new boy help.

[cheffybot]

Would anyone recomend a self build project and if so, are there any websites that you reccomend?

[mattie]

The starting place for building your own PC is what you are going to use it for - the components for a high end gaming PC are going to be more expensive than for a general use PC

Every time I used upgrade, I went along to my local computer fair and bought the bits. The drawback to this however, is if anything is faulty, and the seller isn't local, you have to wait two weeks to get it back again - one week to take it back, and another for them to test it and return it to you.

This time I bought my stuff from www.powerc.com - they do motherboard bundles where you can pick what processor/Ram etc you want and they put it together and test it for you, so you know its working as soon as you get it.

[markysngc]

errr, take it you mean self build computer project....

firstly unless you have some very specficic hardware needs it is rarely worth building a computer yourself these days from a money point of view. You'll normally be better off buying a pre built machine that will meet your needs

I will assume that as you have asked about self builds you are looking to learn more about them, it which case it is not a bad way to start. there is a website here http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/ that will help.

It is not hard at all to build your own PC, you normally only need about 10 parts to build a working system but in working out which of the parts is the best to buy you can learn a lot

Check the site and if your unsure about anything post back and sure someone on here will assist you.

[cheffybot]

Thanks to both mattie and markysngc. Both helpfull in different ways.

[markysngc]

why is it you do want to build your own PC?

[rojash]

It's not hard, as long as you are careful. We had a kid come into our office and buy all the bits he needed. Two days later his father (who had decided to take over the building process) stormed in complaining that nothing worked. He'd bolted the motherboard directly to the chassis (he had a whole pile of pillars left over) shorted just about every track on the PCB and destroyed the CPU and most of the other components.

[markysngc]

ha ha, and thing is you know the kid would have had it working and all ok pretty quickly.....

[fo3nix]

cheffybot: don't bother, unless you just want to do it for the fun.

In the old days it was cheaper this way, but now it's only cheaper if you're building the next Cray.

[cheffybot]

I want to build my own p.c. just for the hell of it, and to get a better understanding of how they work.