Lots of questions from a naive newbie....

[Ian Smith]

I'm thinking of building my own PC - just because "build your own"
means I can use the parts I want and I think some of the home-built
PCs just look a lot better (with fluorescent fans, transparent windows
etc).

Trouble is I am hopeless with a soldering iron etc and so dreading
putting the thing together, especially as instructions can be hard to
come by. I've bought a "build your own PC" book but it weighs a ton,
is out of date already, and goes into far too much techie stuff than I
need at this stage.

My first question is regarding the case. I really like the see-through
coloured perspex cases, but even though they'r pricey they don't look
sturdy and I suspect they are probably very noisy? Can anyone advise?

Secondly I'm confused about what I need to order apart from the
obvious. A power supply on top of case, motherboard and bits and
pieces is fairly obvious, but few of the ads I've seen give any
information on how many connector leads you get, how you order more
and how you wire them in.

Disk drives have always been a problem for me, ever since I ordered a
second disk for a Dell and found it had no tray with it, and then
found out that Dell (deliberately) used different sized fixing trays
from everyone else (this was some years back). When looking at disk
drives what should I be looking for on top of the disk drive itself?
Cables? Trays? Screws? Any help/pointers to primers would be most
appreciated.

Thanks.

Ian

 

[JAD]

Yikes....your in for some fun!

A soldering iron? where did i put that thing?...

Toms hardware.com is a great place to start.

So much to say and I only type 30 words a minute.

 

[LeeB18509]

Couple of guides, might be more current than your book.
http://www.buildeasypc.com/
http://www.extremetech.com/category2/0,3971,644478,00.asp

 

[Paul Richard]

Jad is right, you won't be needing any soldering iron.

Have a look at the articles on this page from Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/index.html

Towards the bottom are a couple of "how to build your own PC" articles.
Also some review about cases which might be of use to you.

I'd suggest you read the motherboard manual before applying power to the
board. However, you might find this a bit difficult if this stuff is new to
you. I suggest this based on my experience... I burnt a board after
applying power while the CMOS jumper was still in the clear position... DOH!
That being said, many new boards are jumperless so that should be one less
thing to worry about.

Oh... one last thing, if you still have your old system and don't mind
ummm... experimenting with it, that might be a good idea. Better to gain
experience with something you don't mind loosing than breaking something new
and expensive.

Good luck,
Paul

 

[Boff]

I'm thinking of building my own PC - just because "build your own"
means I can use the parts I want and I think some of the home-built
PCs just look a lot better (with fluorescent fans, transparent windows
etc).

Trouble is I am hopeless with a soldering iron etc and so dreading
putting the thing together, especially as instructions can be hard to
come by. I've bought a "build your own PC" book but it weighs a ton,
is out of date already, and goes into far too much techie stuff than I
need at this stage.

My first question is regarding the case. I really like the see-through
coloured perspex cases, but even though they'r pricey they don't look
sturdy and I suspect they are probably very noisy? Can anyone advise?

Secondly I'm confused about what I need to order apart from the
obvious. A power supply on top of case, motherboard and bits and
pieces is fairly obvious, but few of the ads I've seen give any
information on how many connector leads you get, how you order more
and how you wire them in.

Disk drives have always been a problem for me, ever since I ordered a
second disk for a Dell and found it had no tray with it, and then
found out that Dell (deliberately) used different sized fixing trays
from everyone else (this was some years back). When looking at disk
drives what should I be looking for on top of the disk drive itself?
Cables? Trays? Screws? Any help/pointers to primers would be most
appreciated.

Thanks.

Ian

Ian,

PC Magazine has story this month ...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1231726,00.asp

Start there.