First Times... For PC's

[jdm3gee]

Hey folks, I'm curious to hear about what was your first build you did.  You can specify if it was a new build of mixed parts or all new.  Or even include when you first got into upgrades/modding.  I'll start.

 

First upgrade was to a prebuilt Compaq Presario.  I put in a GeForce FX5500 OC.  I later updated ram and then the GPU again to a ATi Radeon x1950.  

[Mark77]

Intel 386-33.  320mb ESDI Seagate/CDC hard drive.  8mb RAM by way of 8 x 1mb 30-pin SIMMS.  Caching ESDI controller.  Some 256kb VGA card (a Cirrus or a Trident, perhaps!)  1.44mb and 1.2mb floppy diskette drives (3.5" and 5.25") on a floppy controller.  Circa 1993 or so.  The ESDI controller had a cache RAM module with 2mb of cache.  You could write random data to it, and because drives were so freakishly slow back then, it would literally take a minute to write out the cache!

 

Remember that, back then, motherboards came with very little embedded.  If you wanted, say, a serial port, you had to have an expansion card for it.  IDE was just on random crappy Compaq's (Compaq basically invented IDE!) and wasn't even mainstream.

 

Wasn't my first computer, but it was the first x86 computer I assembled "from parts". 

 

Later on, I upgraded the same to a Pentium-66 with 72pin SIMMS, and later to a Pentium-133 with SCSI drives (ultimately to a 4gb 7200rpm Seagate Barracuda 4).  Before dumping the platform for a dual P3-450. 

 

Basically I haven't had a truly 'new' computer since that machine in 1993 or so.  There have always been parts carried over from the older ones.  Still running a SCSI board I bought in 1996 even today for my scanners, in my Sandy Bridge system.

[JHY]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/y4B9Cy

I wish I can time travel.

[it_dont_work]

From what I can actually remember, I help onto this system for a fair while (as in win95 - retiring it with a cut down version of xp)

 

-Pentium II, 233mhz @ 266

-16mb of ram - ended with 512mbs of good old SD Ram

-Maxtor 2d/3d card with 2mb onboard > then a 3dfx voodoo2 sli config > then a 16mb voodoo banshee. (UT and tony hawks pro skater bro)

-at different times 4gb hdd- about a 40gb.

-Sound blaster live pci sound card, no isa sound here.

 

and a bloody host of different add on cards. Lan, usb 2.0, firefire, video cap (god dam composite), 54b wifi, M-audio delta 1010 (dam thing used to run pro tools!badly but still)

 

At one point I remember having 3 pci video cards in that dam thing and 3 17" crts on my desk. Desk used to sag pretty badly.

 

Only thing I have left of that pc is the sli config in a box in the shed somewhere, somehow I couldn't bring myself to throw it out. Oh and a model M but I've no idea where the hell that is after moving house 5 times.

 

I eventually upgraded that system to an athlon at 1.7ghz I think...and maybe an mx440...

[MVPernula]

I was an all in console gamer before, not that I was all like "NO CONSLOES ARE BETTER THAN PC'S ALWAYS", but I just preffered them.

 

My first build is basically my current one.

Dual 970's SLI

5820K

32GB RAM

250GB 850 Evo's Raid 0

1TB of storage

 

The major difference now is the case and GPU (1080).

[RollinLower]

my very first upgrade was some more RAM in an old Pentium 4 system. my very first build was in an MSI Nightblade barebones unit, so i guess it really wasn't truly my first build, but it had a terribly balanced B85 mobo with a 4670K and a 750Ti... yeah not my best rig

[NinjaJc01]

1 hour ago, jdm3gee said:

Hey folks, I'm curious to hear about what was your first build you did.  You can specify if it was a new build of mixed parts or all new.  Or even include when you first got into upgrades/modding.  I'll start.

 

First upgrade was to a prebuilt Compaq Presario.  I put in a GeForce FX5500 OC.  I later updated ram and then the GPU again to a ATi Radeon x1950.  

My first upgrade was fitting a GT 610 to my HP Core 2 Duo desktop about 2 years ago. In January this year, I finally built my first proper PC (i7-4770, 8GB DDR3, GTX 750 Ti), then upgraded it a little while later with a GTX 970. Then, about a week or two ago, I built my secondary PC, from a mixture of new, sort of new and used components.

What got me in to upgrading was the inability to play games on the iGPU of that core 2 duo machine.

[richardmajor86]

I upgraded the cpu cooler on an old eMachines computer. It was a fanless thing and too big to actually fit in the case. I just left the side of the case off from then onwards. It was quieter though

[LogicalDrm]

Don't remember which was first. Adding some RAM to AthlonXP custom pre-build. Or upgrading HDD from 80gb to 200gb. That PC has almost fully been replaced by me. GPU, PSU, mobo and CPU... First full custom build was 2008.

[kelvinhall05]

i cleaned out my old laptop and did an ssd replacement...not much for now, but i hope to build a new pc soon.

[THFourteen]

Can't remember exactly but it had an Athlon 64 4000 think that was a dual core CPU one of the first of its kind!

 

had 2GB of RAM in a no name case with a no name PSU and a 160GB Seagate HDD.

 

the PSU would later cause me problems and need replacing

 

Can't remember the GPU... gonna check my scan ordee history!

 

Ah it was a geforce6800 GT

 

Wow this was an expensive build, the CPU cost £420!!

[Thaldor]

First build was probably around 1998-99 when I changed HDD and PSU of our first Windows PC (Pentium I 233Mhz, 256Mt RAM, ATi Rage Pro, 2GB HDD), it didn't end that well because I was around 10 then and didn't know that you just cannot change HDD and except the computer work

 

First semi-custom build was around 2004 when I got my first own Windows PC. It was just some Celeron-based HP market PC and I bought brand PSU to it and bigger HDD, more RAM and better GPU (something like GeForce 6600).

 

First total custom build was around 2008 (Intel Core2 Duo 8400, 4GB RAM, GeForce 9800GTX+, Nexus Caterpillar with OCZ StealthXStream) and that has been upgraded over the years. I really never have builded completely new system for myself since then, just upgraded parts here and there as time has passed.

[kaiju_wars]

First 'build,'  I can't remember.  I know I took a couple of pre-builts to make a cheap office PC.

 

My first gaming build is in my sig.  

[EntryLevelScrub]

I built my very first rig only 5 days ago, it has an i5 6600K, ASUS Z170M-Plus and a ASUS Strix GTX 970 graphics card all packed into the Bitfenix prodigy M case. Cable management was a needle in my bum but since i dont have a side panel it doesent really matter. It all went really smooth and it has been working great so far.

[jdm3gee]

Very good answers folks.  Lol I forgot about Intel 386.  and when Pentiums were king.

[spellmanuk]

the first upgrade i ever did was i had a crappy toshiba laptop that used to be my dads work laptop im talking duel core Pentium and 1gb of ram sort of deal it only had 60GB hard drive so i saved up my pocket money (i was only about 13-14) i bought a 500gb hard drive so i could actually have some space. at this time i was into making crappy films with my friend so we'd fill up the hard drive then have to delete everything we didn't use so this was a much needed upgrade.

[ttoks]

My first ever pc anything I did was upgrading the GPU in my prebuilt HP pavilion desktop to a radeon HD5600, the next was building my next PC which is my current gaming PC with the following.

 

6700k CPU

MSI Z170A gaming pro carbon MB

MSI GTX-980 Ti

Corsair H105 AIO cpu cooler

G.Skill ripjaws V 16GB DDR4 RAM

Seagate 2TB barracuda HDD

samsung 850 EVO 250gb SSD

Corsair RM650i PSU

Fractal Design Define S mid tower case

 

I just did a heap of research online to parts and figured for my needs (mostly gaming) these parts would work pretty well for me, so this was my first ever PC build.

[steezemageeze]

First time upgrading was when I upgraded my laptop from a single-core Celeron 900 to a Core2 Duo T9300 and bumped the RAM up to 4GB. It's been my right hand man(laptop?) for a good 8 years now and I'm not planning on getting rid of it until it's completely dead.

 

First time building was this winter when I built the rig in my signature. My answer definitely isn't as cool as the guy with the Voodoo2 SLI and the guy with the Intel 386 though, I think they win  

[Space Reptile]

oh my , my first build 

 

Horizontal office case (bigass red flipswitch in the front) 
pentium 3 600mhz (TURBO made it 800 , according to the 7 segemt display)
i dont know what graphics (i was 6)

2 scsi hardrives , if the noise was an indicator for that 

Win 95

 

my mom brought it home from work , they cleaned out the old pcs and she gave me it 

i was so happy , i wish i still had it , my First pc game was Homeworld (sierra , 1999) 

[Snow XII]

I put a severely out of date Radeon HD 2900 GT into my first desktop I ever bought that was not a hand me down. I knew nothing about computers at the time and thought that the 2900 was the coolest, fastest thing I've seen. Now 3 builds in, I laugh at how much of a noob I was.