Do you have any "How to build hints and tips"

[adl6009]

I am planning to build my first, it'll be an athlon with lots of memory, anyway, if anyone has any tips or tricks or what to stay away from ideas I would certainly appreciate it.

[Makaveli]

Well, I remeber the first computer I built, and the one most important thing that I needed to do it was Patients! Definetly don't rush anything. When you rush, you make mistakes, and thats not good. I rushed mine, and ended up forgetting a VERY important step of putting in the "Stand-offs" when I put my board in. (Stand-offs lift the motherboard off of the metal case) Results, I fried my NEW board and had to go get another one. Take your time and don't get frustrated. If something isn't working, don't get upset because it is fixable, and eventually it will be fixed, so why get mad over it? Do things one at a time. When you feel you are ready to boot up, or atleast almost ready, double check everything, make sure everything is pluged in, and plugged in the correct way. When building, work in an area where you can organize everything, and a place you can consentrate. Also, work in an area without carpet so you dont risk the chance of static frying your board. You would be surprised how a very small amount of static can fry something important, like a motherboard. Overall, just be carefull and have fun doing it, its a good learning expirence. Being that this is your first time building a PC, don't expect to be done too soon. Give it some time, and you will have good results for your creation http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif Good luck.

Makaveli

[Steve R Jones]

A Guide to Building a PC with an AMD Athlon™ Processor

http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/howtobuild/howtobuild.html

[fshanda]

Take your time for sure and read the manuals that come with your hardware. Pay close attention to the motherboard manual, lots of settings and lots of chances to make mistakes. I had a problem with stand-offs on my first build also. I had one out of place under the board which was rubbing the circuitry. If I bumped the computer case the system would freeze or shut down. The fine folks here helped me find and fix the problem right quick.

Good luck

Fshanda http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[RLG]

One of the most critical things to learn: Keep the machine as simple as possible at first.

Start with just the power supply, motherboard, cpu/fan and a stick of ram installed. Connect the speaker and the power-on switch and fire it up. You should get some beeps from the speaker. The beep codes might vary with the BIOS type, but basically they should be complaining that there is no video card. They may also indicate that the ram is incorrectly installed; this is the best time to find out.

If it seems to be OK, shut down, install the video card and connect the monitor and fire it up again.

If you are rewarded with a POST screen (Power-On-Self-Test) then you can make any necessary adjustments to the BIOS settings, check CPU temp and so on. Then shut down again and install drives and so on, testing each as you go. When all is OK you can install your OS of choice.

With this method the idea is to test each stage individually, rather than build the complete machine and wonder where the problem is if it doesn't work. Even now, after building hundreds of machines, the only time I get a hiccup is if I do it all in one hit...Murphy's Law...and if you tidy up the cables before booting it the first time, it's especially guaranteed that something will be wrong!

[Fingers]

There's a nice article at PCWorld this month

Build Your Own PC (http://pcworld.com/features/article/0,aid,55674,00.asp)

[Brian48]

If you're still looking for more URLs for your research, GO HERE (http://home.earthlink.net/~chinmonster/links/index_links.htm) and look through the Beginners Sections. There's a lot of sites out there with this type of information. For the more advanced stuff, just scroll down further.

[pickel]

From page 129 of "How to Hot Rod a Big Block
Chevy" Hal Klieves says " The best procedure for building an engine is "Patience, Care and Constant Rechecking" It goes on to say " Engrave that statement in your headbone"
I've tried to apply this in my life since the first time I read it, almost thirty years ago. Apply it to any project, esspecially where you might smoke some components! LOL

[adl6009]

Thanks, Ive saved the urls and appreciate the advice. I should be done in about a month and I'll let you know how it turns out.

[thekingofpain]

Its right here written by Joel Kleppinger & Scott Wainner http://sysopt.earthweb.com/buildpc/ ive sent quite a few friends here to understand what im trying do for them, it simply puts them at ease... :-)