I have the radiator mounted to the top of the case rather the side and that makes it so I can't place the top panels on the case leaving a vent film almost open. I was standing up from my desk and i knocked a cup of water into the pc. Thankfully only the graphics card was damaged and I am in the process of and rma as we speak. Now uneducated people might have thought the whole system was ruined and taken it in. This is where prebuilts shine. A prebuilt you dont have to worry about which part is under warranty or which part was damaged. You can just take it in and trade it in for a new system if under warrenty and ask for your hard drive back. And its true buying a prebuilt is so much easier and less stressful. I spent probably 20 hours building and researching all the components for my pc. Worrying that i was going to mess up. I probably watched 10 tutorials on how to build my pc. Especially now with RAM and GPU prices being so high prebuilts might be the better option to go with currently. But I would have to say I would never trade anything for the knowledge i gained building my pc. I feel much more comfortable troubleshooting now and handling the computer components and I feel as if everyone should have the experience. But if you just want a pc and you just want to plug it in and not have to worry about anything I recommend a prebuilt all the way. I promise you eventually you will have an issue with the pc you built but in my opinion it is a challenge for you to figure out how you fix it. I hope this helped anyone who is debating on building a pc make their decision. I will be happy to answer questions or guide you through the process and help make new people more comfortable when starting this project. Thank you 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

8 minutes ago, Fr8ty said:

This community is great, but what I'm about to say might offend some of the dedicated pc builders and tech savvies, but I believe it is the truth...

For many, if not most, people, what you say is true. However, there are people who have needs that cannot be met with prebuilts (I'm one of them).Then there are those who enjoy building PCs and/or get satisfaction from being able to say, "Yep, built her myself."

[TheKDub]

For a prebuilt you still have to worry about if you're still under warranty (since not many manufacturers have warranties longer than a year or so out of the box), and if the warranty covers accidental damage.

 

I'll take a custom build PC any day, even if that means it's more complicated if I need to RMA several parts.

[Fr8ty]

On 6/30/2018 at 12:14 AM, Lady Fitzgerald said:

For many, if not most, people, what you say is true. However, there are people who have needs that cannot be met with prebuilts (I'm one of them).Then there are those who enjoy building PCs and/or get satisfaction from being able to say, "Yep, built her myself."

I agree 100 percent

 

On 6/30/2018 at 12:14 AM, TheKDub said:

For a prebuilt you still have to worry about if you're still under warranty (since not many manufacturers have warranties longer than a year or so out of the box), and if the warranty covers accidental damage.

 

I'll take a custom build PC any day, even if that means it's more complicated if I need to RMA several parts.

That is true but you dont have to worry about what may be broken

[Dissitesuxba11s]

1 minute ago, Fr8ty said:

That is true but you dont have to worry about what may be broken

But only when you are under the warranty period.

[Fr8ty]

1 minute ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

But only when you are under the warranty period.

Well same goes for separate components most are covered by a temporary warranty. However lets say I bought a dell pc. If i take it to best buy or the dell store they will most likely tell me what is wrong with it even if i dont have a warranty

[Rainbow Dash]

26 minutes ago, Fr8ty said:

A prebuilt you dont have to worry about which part is under warranty or which part was damaged.

That's the only reason why you see Dells and HP computers in workplaces and schools, is all because of how easy it is for them to replace the whole thing without having to worry about several parts being faulty.

[Fr8ty]

On 6/30/2018 at 12:29 AM, Rainbow Dash said:

That's the only reason why you see Dells and HP computers in workplaces and schools, is all because of how easy it is for them to replace the whole thing without having to worry about several parts being faulty.

My point proven

The point I am making is you dont have to worry about troubleshooting, the shop does it for you.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

5 minutes ago, Fr8ty said:

Well same goes for separate components most are covered by a temporary warranty. However lets say I bought a dell pc. If i take it to best buy or the dell store they will most likely tell me what is wrong with it even if i dont have a warranty

At a cost. Trust me, I've tried to see if Geek Squad can diagnose my broken laptop years ago and to even just look at it (not fix), it would cost $89. For the financially limited folks, googling the issue and general troubleshooting is the better approach. 

 

Also, individual parts have longer warranties like PSU's for example, my Corsair RM850x has a 10 year warranty, where as prebuilts have maybe 1-2 years. Not sure if the individual parts have individual warranties.

 

If you are talking about the Dell prebuilts like this one then no wonder you have no choice but to send it to the OEM. Almost everything is proprietary and requires OEM parts. Good luck upgrading something like that in the future.

[TheKDub]

2 minutes ago, Fr8ty said:

The point I am making is you dont have to worry about troubleshooting, the shop does it for you.

Except if say, your GPU stops working, if you had a prebuilt, you'd have to send your entire PC back, whereas if you had a custom PC, you keep using your PC (if you have integrated graphics) instead of waiting for the manufacturer to find the problem, fix it, then send it back, which can take weeks, or even months.

 

Not to mention I wouldn't trust a lot of companies with troubleshooting any technology of mine. Way too many of them are focused on money rather than on the consumer.

[Fr8ty]

On 6/30/2018 at 12:37 AM, TheKDub said:

Except if say, your GPU stops working, if you had a prebuilt, you'd have to send your entire PC back, whereas if you had a custom PC, you keep using your PC (if you have integrated graphics) instead of waiting for the manufacturer to find the problem, fix it, then send it back, which can take weeks, or even months.

 

Not to mention I wouldn't trust a lot of companies with troubleshooting any technology of mine. Way too many of them are focused on money rather than on the consumer.

That is a good point and I agree I am sure they would recommend you buy a whole new pc than just the broken part to make more money

 

On 6/30/2018 at 12:36 AM, Dissitesuxba11s said:

At a cost. Trust me, I've tried to see if Geek Squad can diagnose my broken laptop years ago and to even just look at it (not fix), it would cost $89. For the financially limited folks, googling the issue and general troubleshooting is the better approach. 

 

Also, individual parts have longer warranties like PSU's for example, my Corsair RM850x has a 10 year warranty, where as prebuilts have maybe 1-2 years. Not sure if the individual parts have individual warranties.

 

If you are talking about the Dell prebuilts like this one then no wonder you have no choice but to send it to the OEM. Almost everything is proprietary and requires OEM parts. Good luck upgrading something like that in the future.

That is also true but some people may not know how to begin trouble shooting or are afraid to open their pc.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

3 minutes ago, Fr8ty said:

some people may not know how to begin trouble shooting

You google the problem and try what other people have done to solve their issue. Or go to the Linus Tech Tips forum and make a post on it 

5 minutes ago, Fr8ty said:

are afraid to open their pc

Most people who are like this won't even consider building a PC, so the argument doesn't apply to these people. They will immediately consider prebuilts.

[Mira Yurizaki]

The other thing is a person's confidence in handling computer hardware. Some people (or may be most?) don't have the confidence because the lack experience and they don't want to handle something they perceive to be valuable, no matter how easy someone says it is. It took me a while to build up the courage to change out the brake fluid on my motorcycle despite every thing I've researched on it made it look easy. But this is the braking system. If I screw it up, welp, things won't end well for me.

 

This is especially true if they don't have someone experienced with them to show them how it's done if something arises. It doesn't matter how many YouTubers or tech articles come to a consensus on how something is done, that confidence sometimes won't show up.

 

Plus there's the whole thing about even being interested in it. If a person isn't interested in the building their own computer or even being their own IT support, no matter how much you say about it, a person being not interested in it is just that: not interested in it. Think about in school all the classes you weren't really interested in, did you feel like you got anything out of those? I certainly don't think I did.

[Fr8ty]

21 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

The other thing is a person's confidence in handling computer hardware. Some people (or may be most?) don't have the confidence because the lack experience and they don't want to handle something they perceive to be valuable, no matter how easy someone says it is. It took me a while to build up the courage to change out the brake fluid on my motorcycle despite every thing I've researched on it made it look easy. But this is the braking system. If I screw it up, welp, things won't end well for me.

 

This is especially true if they don't have someone experienced with them to show them how it's done if something arises. It doesn't matter how many YouTubers or tech articles come to a consensus on how something is done, that confidence sometimes won't show up.

 

Plus there's the whole thing about even being interested in it. If a person isn't interested in the building their own computer or even being their own IT support, no matter how much you say about it, a person being not interested in it is just that: not interested in it. Think about in school all the classes you weren't really interested in, did you feel like you got anything out of those? I certainly don't think I did.

You made a great point and I agree 100 percent having the motivation to build one is key.

[AngryBeaver]

On ‎6‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 12:03 AM, Fr8ty said:

This community is great, but what I'm about to say might offend some of the dedicated pc builders and tech savvies, but I believe it is the truth. I built my first pc 2 years ago and it has been a wonderful experience. I had almost no trouble shooting errors (except not flipping on the on switch on the back of the power supply my first boot which freaked the hell outa me) and I have had a great time exploring this area of technology. Now pc building has become a lot easier imo and is much easier to do now adays. I honestly believe the adult lego metaphor for pc building is an accurate representation of it. I even helped my friend build a pc who was originally going to buy a prebuilt system to begin with. But last night was my first major error. I have a define S case from fractal and I am cooling my cpu with an h100i v2. Now I have the radiator mounted to the top of the case rather the side and that makes it so I can't place the top panels on the case leaving a vent film almost open. I was standing up from my desk and i knocked a cup of water into the pc. Thankfully only the graphics card was damaged and I am in the process of and rma as we speak. Now uneducated people might have thought the whole system was ruined and taken it in. This is where prebuilts shine. A prebuilt you dont have to worry about which part is under warranty or which part was damaged. You can just take it in and trade it in for a new system if under warrenty and ask for your hard drive back. And its true buying a prebuilt is so much easier and less stressful. I spent probably 20 hours building and researching all the components for my pc. Worrying that i was going to mess up. I probably watched 10 tutorials on how to build my pc. Especially now with RAM and GPU prices being so high prebuilts might be the better option to go with currently. But I would have to say I would never trade anything for the knowledge i gained building my pc. I feel much more comfortable troubleshooting now and handling the computer components and I feel as if everyone should have the experience. But if you just want a pc and you just want to plug it in and not have to worry about anything I recommend a prebuilt all the way. I promise you eventually you will have an issue with the pc you built but in my opinion it is a challenge for you to figure out how you fix it. I hope this helped anyone who is debating on building a pc make their decision. I will be happy to answer questions or guide you through the process and help make new people more comfortable when starting this project. Thank you 

Honestly, can we not get some semblance of a writing structure. This was next to impossible to read!

 

So let me sum this up for you. Building a PC has become more and more easy and if you spill something inside of it then you only need to replace what you messed up. If you own a prebuilt system though you can just send it back when there is a problem and not worry about troubleshooting.

 

Now that being said it really depends on what you want to do. I can go buy an extremely cheap acer or the like for less than I can build one for. That being said I can build my own gaming pc for less than buying one. I might not have the same warranty I would from say dell, but I still have the individual component warranties to fall back on. There is also a little risk to building computers unless you are experienced with it... and even then stuff happens. Now does that mean that prebuilt is better than custom or custom is better than prebuilt? No, it just means you have options and more options means more people can find what they want.

 

Anyways I am unclear on what the point of your quote was, because you didn't really make a point. You didn't even take a solid stance.

[DezGalbie]

On 6/30/2018 at 6:03 AM, Fr8ty said:

A prebuilt you dont have to worry about which part is under warranty or which part was damaged. You can just take it in and trade it in for a new system if under warrenty and ask for your hard drive back. And its true buying a prebuilt is so much easier and less stressful.

2

While of course this can be true in a lot of cases, I would point out the up side of not having this prebuilt warranty to fall back on. I feel like it's actually the lack of a warranty to rely on which encourages the individual to get hands-on with their machine and learn through experience how computers work and how to fix them.

When you have a prebuilt system under warranty it makes sense to refrain from investigating any issue you may have. You don't want to invalidate your warranty by removing some silly little sticker somewhere and costing yourself a huge amount of money paying over the odds for another prebuilt machine when you discover you can't fix the issue. You essentially have a financial disincentive to learn and become more capable.

Whereas if you build your first machine from affordable second hand parts you have much less hesitation in taking things apart and properly troubleshooting your issue. You then gain the confidence and knowledge to fix that problem next time it arises. It really doesn't matter too much if you mess something up because you're not out the cost of a whole new prebuilt system like you would be if you invalidate your warranty on the prebuilt machine and couldn't fix it - you just need to buy a second hand part to replace whatever broke and you're back up and running.

Then once you have enough experience of messing around inside your second hand build and you need an upgrade you'll have enough confidence to go with brand new state of the art components and you won't care about not having a whole-system warranty. The individual component warranties will be fine because you will be able to diagnose problems specific to individual components and send them back, or replace them yourself if out of warranty.

[germgoatz]

I feel like prebuilts are very easy, but imo, and for many people, it's more personal when you build, and the satisfaction of having something work that YOU made is so nice, and it's also very enjoyable if you don't be too worrysome/have experience when picking out parts.

[vanished]

I feel like I should mention, around here at least there is an excellent shop you could take any PC to - prebuilt, custom, or something in between - and for a small fee they will test the whole thing and tell you exactly what is wrong, so you could still get that no-skill-needed convenient service level with a custom build if you wanted.

 

edit: also it just occurred to me that this is in no way a guide or tutorial so I'm moving it to general discussion

Edited October 6, 2018 by Ryan_Vickers

[kokakolia]

My GF and I built are own PCs. We didn’t go crazy with high end components or water cooling. We just built two PCs with basic motherboards, core i5s (stock cooler) and GTX 1060s. I am utterly shocked that her motherboard is acting up with the USB ports. It’s an AsRock. With prebuilt systems I am pretty sure that would never happen.

[jefire411]

16 minutes ago, kokakolia said:

With prebuilt systems I am pretty sure that would never happen.

You'd be surprised 

[Guest]

Or just ya know, don't spill things on your Pc?

hell, I use mine as a coaster and I've never spilled anything on it because I don't have basketball sized hands

[Plutoburn]

On 6/30/2018 at 1:31 PM, Fr8ty said:

My point proven

The point I am making is you dont have to worry about troubleshooting, the shop does it for you.

 

Most people don't own hundreds of computers.

[Upierczi]

I think the legitimate benefit from prebuilt system really lies on the warranty, and support you receive. However, I think if you accidentally spill water onto your shiny new Macbook Pro or Dell, neither companies and their warranties will cover it. So you'll be stuck with an expensive brick either way.

[mbox]

On 10/4/2018 at 4:44 AM, DezGalbie said:

The individual component warranties will be fine because you will be able to diagnose problems specific to individual components and send them back, or replace them yourself if out of warranty.

I agree with dezgalbie, building and troubleshooting will give you a lot of knowledge. A lot of people with prebuild systems if the PC has a problem will get a new one if not under warrenty (or need to send back the whole unit if under warrenty) while It might be something really easy/cheap to fix. Prebuild makes sense in two cases in my opinion:

- companies that need lot of machines with the same specs and upgrade on a regular base

- privates with a really really low budget where finding components with a warrenty on your own is more expensive

[Noctus]

On 10/7/2018 at 5:25 AM, campy said:

Or just ya know, don't spill things on your Pc?

 

Gotta agree here. Why on earth would you sit a cup of liquid over an open vent (evenmind even on ur PC in the 1st place) leading directly to all the things that dont like cups of liquid all over them.

 

While i agree some prebuilds are pretty decent, if your're doing stupid things like above, then prebuilds with their warranty are just for you (assuming you keep a note of when that warranty ends). 

 

Other than that, building you're own PC is a cakewalk, whip out the mobile (or even the smart TV in w/e room you decided to build in) for youtube/ forum help. Use the age old "measure twice, cut once" rule and slowly put the PC together.

 

From what i gather 90% of basic PC builds are mostly done the same way, so there's not much deviation to get lost on. Just refer to the MB manual for what slot is what if something doesn't quite match name-wise in a guide you're watching/ reading.

 

I'm quite a slow methodical person when building, and there's nothing better than seeing the PC you just put together with care posting which you can then get to setup and tinker to your liking.