Building a Computer

[Nil]

Building your own computer is a great option for many gamers. It gives you full control over the parts placed inside of the rig, allows for more part options, and is usually quite a bit cheaper.

However, the idea of putting together a computer is intimidating to many people. The reality is, however, that putting a computer together is simply not that difficult. If you can assemble a bike, then you're overqualified to assumble computers.

The following guide will walk you through the complete process. As you'll see, I can't even take a proper picture, but I can put these things together - if I can do it, anyone can.

Part Considerations

The hardest part of building a computer is selecting the proper parts. Thankfully, this is also the easiest part to receive help on - many internet communities will be more than happy to help you select parts (including the foul denizens of the Nexus here), but here are some things to consider:

CPUs: It's usually best to choose your CPU first, as many of your other picks will be dependent on what you select. Take note of the CPU's "socket" type. A socket is basically the type of bed that a chip sits in. The main sockets to consider currently are AM2 for AMD chips, and LGA775 (sometimes called Socket T) for Intel. The second thing to consider is the Front-Side bus (fsb) of the chip. This is important to remember for memory selection. Also, just as an FYI, any retail chip will come with a completely servicable heatsink-fan.

Motherboards: This is the most complex item to choice for your build. You start out by selecting a board with the appropriate socket type. After that, it's a matter of finding one with the features you want. Some things to consider is the speed and amount of ram supported by the board. The motherboard will allow you set speeds for your ram and your chip, but generally, you'll be running with a 1:1 ratio. Memory is rated at half of the FSB of a chip. For example, Intel's Core 2 Duo runs at FSB 1066. DDR2 ram at speed 533 runs 1:1 with those chips. You can run ram that is faster than the FSB, but it doesn't provide very much affect. Still, it's often a good idea to get some faster ram in case you ever decide to overclock. Speed 667 ram seems to be the sweet spot in ram today. Pay attention to the number of DIMM slots and how much ram each slot can support. Other things to consider are the number of USB ports, the number and type of SATA ports (3gb/sec is the current standard), IDE ports (if you even need them), overclocking abilities, and board size (don't buy a board that's bigger than the case you plan to get - it looks funny). If SLI or Crossfire matters to you, then consider this as well. This is a part that I really recommend running by someone who's done this before.

Memory: I covered much of this while rambling about motherboards, so look there. The last thing to mention is the amount of memory you want. Two gigs seems to be the current standard for a gaming rig, but feel free to go more or less - however you want to do it. If you decide to buy some ram now with the intention of adding more later, but sure that you don't fill up your DIMM slots. Like, if our motherboard has two DIMM slots and supports up to 4 gb of ram, buy 1 2gb stick so you can add another one later. If you buy 2 1gb sticks, you'll have to drop both of them if you want to upgrade to 4 later.

Hard Drive: People usually consider 3 options when it comes to hard drives. First, they might just pick one fairly nice drive to just put everyone on. Second, they might splurge on a fairly small, but very fast drive for the OS and games, but also have a much larger and slower drive for media and such. The third option is the most complex, and that is to set up a RAID array (0 is the normal array for gaming). This involves getting two identitical drives (you can also do a RAID by partitioning drives, but it's much more complex) and asking them act as one drive. Since data can be pulled from both drives at the same time, it allows them to act as faster drives. Choosing RAID does add another layer of complexity to your build.

Case: Alot of people put a great deal of stock in fancy cases, but spending alot on a case really only offers benefits when you overclock alot, or want to put in a great deal of drives, fans, and small farm animals. For most people, any case of a size at least equal to the size of the motherboard will do the trick. Some nice features are 120mm fans (they move alot of air but spin slowly, so they don't make the noise of smaller fans), a removable motherboard tray, and a separate PSU compartment (okay, that's not that big a deal, but I like them). Still, a $20 case will do the trick for most first-time builds.

Power Supply Unit(PSU): Don't skimp here. Poor power supplies can cause a multitude of problems. As a general rule, if you get a PSU included with your case, you can safely assume it's junk. It's usually a good idea to buy a PSU made by a good name-brand such as Seasonic, Silverstone, FSP, or OCZ. Thermaltake makes some good stuff as well, but you'll have to watch these. PSUs purchased via retail channles will be rated at maximum wattage, so you can find one with enough wattage pretty easily, but that's not the most important thing to look for. The amperage of your 12-volt rails determines how much power the PSU can give to a single component (usually, your GPU is the main power drain). It is a good idea to find a PSU with a 12-volt rail with at least 18 amps for normal GPUs, and 20+ if you want an 8800GTX. Some PSUs will have muliple 12-volt rails. Generally, the sum of the amps offered on each v12 equals it's rating. So, if a PSU has two v12 rails, each rated at 15, then you're usually fine to put it up against anything.

Make sure the PSU has all of the connectors you want - enough SATA ports, enough PCI-e connectors (6-pin), and the right number of pins for your motherboard (they'll either want 20, 24, or 20+4 pins).

This is another item where it's a good idea to get input from the community before buying. Be warned, though, you'll get 1000 opinions on brands. So, generally, pick something, and ask if it will work, rather than asking if it's a good PSU. You'll likely spend at least $60 on a PSU, and more commonly, $100 if you're putting very many components into this (and SLI, well, expect to spend even more). It's worth the money, though.

Optical Drives: Not much to say here. 16X DVD R/W/CD R/W combo drives are plenty cheap, so there's not much reason to look elsewhere. Lightscribe is nice if you burn alot of stuff as it looks much better than using peel and stick lables. The only other thing to pay attention to is the connectors. Don't buy an IDE optical drive if you are using a motherboard without IDE connectors. You'll need a SATA drive.

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU): Aha! The most important part of the gamer's rig. The two main flavors of video cards today are AGP and PCI express. PCI-e is the way to go, and indeed, it is unlikely that you'll be looking at any AGP motherboards, so watch out there. Don't get one. AGP cards cost more than PCI-e cards and are often inferior. The idea of which video card is the best for your needs is beyond the scope of this post, but here are the general things to look at: 1) Memory Interface. The higher the memory interface, the faster the card can process new information; 2) Core speed - the faster, the better; 3) Memory speed - again, the faster the better; 4) Memory type - look for the number after GDR - the higher, the better. GDR4 is the fastest right now; 4) Memory size - the more the better, but this isn't as important as some try to make it sound. A 6100 with 512mb of ram is still much weaker than a 7600 with 128mb of ram.

Confused yet? Good. Let's move onto actually building the computer.

[Nil]

Getting Started

Okay, remember how I said I was a terrible photographer - well, proof of that is upcoming. The computer I'm putting together for this guide isn't top of the line, but they all go together in a similar way. Here are the parts:



CPU: Athlon 64 3000+ (socket 754 - AMD)
Motherboard: ECS C51G-M754
Memory: 2 gigs of DDR400 ram (socket 754 does not support DDR2)
PSU: Seasonic 330watt PSU
Hard Disk: Seasonic Barracuda 250 gig
Optical Drive: 16x DVD Rom - IDE
GPU: X1950 Pro
Case: Honestly, I don't remember what kind of case this is. It's an ATX mid-tower case.
Thermal Paste: Arctic Silver 5 See the HSF entry below for more information on what this does.
Soda: Coke - It's the nectar of the gods, after all.



I also asked for help from my lovely assistant, Katie. After all, if a 9-year old girl can do it, so can you.



Find a place with no carpet where you have plenty of room to work (I'm using the kitchen). Static electricity is an enemy to work with electrical components. You can get an anti-static bracelet to wear that helps reduce the risk, but working on carpet is never a good idea.

As a note, if you're installing more than one of any item (another hard drive, or another optical drive), just follow the instructions again.

Your motherboard should have come in a pink plastic anti-static bag. Put this bag down on your worksurface and place your motherboard on top of the bag. Your first task will be to put your CPU into the motherboard.

Okay, ready for the first horrid picture (well, it would have been bad, if I hadn't gone and stolen another picture off of the internet)?



Your chip has many pins underneith it. They'll be set so that they only fit into the motherboard one way. Lucky for us, someone invented the Zero Force Insertion (ZIF) system. Behold! Yet another fuzzy picture.



Lift the lever on the ZIF system, line the pins up with the pin holes on the motherboad (look at the corners - it will be clear which direction it fits). Set the chip down and it should just fall into the holes. Pull down the ZIF lever and you've just installed the chip. Under no circumstances should you push the chip down into the chip housing. Pushing it runs the risk of bending the pins. If you bend the pins, you get to play the "bend those pins back with a credit card game". It takes roughly as long as a game of Monopoly, and if you lose, then your chip is ruined. Don't push on the chip. It will just fall into the housing and the lever locks it into place.

The next thing to do is to install the heatsink fan (HSF). If you're using the HSF that came with your chip, you should see a thick piece of tape on the bottom. This tape acts as thermal paste. When the CPU gets hot, it will melt and help create a conductor between the chip and the HSF. Thermal tape isn't as effective as good thermal paste, but it'll do the trick for a non overclocked CPU.



In this case, I'm using a third-party HSF (I got it free, and I intend to overclock this, so, why not, right?). Apply our thermal paste in a small drop directly on top of your CPU. Do not use too much. When the chip heats up, the paste will spread out over your chip and you don't want it to bleed off of the sides to gunk up something it shouldn't.



Yeah, the picture is terrible, but you can faintly make out the size of the thermal paste drop I used.

To install the HSF, locate the teeth on either side of the chip housing (near the ZIF lever). Hook one side of the HSF over one side of the chip housing, then pull the other side down over the hooks on the opposite side of the chip housing. It may be quite a struggle to get the HSF. If you're having trouble, you can use a flat-head screwdriver to push the HSF over the 2nd set of teeth, just be carful not to slip and punch it through your motherboard. That tends to mess things up.

Once it's hooked on, it should look something like this:



Be sure to plug the HSF into the motherboard. You'll see a special plug near the HSF for this purpose.

Next, we want to install the memory. Your board should have several RAM DIMMs (slots). See below:



The slots will have plastic breaks in odd places along it. These breaks will show you which direction the ram will go in (it only fits one way). Carefully push it into place. Once it is there, push the white levers up. They will lock the ram into place.



At this point, we're going to move away from our work on the motherboard and get started on the case.

First, we want to install the PSU. It's very easy. Just slide it into the PSU holder near the top of your case.



You then screw it into the back of your case using the screws provided with your PSU. Here's what it should look like from behind:



Now, we'll put in the optical drive. To do so, break away one of the plastic 5 1/4 inch slots on the front of your case. I like to put it in the top slot.



Once you've broken the plate away, stick the the drive through the open hole. You then just need to screw it into place (or flip the clip, if you have a tool-free case). See the blurry picture below:



Now, we're going to put our motherboard into our case.

First, let's get the motherboard shield installed. Find this thing:



You'll want to match it up to the back end of your motherboard so you know which way it wants to go onto your case. Like so:



Once you know how it goes into the case, it's time to push it into the case. I find brute force works best, but you might want to try slipping it in. It's up to you, but get it in there. You'll end up with something like this:



If your case has a removable motherboard tray, pull it out and set it on the table. If not, then look into your case, you should see something like this (the following instructions work for both removable trays and cases without that feature):



You should also have some mounting screws. These look like little brass bolts with a threaded end.



Now, pick your motherboard up and set it in your case, taking care to line it up with the motherboard shield. Your motherboard has screw holes in it. Look to see where these holes line up with the holes in your motherboard tray.

Pull your motherboard back out and then screw the mounting screws into the holes in your motherboard tray that line up with the holes in your motherboard.



If you have extra mounting screws (more screws than common holes), go ahead and screw them into holes on your case that are under the motherboard. These will give it further stability (and keep your mounting screws in one place should you ever decide to replace this motherboard).

Now, set your motherboard on top of your motherboard tray that now contains the mounting screws. Now all that's left is to take the other (regular) screws that came with your case and screw them down through the holes in your motherboard and into the mounting screws. Like so:

[Nil]

Now, we'll look at your hard drive. If you have a long video card, be sure that you put your harddrive in a slot that will not interfere with it.

We'll now go ahead and put in our harddrive. First, locate a 3 1/2 inch bay and stick the hard drive into it. It's now a simple matter of screwing into place, as can be seen in this blurry picture:



Finally, we're going to install our GPU.

To install the GPU, locate your PCI-e x16 slot (it'll be the biggest slot on your motherboard - and the only one that will appear to fit your GPU). To the left of your PCI-e slot, you will see a small metal plate held in place by a screw (or a clip, if it's a tool-free case). Remove this plate, then push the card into place (the process is very similar to the way we installed the memory). If your motherboard has a plastic arm (like with the memory installation), but sure to push it in place. The top of the card should be where the metal plate you just removed was. Screw (or clip) the edge of the card into place on your case.



If you're installing SLI or Crossfire, be sure to attach the bridge clip.

Okay, now you should have all of your hardware in place. It's now time to hook everything together. This part looks confusing, but modern motherboards are designed so that you can't plug the wrong thing into the wrong place - it's just plain hard to get it wrong. Also, the manual that comes with your motherboard will have detailed diagrams showing where everything plugs in.

First, let's do the hardest part - the case hardware. Most cases have front USB ports and/or connections for audio devices. To plug these in, locate the appropriate sections in your manual and plug them in. Thankfully, these parts are labled. Be sure that you connect the positive and negative parts in the right places (if you reverse these, it will simply not work - I've never heard or seen it explode or anything, so don't worry too much).

Though this is the hardest part, it's also the least important - if you fail this, your computer will still work just fine - you just won't be able to use the ports on your case. Do try to get the power switch plugged in correctly, though. It makes your computer alot easier to turn on.

It's time to connect everthing else. We'll use cords. Whoo! Cords!



The red one is a SATA cord, the big, flat one is an IDE cord, and the other, round cord, is used for connecting a floppy drive. Floppy is completely optional, these days. I have one, so I'm connecting it. You do it pretty much like an Optical Drive, but it fits into a 3.5 inch bay (rather than the 5 1/4 drive for an optical drive). Not every case has externally located 3.5 bays, though (3.5" bays that don't have removable plates in front of them are for hard drives).

Now, we'll connect the hard drive. This drive is a SATA 3.0gb/sec drive. Your motherboard (and harddrive, if you buy retail) should come with a SATA cord. Just plug this into the only place it will fit on your motherboard. You'll then plug the other end into the only place it will fit on your hard drive. Tough, huh?



Now, connect your optical drive. If it's SATA, it'll work the same way as the hard drive. If it's IDE, as ours is, you'll plug one end of the big, flat cord into the back of the drive (it'll only fit one way), and the other into the IDE slot of your motherboard (again, it'll only fit one way).



Our floppy is the same deal. We plug the round cord into the back of the drive and the other end into the board.

Finally, we plug everyhng in.

First, plug in the motherboard. Most newer boards use a 24-pin plug. This is the largest plug on your PSU. Just stick it in there (again, it'll only fit one way - see a pattern here?). Make sure it goes in all the way.



Many motherboards also have a specific 4-pin plug (square) that goes in near the CPU. Look for this and put the 4-pin plug in. Watch this one, though, it is possible to plug it in the wrong way. To combat this, look for a clip on the pin and a notch on the outside of the motherboard clip. Line these up and you should be good (if you put it in wrong, your computer will explode in a giant ball of flame. I'm just kidding, of course, it just won't boot).

Now, plug in your hard drive using a SATA power connector. These look very much like the SATA connectors we used to connect the drive with the motherboard, but they're reversed (so you can't accidentally plug this in where the connection cables go). You'll also need to plug in your optical drive. This drive uses a normal 4-pin wide molex connector. Your floppy drive, if you have one, uses a little white connector.

Finally, you'll want to plug in your PCI-e (if necessary). PCI-e cards use a 6-pin connector (3x2). You can see it in this blurry photo (gotta love my photography skills - what's terrible is that this is the BEST shot of 4)



Just stick that in there (not all cards need a plug, so if you don't see a place for it on the card, don't freak out).

Finally, plug in any case fans that have cords attached to them (they'll usually use 4-pin molex connectors).

Now, you should be left with something like this mess:



Yes, it's a mess, but just leave it for now. Double-check to make sure that all components have been plugged into the motherboard and plugged into the PSU. When you're sure, it's time to go see if it works.

Get it all plugged into the monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc and turn it on. Be sure you turn on your PSU using the switch located on the back of your computer. I hate to admit it, but I once troubleshooted a computer for nearly 2 hours when the only issue was that we didn't turn on the PSU. Oy.

Ideally, your computer will boot up when you turn it on and you get something like this:



That blue screen is your BIOS (you may have to hit your DEL key during boot to get into the BIOS). If you reach this point, then you've pretty much got it built.

Look at your BIOS and make sure that all is how it should be (BIOS is really beyond the scope of this article), then save. It will reboot. Put in your windows disk and start loading it.

Once you have everything installed, and have made sure that everything works (play a game for at least a few hours), it's time to clean up that mess inside of your box. Turn everything back off, unplug everything, and clean up your wires. This is accomplished a variety of ways, but the most basic is to tie off some of those wires and stash them away in empty bays. Be sure not to use bread ties. Bread ties have a strip of conductive metal in them that can short out your system. Zip ties work well, as does electrical tape. In just a few seconds, I arrived at this:



This allows for better airflow in your case, which makes it easier to keep things cool. Cool components run better (and it doesn't get as dusty as fast). You can go alot further in your efforts to clean things up than I did, but even the modicum of effort is worthwhile.

Now, your computer is built, and you didn't have to do anything more complex than plug things in. Congrats and enjoy!

[Nil]

Okay, now that that's done, feel free to ask questions, insult my process, make comments, and most especially, to post your "How to take a decent photograph" guides.

I suppose I'll have to give up my dream of being a photojournalist.

[Exum]

+bookmarked in my Favorites! I plan on using this guide for the system I've picked out... Thanks, Nil!

[Nil]

Originally Posted by Exum

+bookmarked in my Favorites! I plan on using this guide for the system I've picked out... Thanks, Nil!

Glad it's of use to you.

[dirtymeat80]

GREAT write up Nil.....photos were good to bud - it's not like you're trying to catch the pc's emotions or get that US flag in the background for the mood - I thought they were spot on & most were very clear.

Using the Coke can to reference the screw size was helpful LOL j/k

[Solution0]

You son of a .... You built yourself a new computer?? Before me??!

Traitor!

P.S. Hope you enjoy it

[Nimikos]

Wow, very nice writeup!

I've been building my boxes for a long time, and firmly believe it is the way to go for the hobbiest and/or gamer. Being able to pick parts and later upgrade as needed is wonderful.

One thing, there are lots of sites with constantly updated articles about what parts currently make sense for a given computer requirement. I like

Ars Technica Guides

they do various types of build recommendations. The Hot Rod is good for gamers.

(No affiliation, other than as a a long term reader).

[Nil]

Originally Posted by Solution0

You son of a .... You built yourself a new computer?? Before me??!

Technically, I just upgraded an old one. The card, motherboard (this one has a PCI-e slot, the other was pretty much the same, but only had an AGP slot), and hard drive are new. The rest is old. I did take it completely apart (and made my daughter clean it - muahahah!) so I could start from scratch.

And besides, I had to do, um, research for the Nexus.

Originally Posted by Nimikos

I like ARS

Agreed. ARS is a great site. Thanks for the kudos.

Originally Posted by dirtymeat80

GREAT write up Nil.....photos were good to bud - it's not like you're trying to catch the pc's emotions or get that US flag in the background for the mood - I thought they were spot on & most were very clear.

Yeah, but some are particularly terrible - and they were the best of 4 (I took 4 shots of everything). Appreciate it, though.

Originally Posted by dirtymeat80

Using the Coke can to reference the screw size was helpful LOL j/k

Actually, you were supposed to use the screws to reference the size of the Coke can.