Build a computer?

Nuzzolese · #1 08-10-2005, 03:44 PM

Have any of you ever built a computer? Is it easy or what? Is it worth it? I can go to a place where they will build it for me, or I can buy the parts individually and put it together myself which would be cheaper. I intend to use the computer for internet use, writing, saving lots of files like music and video files, and photos and word documents, very simple photo editing, playing music and playing DVDs and burning music and DVDs.

The store can give me what they call a pro media center system which includes AMD Athlon64 3000A with 1 gig (it says 1024MB DDR PC3200 RAM), 250 GB (wd 8m 7200 HDD), nVidia GeForce 6200 128MB for watching video files, and the OS is Windows Media Center, it has a DVD burner and a TV tuner plus wireless keyboard and mouse and a remote and that's all $1099 and they'll build it for me.

I have to admit I don't even really know what a lot of that stuff is, but I know 1 gig is pretty good for what I plan on storing on there. Then I can add on Windows XP Home for $109, the monitor is 17 inches and it's $259 and then I was going to also get some $30 - $50 speakers and possibly a larger screen TV to hook up to watch DVDs on. It's a basic system.

Anyway what do you think? Suggestions? Experienced comments? Buy like this and have them build it? DIY? Building it myself could be really rewarding and I'd learn a lot in the process because now I know nothing at all.

Is it a simple matter of buying compatible parts and clicking them together according to the instructions? Or is it pretty complicated?

One thing I don't know about though; if I build it myself buying their parts, I don't know if they'll help me at all or provide any assistance in the event of problems.

TurdBerglar · #2 08-10-2005, 05:50 PM

i built my last computer

you don't need to spend that much for what you're using it for

Dr Deaf · #3 08-10-2005, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nuzzolese

Have any of you ever built a computer? Is it easy or what? Is it worth it? I can go to a place where they will build it for me, or I can buy the parts individually and put it together myself which would be cheaper. I intend to use the computer for internet use, writing, saving lots of files like music and video files, and photos and word documents, very simple photo editing, playing music and playing DVDs and burning music and DVDs.

The store can give me what they call a pro media center system which includes AMD Athlon64 3000A with 1 gig (it says 1024MB DDR PC3200 RAM), 250 GB (wd 8m 7200 HDD), nVidia GeForce 6200 128MB for watching video files, and the OS is Windows Media Center, it has a DVD burner and a TV tuner plus wireless keyboard and mouse and a remote and that's all $1099 and they'll build it for me.

I have to admit I don't even really know what a lot of that stuff is, but I know 1 gig is pretty good for what I plan on storing on there. Then I can add on Windows XP Home for $109, the monitor is 17 inches and it's $259 and then I was going to also get some $30 - $50 speakers and possibly a larger screen TV to hook up to watch DVDs on. It's a basic system.

Anyway what do you think? Suggestions? Experienced comments? Buy like this and have them build it? DIY? Building it myself could be really rewarding and I'd learn a lot in the process because now I know nothing at all.

Is it a simple matter of buying compatible parts and clicking them together according to the instructions? Or is it pretty complicated?

One thing I don't know about though; if I build it myself buying their parts, I don't know if they'll help me at all or provide any assistance in the event of problems.

i find it odd that this has no replies. so nuzz what will you do with the other 249 gigs of storage space on that western digital HD?

</snicker>

at the price i'd think it'd be best to have the shop assemble it for you. surely that price includes a warranty that might not be available if you assembled it yourself. i'm not too computer savvy, but i think it might be best to spend the extra $80 on XP pro. i heard home is really shitty. upgrade to the 19" flat LCD. i've never heard of people running computer dvd players to play on a seperate screen. are the sound and video cards integrated into the motherboard, or are they independent components?

i'm not saying it can't be done, but why would you, when a stand-alone dvd player can be had for $69? if you have a decent stereo or mini system you can easily run your computer beats thru it with a headphone jack to RCA set up. the cable might cost you $12-18 at radio shack. otherwise if watching DVD in the proper 5.1 / 6.1 ratio is important to you: spend another $29 and get this.

good luck with it.

TurdBerglar · #4 08-10-2005, 06:00 PM

you don't want a lcd to run movies or games. the ordinary monitors yet bulky have the best picture quality. and you don't need pro. home is just fine

Nuzzolese · #5 08-11-2005, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Deaf

i find it odd that this has no replies. so nuzz what will you do with the other 249 gigs of storage space on that western digital HD?

</snicker>

do huh?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Deaf

i've never heard of people running computer dvd players to play on a seperate screen. are the sound and video cards integrated into the motherboard, or are they independent components?

I have heard of people doing that because the monitor is so small. I don't know about the sound and video cards. I will have to ask that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Deaf

i'm not saying it can't be done, but why would you, when a stand-alone dvd player can be had for $69? if you have a decent stereo or mini system you can easily run your computer beats thru it with a headphone jack to RCA set up. the cable might cost you $12-18 at radio shack. otherwise if watching DVD in the proper 5.1 / 6.1 ratio is important to you: spend another $29 and get this.

Cheap DVD players always break, and I want to be able to get online and also store music on there. I thought it better to have an all-in-one computer/entertainment system because right now all I've got is a little sony cd player and no tv no computer.

Rancid_Beasties · #6 08-11-2005, 08:45 AM

For me, building a computer was far cheaper than buying a prebuilt one. Because I bought from a computer shop that imports directly from china in quite a shifty way so that their hardware prices can be rediculously cheap (sometimes 1/4 of retail).

For that computer you listed, it would cost approximately $1100 AUD in parts including monitor and windows xp. It would take most competent computer geeks about an hour to put it together max, and half an hour or whatever it takes to install xp.

So by conversion rates, thats $850 US for parts, when you would be paying about $1450 US. So in other words, you are getting ripped off $600 by my calculation. And the parts I'm using are proper parts, including the exact same processor, same video card except made by asus under license, kingston memory, the same WD hard drive, and an asus motherboard). If it wasnt quality stuff I wouldnt be on this computer now (which is about a year old), running about as many programs as would kill my friend's comparable IBM.

TurdBerglar · #7 08-10-2005, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nuzzolese

Is it a simple matter of buying compatible parts and clicking them together according to the instructions? Or is it pretty complicated?

there's certain vital steps that if you do wrong you can completey ruin the pc. like not aplying thermal paste to the heatsink when installing the heatsink to the processor. this will make the heatsink basically worthless and it will cuase your processor to overheat and fry. another thing you could do wrong is intall the ram backwords or not using the #1 ram slot. but if you can follow instuctions closely in broken english you should have no problem.

from what i've seen windows never comes with instuctions. when installing widows for the fisrt time you need to go into the motherboard bios and set it up so the pc will boot up from the cd drive and not the hard drive. there's other things too. once if you have never done any of these things before you should read up on it or have someone help you in building it.

i would advise you to by a prebuilt one

wavin_goodbye · #8 08-10-2005, 06:21 PM

if you have the $$ get a mac. 10000X better than any PC

tracky · #9 08-10-2005, 06:41 PM

What's your current system? You might not even really need an full upgrade, maybe just a bigger hard drive & DVD burner are all you really need, which you could easily do yourself. Building a complete system is fairly easy, but like turd says, it's also easy to stuff it up. I just get the guys at the shop to do it for me, cause if they ruin a bit of hardware during installation, they have to wear the cost, not me. Plus I'm slack and don't do all the little neatening up they do, like cable tie stuff out the way, etc..

beastie fresh · #10 08-10-2005, 06:59 PM

Answering your question, if Ive built a computer, the answer is yes. 3 of the 5 we have are

The Notorious LOL · #11 08-10-2005, 07:06 PM

depends on what you use it for. If its gonna be mostly just internetting and music maybe or whatever you dont need much. Ive bought a few bare bones systems off pricewatch.com in the past and just added what was needed. The computer previous to the one I use now cost me $500 total excluding monitor and at the time was a really nice machine. I used it for 4 years with little to no problems.

TurdBerglar · #12 08-10-2005, 07:05 PM

you can get a whole system that can do all that you want for like $500.

my old computer did all that stuff without a problem and it's like 5 years old. if eveything on that system was brand new today it would only cost like 200-300 dollars. the only thing that really warrants a fantastic computer for most people is gameing. and since you didn't mention gameing you don't need to spend 1000 dallors. a 500 dallor system should be fine. the most demanding thing that you said you wanted to do with this pc was watching dvd's. that's not very demanding for a computer.

Nuzzolese · #13 08-11-2005, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TurdBerglar

you can get a whole system that can do all that you want for like $500.

I really have no idea why the price they're asking is so expensive then.

zorra_chiflada · #14 08-10-2005, 09:42 PM

i remember when i did info tech in grade 10 we kinda built a computer from scratch. i couldn't do it now.

TurdBerglar · #15 08-10-2005, 10:29 PM

i built this one online

i could of gone less expensive for what you want to do with it. but i kept with newer technology so it would be upgradeable down the road. and the mouse is wireless and can be use as a romote for watching movies and the system can be easily hooked up to a tv.

buddylee · #16 08-10-2005, 10:47 PM

when you buy a pre-made system you mite get 1 great thing in it like graphic card, the rest will kinda crapy or of fair. Having it build you can make sure you get a what you want.
what every you do don't get a Fry's Great Buy computer.

Look for a small time guy to bulid you one. The him you want a work horse.
also you can get Microst Office / student and teacher Edition for less than $200
better than paying $400 +
Yes you do want to pay for XP if not you dont get updates and it leaves you open for woorms.
Look in you Local http://www.craigslist.org/ you should be able to find anything on thier.

TurdBerglar · #17 08-10-2005, 10:53 PM

oh yeah i forgot windows. i think you can get OEM versions for like $60.

and you can easily get office 2003, Norton Internet Security 2005, DVD software and burner software for free.

The Notorious LOL · #18 08-11-2005, 12:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TurdBerglar

oh yeah i forgot windows. i think you can get OEM versions for like $60.

and you can easily get office 2003, Norton Internet Security 2005, DVD software and burner software for free.

in all honesty Ive never paid for a single peice of software like ever. Windows is easily accessable online, you just have to opt for Windows XP Professional rather than Home, which isnt a bad thing anyway. That and if you get a version with SP1, you gotta stick with SP1. Theres versions floating around with SP2 online, but I havent bothered checking since the version I have now is fine. Server 2003 is iight...I might upgrade to that in a bit if I play around with it some more.

When I worked in IT I would actually read the PC magazines our department got in the mail, look at decent software, come home and download it.

I dont trust anyone in IT that has paid for any microsoft product or recommends them highly for personal use.