Who made your PC

[Thief Silver]

By the end of this summer I intend to FINALLY get my own PC, and am debating whether or not to build it, as my friends insist. OR to just buy one from Dell as my dad insists. While I hold in favor building it for myself, hearing who made your PCs may help in my decision. Also if you built it yourself could you mention any problems or difficulties you had? I only know a few companies so feel free to check other.

[FPM]

Who made your PC?

Me.

[Kidnemo]

Me.

No real problems, though I just had to replace the power supply, because it wasn't putting out enough juice and was causing the machine to lock up.

I've put my own pc's togther for my entire life, but I think the next one I get will be a plug and play deal.

Components/pcs are so cheap these days, and it's just not worth my time buying all the stuff and throwing it togther to save a couple hundred bucks (if that much).

So I'll just buy something from a smaller company already preassembled. If it has no integrated parts I'll be good to go.

In other pc news I just ordered a new 21 inch monitor last night.

Neato.

[Cookie Monster]

I've built every PC I've had since my first P90 I bought from Gateway. I guess one of the main things to look out for is an effective cooling system, ie good application of of thermal compound and good fans. Also make sure you have a power supply with enough wattage. I'd say 300W is a minimum. Get good memory too, and read a little about the mainboard you're considering. If you're really feeling saucy, pick up a hard drive with 8MB of cache onboard. You'll probably be fine with a 2MB cache, but there is a noticeable performance increase in many cases.

Feel free to PM me if you have more specific questions...I do this sort of thing for a living

[Thief Silver]

My biggest worrie is that I may screw up while making it, even with my friends expertise. Plus, if I were to get a mother board that wasn't compatible with the graphics card I got or something like that. Cause after it's opened it's worth like 90% less.

[Despair]

I built my newest PC with a help of my friend. Buying premade from a Brand name is way too expensive, and by building it yourself you make sure you get the components YOU want, plus you can shop around for a best deal on those parts, instead of buing them in one place, where price is usually higher.

[Dyne]

Originally posted by Thief~Silver
My biggest worrie is that I may screw up while making it, even with my friends expertise. Plus, if I were to get a mother board that wasn't compatible with the graphics card I got or something like that. Cause after it's opened it's worth like 90% less.

there really wouldnt be a reason to have a mobo/video incompatability these days unless for some idiotic reason you get an agp card when you only have pci slots or a 4x/8x agp card when you have a 1x agp slot. also you cant really break anything when putting it together, the system symply wont post or will shut off if something is in wrong.

but really...how many pre-made vs. self made threads do we need around here anyway considering 99% of people admit its much cheaper but then always get premade so they can get a cool sig box to flaunt around.

[Shinobi128]

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[Josh]

Do not buy a computer... build it yourself.

[K3V]

I build my PC's. Sometimes you can run into problems (I had some bad memory that caused quite a headache when making my current PC), but the process is great for learning just what exactly is in a PC, and if/when something breaks down you'll know what's going on and can fix it yourself.

But, if you want to pay CompUSA $50 to put some RAM in for you, hey that's your choice.

Not to mention it's usually cheaper and you can build it exactly to your needs, as been mentioned already.