How did the first computer you built turn out

So, it's your first time actually putting together a computer. How did it end up? Did it run flawlessly on the first startup? I fully built a computer fior the first time back in September. As for me, I spent a lot of time online researching all the parts I wanted, then spent a lot of time fianally putting them together. And then, after all of that work, I go to turn it on...and nothing. The damn thing didn't turn on. After some help from here, I found out the power supply was dead. I RMA'd and overnighted my dead one back for a new one. The new one arrives.....it's dead. I send it back, with the cheapest shipping this time, and order a completely different brand. The new one arrives, and it's too long for me to have the top exhaust fan in my case. So I wait a little bit, research, and return it for a different one. Though I was still able to use the computer, so it wasn't that bad. That wasn't the end of power supply troubles for me. I've gone through so much **** with them since then. But, my current one has always worked fine, and I love it. So, what kind of troubles, if any, have you gone through?

The first time I tried hooking a computer up back when I was 8 or so. .
I hooked the monitor up to a male serial port and roasted the Ribbon cable when I turned it on. Started smoking and I ran away from it. :)
. . I've been learning how to repair computers ever since.

Now I can Build a Custom PC in about 5mins-10mins.

The only problems I have nowdays is computers that have been shorted out, or have lightning damage.
This is where the Gas and a Match comes into play. :D

first comp i built is the one im using now...went flawlessly....but the first case change over i had was an hp to a premod i had... i couldnt get it to power up....i racked my brain for hours trying to figure out what it was .... damned switch on the back of the PSU!

First comp I built at 9 or 10. It was a system I used to play Ut99. I got the parts from my dad and he told me how to assemble it. I think a cable or something was loose, but it worked fine after that.

Now I can completely disassemble and reassemble a computer in under a half hour. :D

First one I built was my dad's. Built it Christmas day, set it up in the living room, and ding! It worked!

I have had a power supply explode on me though...

I built my first one when I was 14. I upgraded an eMachines with a 6600GT to play HL2. Then the PSU and mobo fried after a couple months (the PC was already a few years old). I bought a new mobo and PSU, swapped cases, and put everything together. Took a bit to figure out the front connectors because the manual had nothing about it, but after that it went fine.

I kinda sorta added and removed parts from my old PC but my current one really is my first build.

I'd have to say it's been a learning experience, and a functional one at that. Next time I would do something way different. Right now I want to replace the RAM (1gb mixed pair with no dual channel) a better video card (a PCIe one, not AGP) and a SATA or SATA II HDD, as my current one is slow. On the bright side my mobo supports two different kinds of RAM (one kind at a time), has a SATA plug (not sure which yet, haven't looked) and has a PCIe (kinda specific on the video cards, but I'm not worried). Upgrades here I come! After college, that is...

But yeah, it's been fun, I enjoy working with PCs. We'll see how my career turns out after all this. I'll probably have some good laughs looking at myself as I am now in five years or so.

Oh, and I fried a CPU and possibly a mobo too on my first attempt. I'm happy with the results, no more 1.4ghz Socket A with onboard video crap, I now have a (OC'ed to) 2.9ghz Pentium D Dual Core CPU and an nVidia 6800XT to play games with, muahaha. For those that haven't tried to build a PC, do your homework, ask advice from someone else (jk, but still a good idea to get multiple opinions on anything), and go for it.

/irrelevant tangents mixed with nonsense and a hint of stuff that makes sense unlike this phrase mah-dingy... I'll shut up now. ;)

1st build was Wiedergeboren.

Me and my friend Jesse, we practiced for the Cisco IT Comp in April, and our tag-team time; disassembly and re-assembly was a record 4 minutes, 27 seconds. The old was 8 minutes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by b4i7

first comp i built is the one im using now...went flawlessly....but the first case change over i had was an hp to a premod i had... i couldnt get it to power up....i racked my brain for hours trying to figure out what it was .... damned switch on the back of the PSU!

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OMG, :D I didn't that on my current build. I almost cried, especially considering I had spent $1800 on it now thought it was dead. Considering that was less than a year ago I felt like such a NØØb! Now I can take apart and assemble a PC in less than an hour (ya, ya I'm not as fast as you speed demons up there ^).

The first comp I ever built had a dead mobo from the start. Thing is, I didn't know that at the time, so I fiddled with it for a couple months. I got pretty frustrated during that time. Eventually I took it to a PC repair place, for $50 he told me my mobo was dead and for another $80 I went out and bought a new one and it worked. I remember that build:
Antec SLK2600 AMB Case
Intel Celeron 2.4GHz Processor
(Dead) MSI 865PE Neo Mobo
(Worked) ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe Mobo
512MB (2 x 256MB) DDR 333 RAM
ATI Radeon 9200SE PCI

That was the first PC I ever used that could run UT2003!

My current machine (Blue) was the first one that I built from the ground up. Everything worked, albeit not that well at first (1 stick of RAM in a board that is Dual Channel is not the best for gaming), and other than some issues with my PSU (underpowering--400 watts :dead:), it's ran like a champ, except that one time when I overdid my overclocking on the RAM (was trying to see how far I could push this beast). A simple reboot and bios reset fixed that problem. Currently@ 125% OC stable. Not much, but better than stock!

Well I have never completely built a computer from scratch as of yet, but the first computer I ever got to tinker around on looked alot like this...

http://digg.com/hardware/When_was_th..._your_computer

:eek:

I would charge the guy for my dust masks too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SnowFire

Well I have never completely built a computer from scratch as of yet, but the first computer I ever got to tinker around on looked alot like this...

http://digg.com/hardware/When_was_th..._your_computer

:eek:

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Man. . Never seen one that bad! Guy must of had a Computer in his laundry room or something.

My first computer I built I killed my new top of the line 6800gt with static electricity.

I was 10 when I built my first. A AMD Duron 1.3ghz with onboard sound and graphics. Worked perffect the fidt time.

The first PC I built (Not counting the barebones system a year ago) is the one I'm using right now.
It's turned out pretty well, even though it's taken me six months to finally finish the thing. I've been using it for most of that time, and just waiting until I had enough money to get the next part.

The only issues I have had are 1) The processor heatsink, I had to push so damned hard on the lever that locks it down that I still have ridges in my thumb.. and 2) Me tweaking things in software and causing everything to stop working properly. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SnowFire

Well I have never completely built a computer from scratch as of yet, but the first computer I ever got to tinker around on looked alot like this...

http://digg.com/hardware/When_was_th..._your_computer

:eek:

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So much dust in that thing he could have a garden in there...

Ran flawlessly on the first start up, I had upgraded before (amd 450mhz to a celeron 500mhz) and then afterwards built a system looking like this:

Athlon 2500, 1gb 2700, 40gb maxtor, asus mobo, geforce 4 (soon upgraded to a 9600pro). Up and running in no time.

Purchased a pre-built from a local PC shop in 2001/02. Incrimentally upgraded it over time due to hardware failure (hard drive scratched, PSU caught fire, busted mobo, etc). Current Rig (see sig) is the first "completely built by me" machine.

Because everything was incremental over time, this build was pretty much flawless, as all the hardware was already checked and tested as mostly it was a case change. Only problems I have is with hard drive cooling, noise reduction, and processor cooling, but nothing else horrible happened that I attribute to my assembly skills.

-Cool-

Speaking of rebuilding computers, I just rebuilt some dell (mobo fried, so I replaced the mobo)

My first actual build and not upgrade was a k6-2 400 mhz.
Went fine, although my video card(voodoo3) didn't like win98 much.

first comp i built...

hmm...

I guess that'd be my current gaming rig (lol) - processor and dvd drive from an old dell, everything else was new... of course, now its like 3-5 years old... about time for another one. Its a Pentium 4 (Northwood) 2.8GHz (OC'ed to 3.09) with a Radeon X1600 Pro AGP (512MB) and 1.5GB of ddr400 ram. it started with just a single 60GB PATA drive, but nows it running on a 200GB SATA, 160GB SATA, and 160GB PATA...

Changed a lots of parts before my first build. This first one was in 2001. The Sata was just coming out (or not long before) Had a hard time configuring the Bios for my Raid setup, unless that, everything worked fine.

Flawlessly - once I worked out which way round and up the flopppy cable went. That took like an hour though. Now I can strip and rebulild anything in under 45 minutes from scratch to power up.

My favourite computer thing was programming. I coded a new database and facilities management system for a Buddhist centre I lived and worked at. I was importing data from over 30 separate foxpro databases on a mac into one access database on a pc. I wrote my first atempt at a piece of code to do the job I had thought complex and it was nine lines long. I certainly didn't expect what happened next: after trying it on a sample of 100 records where it peformed without fault I tried it on the entire database schema and it worked first pass. Imported and merged around 18,000 separate entries from foxpro records into approx 4,000 access records in one database in about 15 minutes. Now thats nice. I'd set aside two days for getting that right. All it took was two cigarettes instead. And there were less than 30 records it failed on that I had to recreat manually. :smoker:



Matthew

My first computer build makes a great little stand for my joystick next to my desk.

New Modders Challenge No 859: An identical pile of hardware for each participant, an OS disk and a start gun:

First one to play a game of solitaire on the machine they built is the winner.

:D

lolz my first compi eva fully built was a old arse Pentium..... didnt work too well...
i had no experience inside of a case.... and i decided to plug the comp lock plug into the wrong jumper...... it wasnt too pleased with that.... saw flames and smoke...... was kinda amusing lolz

the first system I ever built was a source of great stress and tension for me...and even to this day I wait in anticipation to make sure that everything posts ok. I use to be afraid to even touch a computer...now I can't stop..:>

My first build is sort of the one im using now (only parts that havent changed are the case monitor and speakers). I assembled it on the floor of my family room,which made my mom so happy :rolleyes:. When i installed that 775 socket CPU there was a loud crack and i swore i snapped my $300 proc in half, but when i hauled it upstairs crossed my fingers and pushed the power button ill be damned if it didnt post the first try.

lets see....it ran perfect actually. I was surprised and felt quite accomplished.

till about 5 monthes later the heatsink fell off the proc while it was on an busted the ram and fried the proc and then proceeding to fall on top of the vid card breaking that too... (It was one of those bigass coolermaster copper heatsinks...)

Well my first (and only) case mod was good and bad. i recieved most of the parts for my birthday and from some saved up money from clearing brush near lake elsinore(most fun and painful day ever). So i totally gutted my mom's HP Pavillion or whatever. Then my friend and i gutted an old '98 gateway. we then painted it black with blue accents; put a top and side window; and a front, rear, and top fan. Then i got a Raidmax PSU and tried to insert t in, but the mounts were different so we had to cut a crude custom mount for it. then i inserted a Elitegroup P4 mobo, my 3.0 Ghz P4 (salvaged), 200GB Western Digital Caviar (salvaged), 512 Mb of RAM (salvaged), an Nvidia 5500 128MB, Litescribe DVD combo drive(salvaged), and a front panel. Then when i booted up, i assumed my copy of XP would still work since i used the same HDD. But it didnt, and i was forced to go through various linux distributions until my friend gave me a Hacked XP. Finally, The stock CPU fan was like a freakin jet engine, so i got quieter Arctic Cooling fan. But now its internet doesnt work and its main function is my LAN party/gaming comp. So in the end it didnt go so well, and now if i knew of this site before, it prolly would have turned out better. Im still scrounging up funds for an ultimate second mod. At least it looked good...