How can I learn to build a desktop PC?

Question

I've been interested in doing it for a while but just dont have a clue. Is there welding or anything involved? Where can I buy quality parts online at a good price? Thanks for reading and responding.

Answer 1

No welding or any sskill involved.

Start with what you want to use the computer for(gaming,videos,business,etc)

Then start choosing the best parts. Try Newegg.com

Answer 2

no welding or anything
just screwing, unscrewing and pushing things into a slot.
Buy/take a broken computer or near broken (i would get the near broken one)
and just study it with everything in place first
find out what is what
then take it all apart
then start from the beginning
if you put it together correctly
you can turn it all on.

but, this is the way i did it.
Find a friend that knows computers
(if you have the money)
get him to buy parts for you, really really cheap ones, yet still good in a way (i would suggest a Intel Pentium D 805 dual core 2.66ghz to start out, cheap, and you will learn to Overclock with it)
once u get all the parts
start building using ur current PC as an example of a finished one
take off the side panel for ur current PC
and just look at it while building ur to-become-a-working PC
things will only go into 1 slot just to let you know
and only 1 way
so look at the slots
and see if it will fit or not
its al just Common sense and logic
once u get that, all you gotta do from there is download ur program runner such as WIndows XP Pro
or something like that
make sure u have thermal paste for the CPU though.
and for the videocard, it probably or might have a fan on it
either way, give it as much room to "breathe" as you can

Answer 3

You don't have to know how to weld or any other specialized machinist skills. Building a PC should be called putting together a PC. A magazine called MAXIMUM PC put out a special spring 2006 edition called MAXIMUM PC SHOWS YOU HOW TO...
BUILD THE PERFECT PC. It has a 14 page illustrated guide! It is still available in stores as I bought a copy today.

As the computer industry changes so incredibly rapidly you will find sources on the internet may be better at showing you the state of the art equipment as they can post info immediately instead of waiting until next months issue, but for a build guide I think you will prefer to have a hard copy.

For any particular item you may be able to find a better deal but overall I find newegg.com hard to beat, their prices are low and they frequently have deals on shipping. Check pricegrabber.com and compare prices and read reviews to find out if their customers are happy or not.

Answer 4

It is cheaper to buy but the parts you buy are usually cheap hence the lower price. Building a pc is great since you know all the components inside and troubleshooting is alot easier usually, also many times a built pc is more upgradeable. best place to buy computer parts is www.newegg.com I would recommend either having someone help you through your first build or buy a barebone. Another good alternative is take apart your current pc and put it all back in. And of course if you run into any problems you always have the helpful yahoo answers community to turn too.

Answer 5

Seeing as this question is still open, I figure I'll add something, as the people who already answered have good advice. As far as costs go something extremely low end like the cheapest Dell/HP would save you money, but you get what you pay for, and those are not desireable for performance or upgradeability. Now as for actually building a PC, the hardest part is finding the right parts, which I've found is hard to find up to date guides on. The basic parts that you will need are:

Motherboard, CPU, RAM (Memory), Hard Drive, Graphics Card (unless you have 'onboard video,' which is undesireable), a sound card (unless onboard sound...), a Power Supply, and a Case. A CD Rom drive will be needed to install most operating systems efficiently, but you can pull one out of your current comp. (when its turned off...).

Now that we know what we need, lets check out guidelines to make sure everything is compatable.
Things to keep in mind:

Look for a CPU first. You need to know what socket number your CPU is before you can find a motherboard. You should look for a Socket 939 (AMD) or LGA775 (iNTEL p4). There is socket AM2 for amd, but I don't recommend it as you'll need DDR2 ram and it doesn't prove itself in benchmarks. After you choose your CPU look for a motherboard with the same socket. Also make sure the motherboard has DDR SDRAM slots instead of DDR2, as they're not compat. Also make note on the Hard Drive connectors (is SATA provided? is there onboard RAID with that?). I recommend SATA because its much faster. After the mobo go and grab some DDR RAM, I suggest Corsair or Patriot brands. After you got your memory, look at graphics cards. Make sure the slot type (AGP or PCI-E) agrees with the one on your motherboard. When looking for a hard drive, again, make sure it agrees (SATA or Parallel ATA (PATA)). As a side note you CAN plug SATA300 (3.0 Gbps) into a SATA150 (1.5Gbps) and the other way around, they are backwords compatable, and 'hot pluggable.' The hitch is it runs at the slower of the two speeds, not a big deal. After that make sure your mobo has onboard sound or grab a sound card...your CPU comes with a heatsink fan...maybe grab some colored cables for your computer, a LED fan or what not, but you should be ready to order your parts. Just be sure to Google/Yahoo for product reviews on mobo, cpu, gpu just to make sure. Hope this helps and good luck on your endeavor. Just remember after you have the parts everything is only meant to go in one way...and of course there's guides online.

Answer 6

Not welding required -- unless you want to make your own case (but you really don't) -- there are pre-manufactured cases that aren't too expensive.

Good places to get parts are newegg.com and tigerdirect.com.

Basically, there are a basic set of parts that you need for minimal use. Google around for other people's experiences with building your own PC.

Annorax64

Answer 7

until eventually you're beginning up a stay skill supply with a screwdriver and moist arms construction a computing gadget is distinctly risk-free. it somewhat is totally high priced in case you blow out high priced factors nevertheless. i've got outfitted many desktops myself and it is not that perplexing. that's a super undertaking and intensely helpful as quickly as you positioned all of it mutually and skill it on for the 1st time. that's nicely well worth the time beyond regulation and attempt to learn your factors intently then you definitely can customize your gadget to in spite of you decide on it for. those specs are distinctly superb. BTW: listed under are some recommendations... a million. For the two GB RAM get 2 same matched pairs (comparable make and sort) of 1GB sticks so which you will run it in twin channel mode. twin channelling in actuality will develop your memory bandwidth from sixty 4-bit to 128-bit and provides fairly a overall performance enhance at little fee yet you decide on 2 sticks and a motherboard that helps your memory. 2. make helpful 450W is sufficient quite with the greater modern photos enjoying cards. some intense end enjoying cards like the 7900 sequence require 500W or greater skill components in a very configured rig in spite of everything drives and extra factors are factored in. 3. make helpful your CPU and motherboard in positive condition. 4. seek for bargains contained in the newspaper classified ads for problematic drives on sale. someplace consistently has them and the Sunday papers are the main suitable places to locate them. 200GB is amazingly lifelike recently. 5. study the classes handbook that got here with your motherboard in case something you have is incompatible (uncommon even nevertheless it happens) and learn the internet distinctly on your first one. 6. if your motherboard has a PCI-convey photos card slot then make helpful your photos card is PCI-convey additionally. If it somewhat is AGP (much less situation-free recently), then you definitely decide on an AGP video card because of the fact it won't in positive condition in any different case. different than that, solid success and shop your self "grounded" in any respect situations. :)

Answer 8

easy to do since u buy all premade parts. no welding. no soldering. just a mater of puting a main circuit board in a case and plugging things into it. best buy is usually a good place for parts.

Answer 9

One of the best places to start is Toms Harware Guide can get you building just about anything from a mini - pc to a computer that is cooled by 8 Gallons of cooking oil! http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/index.html

Answer 10

It's actually surprisingly easy. And best of all: cheap. Check www.Newegg.com for some of the best prices on...anything. Search online for a guide. I'm sure there are plenty out there.

Here's the first link I got from searching on google:
http://www.qsl.net/g7gtn/pcguide/

Good luck!