Monday, May 26, 2008

Building your own PC

There are many reasons that someone would want to build their own pc. Among those reasons are saving money, and putting together a pc that contains exactly what you want.

If you are willing to put your own pc together, then you could save quite a bit of money. Not only on the initial purchase, but also in the long run when it comes to the warranties. Most computer resellers offer a one-year warrantee on the entire pc. However, when purchasing your pc in component form, each individual component will have different lengths of guarantee. An example is your hard disk drive that usually comes with a five-year guarantee, and your memory may give you a lifetime guarantee. Each individual brand may give you different warrantees as well so it helps to shop around. Some resellers may use the cheapest parts they can find to build your pc so that they can maximize their profits.

The second reason mentioned allows you to research each individual part that you are considering putting into your new pc and putting in the best that you can find. This allows you to get the best combination of components so that you can put together that killer pc that you have always wanted.

The bonus of choosing your own components is that you will know whether a certain component is compatible with the other components and you will get good brand name components which have a good driver support from the manufacturer.

Talking about support, you may find that getting your pc working may be a bit difficult if you have never built your own pc before, (This would be the main downside to building your own pc), however there are several helpful websites where everyday people just like you are building their own computers and offer help and advice to anyone willing to listen. Check at the end of this article for a few ideas of helpful websites.

A really big benefit of building your own pc is that when one of your components get old you could possibly replace or upgrade just that one part. Pre-built resellers will generally not recommend upgrading parts as they make more profit on selling you an entire new system. Several of the pre-build computers are built in a proprietary fashion as well which means that newer technology might not be compatible with your current pc.

So what do you need in a computer to make it work?

Well there are many things that you can add to a computer but let’s cover only enough to get your computer from an empty space on your desk to something you can write letters with.

Here is a list of items you require to have a functional pc:

1. A pc monitor
2. A mouse
3. A keyboard
4. A computer case
5. A main board or motherboard
6. A CPU (Central Processing Unit)
7. Memory
8. An optical drive, like a CD-ROM or DVD
9. A Hard Disk Drive
10. A screen card (If it is not included on the motherboard)

All this is called your hardware, and with these ten things you will have a computer. However you will not be able to write letters yet, to do that you will need to get some software to add to the above hardware. The most important software you need is an Operating system. This controls the whole computer and without it your new creation will simply sit there looking pretty. The most popular operating system on the market today is probably Microsoft Windows. The only other real option you have for an operating system is one of the Linux flavors. These will save you money but will require some learning curve if you are used to using Windows.

Once you have all these things then building your new pc is as easy as plugging everything together, doing some basic configuration and then installing the operating system.

How to do all this is covered by plenty of information out on the internet already, but hopefully this article whet your appetite and persuaded you that you should be building your next computer yourself.

Some handy web resources:

Step by step on how to build
Reviews and benchmarks on components
Building how to with help forums
Building a computer video
Some tips and techniques

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