Guide to building a PC?

[valver lad]

I have a general knowledge of the part's i need to build a PC but always have that doubt in which order to fit them and if the parts will work together!

Is there a idiot's guide to building one about?

Roughly looking at a decent processor with 3gb ram and maybe 1TB HDD. Not got a great deal of a budget.

Im mostly a media man as i've never had a PC capable of running games of a decent rate. So it'll be nice to try a bit of gaming on it too!

And any good places to buy the needed bits n bobs...

Cheers all!

 

[Longy]

It's just like lego m8 - dead easy. I'm sure the internet is full of guides. Just do it is what I'd say.

Get case -> screw in mobo -> plug in CPU, memory and all cards -> plug in power, HDD's and CD/DVD drive and case leads -> power on

 

[conneh]

This is from an old gaming forum i use to use (League website, CSS, CS1.6 etc)

However, they have some ok guides on there for when they are being remotely serious.

http://www.thesgl.com/forums/topic/222322/

 

[Maxx]

Its probably best to put things in/on the motherboard like CPU etc before putting it in the case then once its in hook on the psu, then plug in hdd's/dvd rom etc then slot in any gfx cards/agp cards etc

 

[dajones]

building a pc is as simple as buttering toast! its literally "if it doesnt fit, it doesnt go there!" its the software side of things that can be a pain in the arse but its still simple enough

 

[Rossy197]

^^ +1

Piece of piss mate... If it dont fit it dont go..

build a PC nearly every month for friends or family.. Built my SLI'd watercooled rig a while back.. Water cooled FTW !

 

[Omid]

^^ +1

Piece of piss mate... If it dont fit it dont go..

build a PC nearly every month for friends or family.. Built my SLI'd watercooled rig a while back.. Water cooled FTW !

You are too cool for school.

My $0.02, don't forget the thermal paste and make sure the fans are pointing the right way!

 

[seb]

i echo the comments.

i built my first pc a few years ago. (just search ''thesloth'' (no spaces) under threads started by myself in techno chat)

putting it together was the easy part. the sfotware side is the NIGHTMARE, well for me it was.

screwing it together was about 2 hours max maybe a bit more after a few cups of tea.

sorting the software was a couple of evenings after work (along with several phone calls to uncle .griff. <3)

 

[Graham22b]

Yeh extremely easy to actually build.

Only thing I would say be careful of when choosing parts is RAM types and speeds. Just make sure the motherboard is capable of running those timings. Good two shops online are:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/

http://www.scan.co.uk/

Love scan, normally very competitive prices and great service. If you have any particular questions feel free to PM me. Used to building AMDs more than Intels though.

If I was you would look at following:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-...ion-Sok-AM3-28GHz-75MB-Total-Cache-95W-Retail

Should be adequate for what you need and almost all games. Get some 1066Hz DDR2 as not worth extra for DDR3 although it might have come down in price since I last looked.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1TB-Samsung-HD103SI-EcoGreen-F2-SATA-3Gb-s-HDD-32MB-Cache-89-ms-NCQ

Take it from your 3GB comment you know you can only run over 3GB of RAM if you have a 64bit operating system?

Oh and buy some cable ties! They are your friend when building a PC.

 

[Graham22b]

You are too cool for school.

My $0.02, don't forget the thermal paste and make sure the fans are pointing the right way!

Water cooling and after market air coolers are way OTT if he is on a budget and not looking to overclock!!

 

[Graham22b]

Oh and almost forgot....

Do not skimp on the cost of the PSU whatever you do. Classic mistake for people doing first builds is to buy a cheap power supply to save money and when they slap in a new more power hungry GPU there isn't enough Juice or even worse the PC goes pop!

Corsair or Hiper M units are good.

 

[Rossy197]

www.overclockers.co.uk

 

[Ads_172]

www.ebuyer.co.uk for parts I found the cheapest.

There are loads of guides on t'internet, as well as Youtube. it really is as easy as people say, but just don't rush it. Make sure you handle all the parts carefully and fit them securely.

 

[valver lad]

Do the motherboard spec's on these websites usually tell you what they're capable of handling and what's compatible with them?

Cheers for the help guy's - some good link's coming up!

 

[Ads_172]

I'd recommend looking on the overclockers forums to find the best compatibility. Some combinations simply don't work even though they're meant to.

 

[Rossy197]

This is my machine, Built it just under 2 years ago so is a bit dated now, Runs everything effortlessly including games, It is a gaming rig using 2 8800GTX :-

[youtube]LdQ0jUF2pxk[/youtube]

[youtube]GTP4RdsYYuM[/youtube]

 

[Maxx]

overclockers also sell Bundles at a reasonable price so may be worth looking into as might get a good deal

 

[valver lad]

overclockers also sell Bundles at a reasonable price so may be worth looking into as might get a good deal

Aye, been looking at bundles today. Spotted the two value systems at Overclockers;
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-187-OK

^^ a few good reviews

and http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-186-OK&groupid=43&catid=1078&subcat=

But has no reviews.

Also this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164667 but has some complaints with the fan noise.

 

[blackpanther]

Scan is one of the best to buy from, im quite local to them so im there every other week buyin parts etc.
Start by picking a good mother board, then using the spec from the M/B (ie: bus speed, max cpu, which memory ddr2 ddr3) pick your cpu and memory making sure the bus speed is the same on them ALL. Ur pc will be as FAST as the SLOWEST part used in it so it is pointless buying one cheap part right at the end because your short of cash.

 

[Krispwee]

Oh and almost forgot....

Do not skimp on the cost of the PSU whatever you do. Classic mistake for people doing first builds is to buy a cheap power supply to save money and when they slap in a new more power hungry GPU there isn't enough Juice or even worse the PC goes pop!

Corsair or Hiper M units are good.

Best bit of advice that ^

Might also be worth buying CustomPC magazine as in the middle of the mag theres a list of 3 different PC's that you can build with all the parts listed aswell as prices.

Its also worth changing the standard CPU cooler to something like Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (about £15).

Once you've got all the parts its unbelievably easy to put it all together. The only annoying bit is plugging in the parts that connect the power and reset switch and the lights on the front of the case. I always seem to do it after I've plugged everything else in which makes it very fiddly.