Why building a PC yourself can really suck. Here's my experience

[Guest]

Most of my pc's have been prebuild and then not prebuild from the store but prebuild in conjunction with your own friendly neighbourhood specialist... They always worked exactly as how i wanted its been only since the last couple of years that i'm getting really interested in cables, airflowsystems and the likes so my next build will probably be self built... The parts that always witheld me from building self were, the price of the components and my lack of electronics, especially electricity cables but with the developments of the last few years i feel confident enough to give it a try myself... and if it turns out that i can't manage it myself the store is right around the corner 

[Mira Yurizaki]

I think part of the problem with the DIY builder scene are the people who have like 3+ years under their belt are saying it's so easy, a toddler can do it.  They just conveniently leave out the hard part (well, most of the time): you're on your own if something happens.

 

It'd be like me saying this: I think riding a motorcycle is easy. I don't even have to think about anything any more. I just do things. Surely anyone can ride a motorcycle!...  Yeah no, riding a motorcycle (at least the first one I had, which would be the equivalent of driving a classic manual transmission VW Beetle) isn't as straight forward.

 

But if there's one thing that prepared me when I built my first computer: I already had a few years under my belt tinkering and playing around with the computer I had before. Even down to installing the OS and drivers. Aside from installing a CPU and its heat sink, I've done practically everything else there was. I don't think anyone should jump into building their own until they've at least done more with their PC than simply use it. Play with something you know that works first before going into the wild.

[applesuxD]

10 hours ago, Sauron said:

Some will, but the good ones come at a significant premium over a self build pc.

Good luck troubleshooting a mac's hardware without a board view software... help desk or not, you can't even open most of them without specific tools and some of them have parts soldered to the board. Dead RAM? Welp, I guess we have to throw out the whole motherboard...

If it is under the warranty period. Then you may be lucky to not pay a cent for it (again warranty policies may vary but in Singapore its pretty good)

 

At the same time, if you aren't getting yr PC from walmart, and you actually pick a trusted company, they will definitely have QC

 

It's just the small conviniences that really add up IMO

 

Again, props to all who love building PC and props to those who squeeze out 5Ghz on their own. I get the fun behind it.

 

But at times it can be really troublesome. I'd much rather leave the crap work for those who are paid to do it.

 

10 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I think part of the problem with the DIY builder scene are the people who have like 3+ years under their belt are saying it's so easy, a toddler can do it.  They just conveniently leave out the hard part (well, most of the time): you're on your own if something happens.

 

It'd be like me saying this: I think riding a motorcycle is easy. I don't even have to think about anything any more. I just do things. Surely anyone can ride a motorcycle!...  Yeah no, riding a motorcycle (at least the first one I had, which would be the equivalent of driving a classic manual transmission VW Beetle) isn't as straight forward.

 

But if there's one thing that prepared me when I built my first computer: I already had a few years under my belt tinkering and playing around with the computer I had before. Even down to installing the OS and drivers. Aside from installing a CPU and its heat sink, I've done practically everything else there was. I don't think anyone should jump into building their own until they've at least done more with their PC than simply use it. Play with something you know that works first before going into the wild.

Exactly 

[applesuxD]

2 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

if there isn't the time to learn, buying a prebuilt makes more sense. troubleshooting is another thing altogether, but not recommending everyone to not build a PC just because of the learning curve is a bit much ._. (not that it'll stop the people who's curious enough anyway)

• the business casual companies (Dell, HP, ASUS, etc) and their resellers
• Aftershock
• Dreamcore
• (TIL OriginPC is in the area o_o)

I'm definitely not telling people to stop building PC.

 

I said that because the guy who commented suggested that PC building is so easy it takes an idiot(he was suggesting it to be me) to have such a situation.

 

at the btm of my post I did say:" make sure you know what you're doing first."

 

Anywaysss no point fussing about that.

 

I'm suprised to see the overwhelming response for what I intended to just be a post to bring some light to another side of PC building

[Eleks]

That really sucks. I think the problem most people have with pre-builds is that they often are way more expensive than they need to be or have some low quality parts like no name PCUs. But if you are willing to invest some time and find some reputable companies I'm sure that it could save much effort and money in the long run.

You often see how people compare building a PC to building a set of logo, but sometimes it can be a 10,000 piece lego set that falls into pieces for no apparent reason.

[MEC-777]

Don't confuse some bad luck with "this is the way they all are and the way it always will be" for all home-brew custom builds.

 

I have terrible luck with many things in life, yet I've had barely any problems over the years with most of the custom builds I've done. But I'm not about to say it will always be like that. I'm bound to receive a DOA component or have some other component failure at some point. It's almost inevitable with these types of things. Computers and PC components are extremely complex. They are likely to fail for some people. But don't take that as a sign or indication that you should never build one yourself again. 

 

If that AIO spilled water all over your system, there's a possibility it has damaged some other components and that could be part of the cause of your other problems. It sucks that this has happened, I'd be frustrated too and I have some friends who've had some long-term nagging PC problems as well that they've had trouble fixing. You're not the only one and these issues are not exclusive to custom-built PCs.   

[AngryBeaver]

OP one problem I see is you aren't being firm with the manufacturers. If they can get away with not replacing something then that is what they will do. You have to assert yourself or they will walk all over you.

 

Now I do understand that a custom built machine doesnt have all the support a prebuilt would, but the "problems" is what make you better. The truth is that after a few machines you wont have problems troubleshooting on your end and dealing with the manufacturers to get your items rma'd without issue.

 

The whole process is a learning experience and should be viewed as such.

[CarlBar]

Honestly it sounds like you've got hit with two really nasty combination issues.

 

1. As mentioned elsewhere AIO's come with issues if they fail, so you either need to be prepared for that or get lucky and find somwhere willing to offer you extended warranty on the parts in the event of a liquid cooling failure.

 

2. I sounds like you had really bad issues vis a vis warranty support. i try to get all my stuff from one supplier and check my warranties. If i get suspect bad RAM for example i can get support on it anytime. Ok like any lifetime warranty there are some limits but overall unless i do somthing stupid with it or really oddball i can get support for as long as i'm using it. And most of the rest of my stuff has a long duration warranty. I even get extended warranties where i can. because if somthing goes bad it really doesn't matter how mad your builder skills are, it's a replacement job and thats what warranties are for.

[applesuxD]

2 hours ago, AngryBeaver said:

OP one problem I see is you aren't being firm with the manufacturers. If they can get away with not replacing something then that is what they will do. You have to assert yourself or they will walk all over you.

 

Now I do understand that a custom built machine doesnt have all the support a prebuilt would, but the "problems" is what make you better. The truth is that after a few machines you wont have problems troubleshooting on your end and dealing with the manufacturers to get your items rma'd without issue.

 

The whole process is a learning experience and should be viewed as such.

For fractal, they ain't even replying to my emails. Is my next step to sue them?

I don't have a fractal design shop here in singapore, we only have distributors. So do I find them?

[applesuxD]

1 hour ago, CarlBar said:

Honestly it sounds like you've got hit with two really nasty combination issues.

 

1. As mentioned elsewhere AIO's come with issues if they fail, so you either need to be prepared for that or get lucky and find somwhere willing to offer you extended warranty on the parts in the event of a liquid cooling failure.

 

2. I sounds like you had really bad issues vis a vis warranty support. i try to get all my stuff from one supplier and check my warranties. If i get suspect bad RAM for example i can get support on it anytime. Ok like any lifetime warranty there are some limits but overall unless i do somthing stupid with it or really oddball i can get support for as long as i'm using it. And most of the rest of my stuff has a long duration warranty. I even get extended warranties where i can. because if somthing goes bad it really doesn't matter how mad your builder skills are, it's a replacement job and thats what warranties are for.

Like I said, its just a brief story.

I also had issues with my wifi card (but its tplink so maybe thats why) and I had tons of unecessary bugs

[Mooshi]

Water damage is typically not covered under warranty. This isn't exclusive to custom builds or even PCs. If your brand new shiny iPhone or high end Android device falls in a pool, you aren't getting that replaced for free. This is what insurance is for.

 

If you want ez mode with custom builds, go with air coolers and don't try to break overclock records. 

[straight_stewie]

I can see where someone in your situation is coming from. Everyone who only has one machine gets a little perturbed when their machine stops working, especially if they've sunk a lot of money and time into it. It's a little less bad when you have more than one machine.

But there is an additional consideration here that I think has been glossed over: If your only knowledge of how a computer works is that "the processor is the brain", "the RAM is temporary storage", and "the hard drive is for long term storage", then yes, troubleshooting hardware problems can be overwhelmingly difficult, because you won't even know where to start looking when a problem rears it's ugly head, and the sad truth is that 90% of the answers on Tom's Hardware are just "me too" replies from people just as confused as you are.

However, if you stick with it, then over time you will acquire a troubleshooting skill set that will allow you to know both where to start looking, and how to test the problems to identify them. You might not always be able to come up with the answer yourself, but you'll atleast be able to get far enough to ask a specific question and get help, rather than just shouting "my machine bluescreened, what's wrong?".

[circeseye]

to me a computer is like a car....each will break down sooner or later....there will always be troubleshooting to figure out what it is. they both will give you a error code that you have to figure out cause its never what the code is....both will need parts replaced or upgraded. and if warranty they both get to deal with support to get it fixed

[nekogod]

15 hours ago, SolarNova said:

Your mistake was buying a AIO.

 

Those things have but 1 use case. Small form factor cooling. If you have room for a big air cooler, they are most certainly the better choice, for the very reason you have found out..they add points of failure and have the 'chance' or catastrophic failure (leaking).

 

You made a mistake ..but just learn from it ... stick with self built, 9/10 they work just fine, urs is a worst case scenario.

Is that backed up with stats? Have had a Kraken x60 in my eatx build for 4 years with no problems, still runs like new (albeit with regular cleaning).

[GoldenLag]

10 minutes ago, nekogod said:

Is that backed up with stats? Have had a Kraken x60 in my eatx build for 4 years with no problems, still runs like new (albeit with regular cleaning).

i mean, any aircooler beats an AIO in reliability, safety of other components and price.

 

count the amount of aircoolers that have cause waterdamage or similar damage

[B16CXHatch]

For people that don't like tinkering, then no, it might not be worth it. I am the tinkering type. I love to build and tinker with computers. I'm rebuilding one of mine soon mostly for shits and giggles. Rebuilt my main rig recently for basically the same reason (that and I just didn't like the motherboard I had so I replaced it). I'm also one to work on my own cars. I can afford to take them and have them worked on, but I like doing a lot of the work myself. Especially on my project car.

 

I'm glad that PC building is growing in popularity, but I feel too many people just see videos on YouTube and are like "oooh, I wanna build a PC too" without too much knowledge on computers in general. The thing is, I learned a lot about computers from troubleshooting pre-builts for YEARS before building my first computer. YouTube didn't exist then so I learned to build a computer through disassembling my parents' old Gateway and rebuilding it, reading the build guide that came with my Gigabyte GA-7N400-L motherboard, and TechTV shows and forums. Hell, I built that computer almost 15 years ago when I was still in high school, and I'm still learning new stuff all the time now. I find that stuff fun though. I mean, yeah, it'd suck ass if a radiator leaked like that. But, I'll be honest with you. That's why I don't do liquid cooling on my main computers.

 

Basically, if it's bothering you this much, for this long, and you don't enjoy it, maybe PC building isn't for you. There's no shame in buying a pre-built. I work at an office with 500+ people in it. The largest department is IT. I know ONE guy in IT that built his own computer and his last build was done like 4 years ago.

[racker24]

Haha, I before have a bad decision also. buying my first gaming rig that is a g4400 4gb of ddr4 ram and a 1050 2gb. that did not last long after watching a lot of tech videos on youtube.

[moggers]

I've been tinkering with pcs from the age of 10 (thirty years ago!)

 

I've taken apart/upgraded/built more pcs then I could count. I enjoy it and I'm good at it.

 

I wouldn't recommend it to 99% of people I know.

 

There are always little issues. Just this past week, I built a machine from a bunch of second hand parts (Haswell era). The four sticks of identical (as far as you could tell) DDR3 on the 4 ram slot gigabyte motherboard gave an untold amount of hassle. For some reason, I eventually diagnosed the system only works with each stick in a specific slot, and so to do that I needed to build up from 4 (try each stick in slot 1 until it posted), 8, 12 until finally I found the combination that accepted 16gb. I have never seen anything like it! Complete waste of time and if I price my time at what I'm paid - you're quite right - I could have gone out and bought a coffee lake / ryzen machine. But it was sort of fun and now I've seen something new. 

 

If you don't want to deal with hassle, buy a prebuilt, use it and then sell the damn thing to a tinkerer when it's out of warranty. 

 

 

[SolarNova]

4 hours ago, nekogod said:

Is that backed up with stats? Have had a Kraken x60 in my eatx build for 4 years with no problems, still runs like new (albeit with regular cleaning).

Stats wise their are performance figures readily available, just google. 

240mm , the most popular AIO, can be matched or even beaten by top of the line Air coolers. So 120,140, and 240mm AIO's are bad choice just bassed on that.

Then you have 280mm and 360m AIO's, these are better than top air coolers BUT still have added points of failure. That fact doesnt need stats, its just a fact ..

 

Points of failure on an air cooler:

Retention mechanism,

Fan

 

Points of failure on AIO

Retention Mechanism

Fan

Block oring

Tube connections Rad side and Pump side

Pump

 

Odds of one failing ,, couldnt say tbh, BUT they do fail, thats a fact.

[AngryBeaver]

6 hours ago, Mooshi said:

Water damage is typically not covered under warranty. This isn't exclusive to custom builds or even PCs. If your brand new shiny iPhone or high end Android device falls in a pool, you aren't getting that replaced for free. This is what insurance is for.

 

If you want ez mode with custom builds, go with air coolers and don't try to break overclock records. 

In regards to the damaged components you are right, but the warranty on the AIO should also in most cases cover any item damaged by it leaking unless the leak was the users fault. Which it does not appear to be.

[AngryBeaver]

8 hours ago, applesuxD said:

For fractal, they ain't even replying to my emails. Is my next step to sue them?

I don't have a fractal design shop here in singapore, we only have distributors. So do I find them?

The next step is to get some visibility on your issue. Post on their forums, facebook, twitter, etc Anything they have an account on make sure to post your experience. Then find out who your consumer protection agency is there and file a complaint with them over the fact they are not upholding their warranty agreement.

 

Send them another email informing them of your complaint and then make sure to send them an email every week. Normally the complaint to the CPA and visibility on social media makes them act pretty quick. See once you air this on all their different places you start to cost them customers or at least make them second think their purchase. Then it come down to either oiling the squeaky wheel or risk that wheel costing them money. It doesn't take but a few customers to cost them more money than just fixing your issue... and if you keep this up for a few weeks or months you risk costing them even more.

 

The key is just knowing your options and how to get their attention.

[AngryBeaver]

 

5 hours ago, GoldenLag said:

i mean, any aircooler beats an AIO in reliability, safety of other components and price.

 

count the amount of aircoolers that have cause waterdamage or similar damage

I wouldn't say it beats it in reliability, it just has less points of failure. Price I will give you, but safety isn't entirely true either I will touch on that in a second.

 

Did you know that air coolers that use heat pipes often times also have a liquid in them with a low boiling point. So yes people have busted  those pipes and caused damage, but this is extremely rare and require someone being careless.

 

Now if you buy an AIO from a decent manufacturer then you will have a warranty. All the manufacturers worth their salt also replace anything damage by a unit of theirs that fails. So in that scenario (assuming you replace the AIO at end of warranty 3-5yrs for most) you might be without a machine for few weeks, but you would be made whole so the safety point is in a way void there.

1 hour ago, SolarNova said:

Stats wise their are performance figures readily available, just google. 

240mm , the most popular AIO, can be matched or even beaten by top of the line Air coolers. So 120,140, and 240mm AIO's are bad choice just bassed on that.

Then you have 280mm and 360m AIO's, these are better than top air coolers BUT still have added points of failure. That fact doesnt need stats, its just a fact ..

 

Points of failure on an air cooler:

Retention mechanism,

Fan

 

Points of failure on AIO

Retention Mechanism

Fan

Block oring

Tube connections Rad side and Pump side

Pump

 

Odds of one failing ,, couldnt say tbh, BUT they do fail, thats a fact.

Let me cover a few things here. There are cases where a air cooler does sometimes out perform a 240mm AIO, but this is often the case when comparing the best air coolers to the worst AIOs. There is also the fact that the way these tests are advantageous to the air coolers. The reason I say that is because they are mostly done open air on a test bench. This means that some of the big advantages of AIO's are not properly accounted for. An AIO is configured to either take in fresh cold air or dump hot air directly outside the case. The air coolers do not have that ability and when in a case even with proper air flow they raise the ambient temp inside the case more than the air cooler normally does. If you have a GPU that dumps air in the case then this problem is increased slightly.

 

So your list for failure points can be shorted quite a bit.

 

Air Coolers failure point is basically just the fan, the retention mechanisms don't generally fail while they are clamped down. I haven't seen a single complaint of that in many many years... outside of being installed incorrectly.

 

On an AIO the retention argument isn't a valid issue either. The main fails points are going to be the FAN, PUMP, Leak (no point in naming random points), and lastly they will eventually fail due to evaporation reducing the fluid level to a point it doesn't function. The last item is just the truth of a CLC AIO. There are some that do not have that problem.

 

Now you are right in the fact that some do fail, but that happens on both sides of the spectrum. I would say most fails are due to a bad pump and not leaking. The truth is though that some do leak (low percentage) and that is why choosing a company with a warranty to cover all the damage in that scenario is important. There are benefits to AIO's though for some that is aesthetics for others it is performance and for another crowd it might be for form factor issues. In the end it doesn't mean Air is better, both have their strengths and weaknesses.
 

[LinusOnLine]

23 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

 

It'd be like me saying this: I think riding a motorcycle is easy. I don't even have to think about anything any more. I just do things. Surely anyone can ride a motorcycle!...  Yeah no, riding a motorcycle (at least the first one I had, which would be the equivalent of driving a classic manual transmission VW Beetle) isn't as straight forward.

Driving a motorcycle or a car with manual transmission is a lot easier in my opinion.

[applesuxD]

On 12/5/2018 at 9:44 PM, AngryBeaver said:

The next step is to get some visibility on your issue. Post on their forums, facebook, twitter, etc Anything they have an account on make sure to post your experience. Then find out who your consumer protection agency is there and file a complaint with them over the fact they are not upholding their warranty agreement.

 

Send them another email informing them of your complaint and then make sure to send them an email every week. Normally the complaint to the CPA and visibility on social media makes them act pretty quick. See once you air this on all their different places you start to cost them customers or at least make them second think their purchase. Then it come down to either oiling the squeaky wheel or risk that wheel costing them money. It doesn't take but a few customers to cost them more money than just fixing your issue... and if you keep this up for a few weeks or months you risk costing them even more.

 

The key is just knowing your options and how to get their attention.

Its so much hassle. Things like these dissuade me from ever building again

[MandoPanda]

@applesuxD Do you happen to still the the Pcpartpicker link for your original computer? Or at least a full detailed spec of your components?

 

PC building is not a guarantee to be cheaper now-a-days. Obviously, if you know nothing about computers and you are not the type who does well with challenges and problem solving, you should not be building your computer under any circumstance. But if there is an individual who is willing to watch some videos, learn about what he wants to do, get help from the community and friends if needed, and learn things in the end, then he or she is the perfect candidate to take on the challenge of building a PC for him or herself. It is a growing experience and does wonders for their confidence and knowledge if you take that first step of willing to take on the challenge.

 

It sounds like you had a bit of bad luck. Per-chance, did you run your set up by some friends who know about computers or a community like ours before you built it? It seems like some of the issues that you had may be component related in regards to the reliability of them. Many times tech communities can point new builders in the right direction to quality components that won't have many issues.

 

In the end, it comes down to how much you are willing to live up to the challenge of exploring a new subject vs how much you just want it to work right away and not be responsible for fixing any problems should the arise.