Tips on building your own PC


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Hi guys,

I'm building my own PC in a few days, it's my first-time so I'm really looking for any tips, anything that you can think of that you would have appreciated someone telling you when you first built a PC. Oh, by the way, here's the specs:

Abit KX7-333 Motherboard (with RAID)

Athlon XP 1800+

Kingston 512MB PC2100 DDR-RAM

Seagate Barracuda IV 80GB

Sony Floppy Drive (retro, baby! :p)

Alluminum AL3 case with 350W Dual Dan PSU

Leadtek GeForce 4 A250TD DDR Ti 4200 64MB

Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM (salvaged from old PC)

Diamond Data 30x6x4 burner (salvaged)

Hercules Muse XL sound card (salvaged)

Lifeview Flyvideo 98II TV Tuner (salvaged)

Realtek 10/100 NIC (salvaged)

Swann NetSlider 56k modem (salvaged)

Okay, so, please, any tips you have, fire away! Oh, and what do you think of the new PC?

Cheers,

Evan

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Originally posted by BananaMan

Abit KX7-333 Motherboard (with RAID)

Athlon XP 1800+

Kingston 512MB PC2100 DDR-RAM

Seagate Barracuda IV 80GB

Change the ram to the PC2700, they cost slight more than the PC2100 and they're faster. Plus, if you don't plan on having an array, it's useless to have a RAID controller.

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Originally posted by Fedr0

Change the ram to the PC2700, they cost slight more than the PC2100 and they're faster. Plus, if you don't plan on having an array, it's useless to have a RAID controller.

Can't afford PC2700 ram. And yeah, I do plan on setting up an array, not yet since I don't have the money but soon-ish.

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Originally posted by Fedr0

Hmm... Actually the difference between a 512 megs stick of Corsair eXtreme PC2100 and PC2700 is roughly 15$!

You're going to laugh, but that's $15 I don't have! Besides, it's all ordered already, so there's not much I could do about it. You make a good point though, I kinda wish I thought about my choice in RAM a little more, still, I'm not incredibly fussy.

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1. Beware of ESD (ElectroStatic Discharge) because that will flush a lot of money down the drain. Ground yourself by touching the computer case every so often, and avoid working on carpet.

2. Don't have a Coke near you. That stuff can spray your computer to a fiery death!!!

3. Balance your computer well. Don't use POS parts with nice parts.

4. Avoid off-brand products. Although it will be a bit more expensive, but it's better than having the computer breaking down so many times over. (That's why big-name computer brands break down.)

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one tip i would have that if u havent installed a heatsink before you would be suprised at the amount of pressure you have to put on them to get them to click into place, dont worry though i havent broken anything yet, i usually find a spoon or a flat edge screwdriver is the best thing for fixing them

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Originally posted by sunnyy4

1. Beware of ESD (ElectroStatic Discharge) because that will flush a lot of money down the drain. Ground yourself by touching the computer case every so often, and avoid working on carpet.

very wise

also make sure you use the copper risers under the motherboard so it does not touch the side of the case or the motherboard tray and get grounded out

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it is not a waste of time having a raid controller

as it usually provides you with two more ide channels if you are not using an array.

therefore u can have your cd burner and dvd on seperate channels to avoid burning problems and also run yer hard disk on its own channel so it isnt dragged down to the udma speed of yer dvd or burner

:)

well thats how it works on my system

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Originally posted by BananaMan

Diamond Data 30x6x4 burner (salvaged)

wow first burner i have ever seen that re-writes faster than it reads :D

my advise, have fun with it... don't break anything, and customize the hell out of it

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