My 15 yr old son wants to build his own gaming PC. He read info on-line and says it looks easy. Is it?

Question

Has anyone built there own PC from instructions on the internet? What are the pit falls any advise?

Answer 1

EASY? Yes and No. Iff he gets all new parts, with all the drivers,
it is not too bad today, with Plug and Pray ( PnP , Plug and Play )
components...

The pitfalls, believe it or not, are really stupid things, and I see a great many blown up Power Supplies and Motherboards from
stupidity..... People plug in cables and connectors at random, since they do not know where they go... The ATX connectors can be plugged in BACKWARDS ( different manufacturers have different thicknesses of plastic, so the keys dont work), the IDE
and floppy cables can go in backwards, and the dozen or so case front teeny plugs can go ANYWHERE, so people short
power to ground DEAD with the wrong pins to a switch, or plug
USB ( up to 10 wires ) randomly ( power to ground again ) and
blow up the power supply AND the motherboard... There are 16 ways to connect a standard floppy cable and 15 of them are wrong, and if left long enough, the floppy chips will burn out. Worse, the chip that controlls the floppy also runs the keyboard, mouse and other devices, so that if it is burnt the entire motherboard starts to go crazy.
People put in metal posts to hold up the motherboard in - at random, and have metal posts where there are no mounting holes, so that wires on the bottom of the board are shorted out...
( dead board or sections of the board dead ). People do not mount the heatsink on the CPU , " flat" so that the CPU burns up.
AGP and PCI cards do not always align with the back of the case, so people FORCE the backmount screws in, raising or
lowering the cards crooked... which causes immediate, or worse,
random failures and shorts later, as the case 'Jiggles". People put huge case screws in the CDs and Floppies, and tiny CD screws in the harddrives, chewing up the mounting holes and
causing the devices not to fit properly... These are just the
mechanical, dumb, things, and the list of " I thought I'd seen everything " 's never ends.... AGP and PCI X cards have one and two fans, and if the person does not know how to plug in the power cables, they just leave them off... or, worse, they use EXTENSIONS, on every fan in the case, strung one extension into another, into another, into another, and they always use the
HARDDRIVE power supply cord to chain into - causing harddrive failures.... while leaving an unused connector dangling in mid air... the list is endless...
I would REALLY encourage you to find someone you know with a bit of experience to help your son - just a little bit of guidance would really go a long way. Sorry to be a bit negative, but there
are a lot of nitty gritty details that most people are unaware of, and over confident about.... you might try reading a few questions and answers on realated subjects by clicking on my name .... on power supplies, leaving a computer on 24/7, setting up IDE masters and slaves, etc. and you will get an idea of what is involved... Like most things, slapping a computer together is "easy" if you know how.

Proceed with caution ! Have someone available to help if you run into a problem...

good luck

robin

Answer 2

Well, it depends on how much experience your son has with computers, but personally, I think building a pc is very easy. Theres not much you can do wrong if you're using one of the good guides on the internet.

Answer 3

I have torn a PC to shreds and replaced the motherboard for fun.

It isn't that hard. Get him the parts and let him have fun. At least he would rather earn his machine than buy it built already.

And if he screws up? He will learn a great lesson. I'm all for letting kids experiment.

ps: make sure you set limits to his time there once built.

Otherwise he will sprout roots and will never move.

Answer 4

I have built my own before, and am getting ready to do it again soon. I don't think it is to hard as long as he reads the instructions and can understand them easy.

Answer 5

It can get sort of expensive depending on what kind of PC he wants..to build....Other than that, have him go down to the local geek squad store, usually inside of best buy's and they can give him tips on exactly what he will need, and perhaps a reputable website on building one...so he isn't given false instructions...-smiles- good luck!!

Answer 6

it is in fact very easy, but the Pit fall is that if he breaks something it will cost much, a good gaming system is not cheap!! even touching a component on the wrong area can damage things. best thing is that you do as much research as possible too and be with him when he does it!!

Answer 7

I would do the froggie and duckies theme, winnie the pooh is very original. There is also a game where you pass around rolls of toilet paper and make all the guest rip off some, but dont tell them what they are going to d with it, and see who rips off enough to fit around you, whoever gets the closest wins. Another is baby bingo. Hope these helps.

Answer 8

I'm sure he could do it just fine as long as his IQ is above 90. It's really not hard to build something with instructions. Just make sure he actually Reads them..

Answer 9

i heard honestly that it is really easy. I'm not that techy but you should definitely let him build his own. Perhaps it will lead into something great towards his future. perhaps engineering? who knows. .....

Answer 10

yes