Have you built a computer?

[Hellhammer]

So, just a quick poll. Feel free to share your experiences and specs, as well as recommendations 🙂 Pictures are also welcome

 

[flopticalcube]

Yes, many times, but not since coming back to Macs. 😀

 

[spinnerlys]

Yes, at the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s.

I stopped after I switched though, and I had a much more powerful PC than my iBook was at that time, but I sold it anyway.

Sometimes I get to urge to build a new one, but somehow I don't want to hassle with all the Hackintoshing, as Windows or Linux is still not an option.

 

[Zombie Acorn]

Many times.

 

[tunerX]

The last two computers I made back in 2008 have 8 cores, 16GB ram, and 14 gig-e interfaces so I could run dynamips/dynagen. I use the piddly onboard video because I do not need anything else. Both computers were in 2U short depth rack mount chassis. Tons of power in a little space.

I still use them to run 2 full cisco CUCM 7.1(2) suites.

 

[duncyboy]

Yep, for ten years I built my own PC's. My iMac was my first and, to date, only 'off-the-shelf' computer.

I started upgrading an ancient PC I inherited from my uncle. A guy I used to catch a ride to work with new PC's inside out and he walked me through it all.

My first upgrade was an AMD K6-2 450MHz chip, motherboard (can't remember the make, Socket 7 though!) and 256MB of RAM. Big time! 😛

That's pretty much the one thing I miss about PC's. I used to really enjoy putting my own one together. For a long time there I had a really good PC set-up. It was quick, especially for the little money I'd spent, it was reliable and I knew it back to front. Then it all went tits up and here I am now 🙂

 

[Sun Baked]

Yes, but is was just a small little thing with a Z80 processor, few hundred lines of code, some LED number displays, couple buttons, and a lot of wire wrap.

 

[gilkisson]

My first mod was to swap out an 8088 chip for a Zilog Z80 CPU.

The last"beast" I built has quad quads, raid-10 SAS @15k, 32GB ram (about to upgrade to 128GB).

I've built a few in between....

Edit: dagnabbit, not first to mention a z80. Huh.

 

[JNB]

Not a, but a few hundred workstations and a dozen or so servers. It's not like it's terribly difficult or complicated.

Xmas morning's "some assembly required", now that's a challenge.

 

[flopticalcube]

Not a, but a few hundred workstations and a dozen or so servers. It's not like it's terribly difficult or complicated.

Xmas morning's "some assembly required", now that's a challenge.

I always assemble that stuff on Christmas Eve. What a pain! The way they package girls' dolls is designed purely to torture parents. Proof that Stalin is alive and well and designs childrens' toys. Yeah, assembling a PC is easier. It was more interesting in the days of breadboards and microcontrollers.

 

[r1ch4rd]

Yes - I've done it before. It's good to get the parts you want, but I didn't find it a particularly exciting exercise. Having a PC built for you can be nice as it's good to have one point of contact to go back to if something goes wrong.

 

[0098386]

I built a load of them when I did volunteer work at a computer shop. Learned it all there. As a reward they gave me a bucket of good components (P3!!! Geforce 3!!! 512mb Ram OMG!) so I could build my own computer.

Built 3 more since then.

They sometimes live.

 

[Mord]

I build them every few years out of parts I got for free, currently my box is a quad core 2.6GHz phenom with 4GB ram, a hardware 8-port SATA-II raid pci-x controller 750GB PATA drive with a half dozen 200GB sata-II drives.

A local hosting company was throwing out some equipment they no longer needed 😀

 

[ValSalva]

I've built about 10 systems. It can be frustrating and nerve-wracking at times but ultimately very rewarding. If there isn't a new Mac Pro in about a month I'll be building my first hackintosh 🙄

 

[Funkatronic]

More than a coupla times, before i switched to Macs last year. The last system being a pretty decent i7 system which I finally sold off last September, and picked up my MBP.

A Pic of the components of my last build, specs were:

i7 920 + Cogage TRUE Spirit running 3.8 Stable/4.0 on Turbo
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R
3Gb Crucial DDR3
Galaxy GTX260+
A 250 gb Seagate 7200.12 single platter Barracuda as an OS Drive
1TB WD Green + 500GB WD Green
Corsair HX620

 

[Heilage]

I built my first computer when I was 13, I think. It has been a couple since then.

I both love and hate them. I love shopping for hardware, but sometimes I miss the "whole package"-thing of Macs. Sometimes I wish I just could boot from an external drive on my gaming PC and stuff like that.

Oh well. 🙂

 

[ucfgrad93]

I have never built a computer. No real desire to do so.

 

[Decrepit]

My first PC mod was putting a 386 chip in my Apple IIgs.

Been building PCs since.

I've built hundreds, since I used to work at a PC shop back in the 386-Pentium days.

I have my Mini as my day to day, a server I built from scratch, and a box I built for gaming. The server is a Core i7 920, 6x 1TB in RAID6, etc. The current (old) gamer is a dual dual-core Opteron with an 7950 Nvidia card. I had a 9800 but gave it to my brother.

Under the desk over my left shoulder is 5 decomissioned systems until I put them to use, and a PC for work.

I have 3-5 more PCs and such in the closet behind me. 3-10 PCs and servers in the garage, etc.

I'll be building a new gaming rig when I get back from vacation in September to get ready for Civ5 and eventually SWTOR😱nline. I might subscribe to WoW again to see what it looks like after Cataclysm is launched.

The new box will be a Sandy Bridge based system. I'll go with an ATI Eyefinity since I run 3x LCDs, and a few SSDs in a stripe. It burns my soul to buy AMD/ATI, but it's so far ahead of Nvidia right now, it's the only way to go.

 

[Mr. McMac]

Yes, I've built several PC's over the years for myself and for money

 

[peapody]

I build laptops. Former Warranty repair gal here..

 

[DesmoPilot]

Built several over the years.

 

[nick1516]

I would want to, but the fact that I haven't found a summer job yet, only have one more year before I go to college, and am pretty horrible at playing games on a computer, have stopped me from doing so...
If I go into computer science though, I might try and find a way to build one and carry it to college.

 

[danpass]

Yep 🙂

Start with:

1. what you ultimately want the computer to do ('all around' for me)

2. Computer components definitely follows the 'you-get-what-you-pay-for' motto.
2a. Set a budget

3. Choose your chip
3a. Choose your motherboard
3b. Choose your memory

4. Choose your video card

5. Choose your power supply

6. Choose your hard drive

7. Choose your case.


You'll soon find out these things are interrelated but following the steps above will get you from 40 choices for each and every component to 4-5 for each component.

The chip will determine the motherboard which will determine the amount of ram, etc.

The case will determine how many hard drives you can install which (unless you add an expansion card) relates to the motherboard you chose .........


That should give you a good start.

 

[Disc Golfer]

Yes, many times, but not since coming back to Macs. 😀

This. I hate computers, I especially hate building computers. I can't believe it used to be my job. 😕

 

[JoeG4]

It's been a little while 🙂