Built myself a computer

[tahbikat]

Hey guys. I decided to build a gaming/work/art computer. Everywhere I looked online said "BUILD YER OWN!!" so I did.

This was a scary experience and I almost had a few heart attacks while putting everything together. I thought for sure I had broken the CPU on one occasion, and then when I was putting in the video card I thought I had broken it also. It was seriously the worst thing ever, but now that she's running I am so freaking happy with my new machine and so proud of myself!

I didn't take many pics because I was so excited to put this baby together that I forgot to lol. The cable management could be better. I'm going to fix that up one of these days.
http://i.imgur.com/2ue2gDw.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/h12bYAe.jpg

[squiggler]

That's so cool!

[IntoRain]

Nice work! :D

[tahbikat]

Thanks! ^^

[squiggler]

By the way, how long did it take? And what purpose did you build it for? *nosy*

[tahbikat]

Here's my parts list for anyone wondering: http://pcpartpicker.com/b/ghqkcf

Sorry for the novel below!

Squiggler, I built it for gaming and graphic design, and also possibly for school. (: A regular laptop (which is what I had before) sucked for both of these purposes... With my new computer I can play most games on the highest settings. I also have a 23" monitor with an awesome video card so colors for my graphics/pixels look way more vibrant and crisp! Not to mention a bigger screen makes it so much easier to work on things!

The great thing about building my own computer is that if a part breaks, I won't have to either A) buy a new computer or B) send it to the repair shop. Instead I can simply change out the part since I know how! (: I've went through countless laptops because of parts breaking, and getting someone to fix it was totally pointless because they charge so much I'd be better off buying a new laptop, which is what I did in the past! Now I don't have to.

It took me about an hour to build it (not counting all the times my lil cupcake distracted me) and another 30 mins - 1 hour to install windows 7 and the different drives for my video card, internet adapters, etc.

My overall experience building a PC was great, but I don't know if I'd recommend it to anyone. Like I said before, it was really scary knowing how expensive these parts were and if I broke something, I'd have to wait that much longer to ship it back and get another one shipped to me. I made a few small mistakes here and there that I quickly figured out, and as I mentioned a few times I thought I had broken something. I honestly didn't think my computer was going to boot up because that's just my luck, but thank heavens it did!

If anyone here ever does think about building their own PC though, be sure to research, research, research!

[squiggler]

That's really cool. I've always had ASUS laptops (~$1000 each), and those don't break on me. The one before this one is slow but still going strong after 3 or 4 years. My current one also handles all the Sims 3 expansion packs without freezing or glitching. If I get a tower though, I'm definitely building it!

[tahbikat]

Yea, that may have been my problem (getting cheapish laptops). The best laptop I got was a Toshiba for $800. Nothing ever broke on it but for whatever reason I decided to move on from it. I think it was just old and I wanted something newer lol.

But yea, building a desktop would be a very rewarding experience if you haven't before. And I'm definitely going to put that under my "skills" section on resumes! ;P Now that I've built a comp I'm considering looking into computer engineering or something like that.

And the Sims 3! I actually just installed that game yesterday on my pc. Only got to play for 5 minutes though. :x Can't wait to play some more!