Do's and Dont's/Disaster Stories

Gelly54

Gelly54

Gelly54

Associate
Joined
14 Aug 2007
Posts
666
Location
York, UK
I'd like to hear peoples stories on PC building disasters and what you've learnt from these unfortunate events.
I personally haven't had anything bad happen yet (touch wood) from 2 builds. Installing the CPU fan has had my butt twitching but apart from that everything ok.

G3LLY54
 
The only real pain I had was with my i7 build were I had two lots of faulty OCZ Gold memory which coursed my grief.
 
I have a tendency to bend the crap out of the mobo when I install the CPU cooler (with the dodgy clips) & RAM. They never fit and usually require a lot of force... hasn't caused any notable issues though.

When I did my first build I'd bought an 'extra value' case from an OCUK competitor which came with special long standoffs to fit the case specifically. I took these out as soon as I got it and used them to hold up the shelves in my CD unit as I'd lost a few of the silver things, then I forgot all about it for a few months until it came to building the thing...

I ended up using standard standoffs and having the motherboard bowing left to right to get the slots lined up with the IO gap in the case. This may have contributed to its failure a few months later, but I prefer to put that down to the leccy running out constantly whilst the computer was on :p
 
Helo fitted his CPU was a hammer that would be a DONT

My first intel build was a total disaster. where to start?
Wrong CPU for mother board (not supported)
GFX card was AGP mother board was PCI-e
After 2 weeks of fighting with everything and everyone i went to a shop and got a package PC.
 
Dave0w said:
Helo fitted his CPU was a hammer that would be a DONT

My first intel build was a total disaster. where to start?
Wrong CPU for mother board (not supported)
GFX card was AGP mother board was PCI-e
After 2 weeks of fighting with everything and everyone i went to a shop and got a package PC.
Click to expand...

Ouch, before my first build I researched for 3 months solid. Before that I knew jack **** about custom PCs
 
Do

Download all manuals before you buy, read front to back. Especially useful are bios section for motherboard. I never buy a mobo until I have looked at the bios.

Keep all receipts.
 
Also, keep all boxes... fold them flat if you have to just don't throw them away. My sister hates me because every spare bit of space in her house is taken up by one of my boxes :D. They're there when I need them though and I have done a few times.
 
I once TRIED to build my own PC, and I broke something in the motherboard when trying to attach it.. put me off ever since. I'v built my own now though and it feels really good, and I feel a lot more confident now : ) I dunno what I was worrying about!
 
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