What was your first experience with building computers?

Bombastinator · November 19, 2019

2 minutes ago, Otto_iii said:

My first experience i was very young and my dad did most of the real work, i just sat there watching and confused, intimidated ,i don't really count it. In HS i pieced together a build but had a shop put it together. Later I inheretted some crappy but usable computer in that time period, had a Pentium 4 in 2012ish which everybody laughed at me for (hey it could still play some games!), eventually did the deed of putting a GPU and PSU in a cheap-used pre-built after i got tired of my more expensive completely pre-built system i had bought to replace the Pentium 4 rig previously mentioned.

Finally, very recently i decided i should try it for myself, after watching a bunch of people on youtube do it 1000 times over. Honestly the scariest part for me was putting the CPU Cooler on and getting the ram in (i'd tinkered with my ram before but the slots only open on one side with this motherboard so i was unsure if it worked them same way, required more force then i expected) Wiring which scared me with pre-built systems was much less confusing as the case i bought managed the cables well, and i had seen all the parts and plugs already, trickiest part of that was figuring out front-panel connectors but no big deal.

It was pretty cool, i wondered why i hadn't done it sooner, but then thinking about it i wouldn't have wanted to with older motherboards (im on AM4) that became obsolete with every new generation, it finally made sense and im happy i did it.

Lol! My dad did the same with me and fishing rods. Making fishing tackle was his hobby. Kind of a weird one, but apparently not all that uncommon. There were apparently several magazines dedicated to it.

building high end PCs in general has gotten a lot easier. The old ones basically had to be overclocked and doing it was much more complicated then it is now.

thedangerine · November 19, 2019

I got into computers around late 2015 and built my first the summer of 2016. I had gotten my cpu through the Intel retail edge program and was following a build guide from Linus, I had almost no idea who he was (I had seen him and Luke in a few videos on the Intel retail edge program but had no idea who they were.) I went with his guide over others because I figured if Intel let them make some videos for them they can probably build a computer. I remember shaking while trying to install my CPU I was so afraid of breaking everything. And like many others I was terrified of putting on the thermal paste. I treated everything like it was made of glass. Quite the juxtaposition from the way I handle hardware today, usually just take the yolo approach

Csshaz3 · November 19, 2019

I had my moms p4 Dell computer back in like 04 or 05. Took everything out of that case cause it was a Dell and just screwed the mobo and all other internals to the wall. Shocked the hell out of me every time I touched anything. Safe

20_below · November 19, 2019

I was a senior in college when I built my first rig. I did a ton of research to make sure I'd do everything right, but I stupidly decided to cheap out on a case so I spent $30 on a used case on Best Buy and when I brought it home I found out it didn't have usb 3.0 headers and only usb 2.0; I had bought the previous generation case.

I was so excited to finally build my own rig, and the only game I would end up playing on it during my final semester (when I built the machine) was Runescape. RIP.

SpookyCitrus · November 19, 2019

Be me 15 years old in 2012, watch YouTube all the time. Find Frankieonpcin1080p from his BF3 video, one day he uploads his first Arma II: DayZ Mod video. Become obsessed with the game and try to play it on old family desktop, no dice, computer sucks big time. Get a part time job and save money for a few months to build my own gaming PC. Order parts when I can, get a GTX 660ti pretty much on launch as my first part purchase and find an old Xeon w/ motherboard and ram combo on craigslist. Put it all together after getting the rest of the parts and can run pretty ok, use Xeon system until October when the FX series chips come out, get the FX-8350 an expensive gaming board and 16GB of ram. Run most games super nicely and use the 8350 system with GPU upgrades every year until 8th gen Intel comes out, along the way start building PCs for people on craigslist throughout highschool, then get a job at a nice highly rated computer repair shop in my town after graduation.

My whole life has been affected by computers, and it all started with not being able to run Arma II: DayZ Mod.