computer build, from start to finish, how long ?

Jampolo · 10 Jan 2011 at 23:16

Tomorrow i get to order the rest of my parts to complete my computer,
im just wondering how long it will take to build from start to finish ? I've never built a computer before but know a lot of the theory and where to put what part

basically i got from 5 until about 11, can i build it in 6 hours and have it up and running?

cheers

Ginger-Menace · 10 Jan 2011 at 23:21

Thats pleanty of time. But dont rush it. Take your time.make sure everything is conected/in the rite place and if you can do cable managment! Building is not a hard or long thing to do. Its makijg it stable that can take a long time

R.C.Anderson · 10 Jan 2011 at 23:22

Yea, that should be plenty of time, although I find the thing that takes the longest, is all the software installation (OS, drivers, needed programs)

DragonQ · 10 Jan 2011 at 23:36

I've only built 3 PCs from scratch and each of them took about half a day when taking my time.

Jampolo · 10 Jan 2011 at 23:42

i will be certain to take my time,
i just hope to have it up and running and playing on it before i have to go to bed lol

Jamiman · 10 Jan 2011 at 23:43

took me an hour to build, hour to install stuff like drivers etc(had em on my memory stick ready to go).

Although my RAM/CPU had already been installed.

Jampolo · 10 Jan 2011 at 23:58

ok thats fair enough, does the manual with the motherboard give you a guide on how to fit it ? (generically)
also i hear people saying that RAM has to go into specific slots? could someone elaborate on this please

King Damager · 11 Jan 2011 at 01:09

I rebuilt an old computer the other day, which means it wasn't quite as complicated, but it was my first build, and took me about 2 hours maximum.

As others have said what will take you the most time is installing all the programs and stuff that you want to have, and getting your desktop personalised to your tastes etc....

I'd imagine you could probably still get most of this done in 6 hours, it depends how many programs you want to install - take into account a lot will want a reboot after installing, and how much data you want to copy - documents/music/photos can take a long time to copy over! This will actually most likely be what takes up the time.

As for RAM, yeah, for it to be read properly it has to be inserted into the right slots, as they're normally in sets, however as far as I'm aware your motherboard manual should definitely have the information as to which slots you should be using

kd

redfist · 11 Jan 2011 at 21:31

Jamiman said:
hour to install stuff like drivers etc(had em on my memory stick ready to go).

make sure you do this, it speeds up the build a lot. Forgot to do this myself last weekend when my build took 4 hours! (this included going to a shop to buy a low end GPu as my old AGP didn't fit!!!!)

bazke · 11 Jan 2011 at 22:13

Jampolo said:
ok that's fair enough, does the manual with the motherboard give you a guide on how to fit it ? (generically)
also I hear people saying that RAM has to go into specific slots? could someone elaborate on this please

Boards that use dual or triple channel memory will most likely have different colours on the slots. So if you see 2(3) black slots, and 2(3) white slots you should put your sticks in either the black or white slots to get the best performance.

Everything like this will be in your motherboard manual, it is worth reading if it is your first time building a computer.

Good luck!