Research is vital to trouble-free building your own PC (How to Build the Perfect Computer)

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Product:	How to Build the Perfect Computer
Date:	16/03/01 (16 review reads)
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Advantages: gain tech knowledge, get exact specs, save ££ too!

Disadvantages: no support if it goes wrong, takes time and effort

If you have basic technical skills and have experience of installing operating systems I would highly recommend building your own PC.

It will save you money and imbue you with a level of technical knowledge that you would pay £300 for on one of those "Pc Build" training courses you see in computer magazines.

However, there are many pitfalls to building your own, which is why Tiny, Time, Dell & co are so popular with consumers.

Research is vital. Magazines are a great place to start, many have articles about hard drive, graphics cards, etc. Just reading magazines cover to cover can give you a good understanding, those adverts for Jungle, Dabs, etc. will give you an idea of pricing.

First, work out what your PC is to be used for. Other dooyoo writers have stressed this, do you want a games PC, a multimedia PC, a internet PC, work out what you want.

Think about your needs changing too. Spending an extra £30 on a slightly higher spec motherboard may allow you to install faster memory or an AGPx4 grapics card when you want to make your business PC into a home games machine. "Futureproofing" costs a little more but can save you serious £££ a year down the line!

The internet is a great tool for would-be PC builders, many sites like Daily Radar and IGN PC have Q&A sections where you can post technical questions. For example "What is the best motherboard for a games platform using a high end Athlon chip".

I found the internet very helpful for solving some issues I had with my new motherboard, there was even a site for my specific motherboard that had hundreds of pages of tech info and solved all my problems.

Another solid research method is to window shop. Don't bother with department stores, Dixons, etc. they are clueless. The little computer shops that build "badge" jobs are great, they can offer loads of advice about compatability. Initially I was conce
rned about buying from a little shop, but their knowledge and help has been first rate. They realise that you will tell your friends about their great shop, who will then buy bits from them too. Find a little shop that has been long established or just play the shops off against each other to drive the prices down.

When you decide what you want to use your machine for, set a budget. Don't get drawn into the con of faster processors eating your budget to leave you with less £££ for a good graphics card or RAM. A modern PC with a CPU around 850-900mhz is ideal for everything. Remember that minimum specs for the latest games are still 266/300mhz and that games are written to cater for the lowest machine. In other words, your 1.2GHZ Athlon will not make the game run faster than on a 900mhz Athlon.

What will make your machine run faster is a good motherboard, lots of RAM, a good graphics card and a 7,200rpm hard drive.

AMD's Duron is a great budget choice, or get an AMD Athlon for higher end build-ups. Intel Pentium III are good too, but tend to wipe out the budget compared to an AMD CPU.

If you shop around and don't buy on impulse then you save money. Building your own PC will let you have exactly what you want. Buying an off-the-shelf PC can piss you off as you end up with a weak graphics card, a shitty printer and "£1000" of free software that consists of old games that flopped at retail and a crappy office package.

I built my own PC and ended up with a high-end machine with a 900mhz Athlon, Abit KT7A-Raid motherboard, a Geforce 2 graphics card, 256mb of PC-133 memory, a Soundblaster Live 5.1 sound card, Cambridge DTT2000 speaker system (5 satelite and sub) and a lovely Iiyama 19" FST monitor. It cost me around £1100 which is a great price for this system, as I got a much better motherboard, graphics and sound than equivalent priced Tiny/ Time PC's.

Everything I bought had a year
warranty so no problems there. The little shop I bought most of the parts from was super helpful, they checked the build-up to make sure it was okay and offered advice when things didn't run smoothly. I got my graphics card and sound card from Electronics Boutique as they have a good price matching deal and they are solid on warranty issues, returns,etc.

Take time when you build it!! Watch out for static, always touch the PSU before building and then pull-out the mains lead. Don't stand on fluffy carpet when you build it!! Try fitting things together before installing the motherboard to the case. Be careful installing the motherboard, make sure the mounting pins sit in the right place and support the edges of the motherboard (as you will be pushing/pulling on sockets).

Take lots of time, read the motherboard manual back to back and sideways too..If parts don't fit don't force them, you may damage connectors. AGP graphics cards can be a tight fit so try gently wiggling it into the slot. Get the shop to fit the CPU heatsink and fan, get them to fit the RAM into the motherboard too. This way, they can't blame you if the CPU /RAM isn't working!

Cases all look the same, but watch out for the PSU. 300 watts is needed for AMD Athlon systems, and look for lots of expansion room and holes for cooling fans. Some cases have crap quality buttons so check the action of the reset and power switches before you buy.

High end systems require lots of cooling so add £20 to your budgets for 2-3 case fans. You can get exhaust fans that sit against the PCI slot under your AGP slot (to suck heat from the graphics card)and
blow the hot air out the back)these work great and are £9-10. Good motherboards have temperature monitoring so keep an eye on heat as this can kill your performance and cause systems crashes.

The most difficult part of any build-up is getting the maximum performance from your new machine.
<
br>Get some documentation about setting up your BIOS from the internet. Bios settings make a huge difference, and be aware that new Bios drivers can solve problems with the AGP port, memory timing issues, etc. Be careful about updating Bios as this is a FLASH procedure and you will temporarily kill your motherboard if you get it wrong. Get your Bios settings right and your PC will run sweet. Get it wrong and you'll get a black screen, pop the case and reset the Bios using the jumper (this will set defaults).

You'll need to set things like CPU speed, memory timing, AGP speed, and lots of little technical flags that you won't have a clue about. Some websites give you a checklist so you know which options to turn on/off for optimum performance.

Bear in mind that most of the drivers that come with the components are very out of date (as your graphics card sat in a boat / warehouse for 6 months before you got it.

You'll need internet access and removable storage (zip 100mb is very cost effective) to download and install new drivers.
AGP graphics card can be problematic, some new drivers like NVidia's Detonantor 3 drivers for Geforce cards tend to shut down AGPx4 on certain motherboard. You can find registry patches on the internet to solve these problems. There isn't much performance difference between AGPx2 and AGPx4 so don't get hung up on that issue if you only get AGPx2 working well. AGPx2 is more stable too!

I recommend Win98SE for hassle free gaming, but WinME and 2000 are supposed to be good for business, etc. You can get genuine Win98SE for £40-70.

I also recommend benchmarking software such as 3D Mark 2001 (www.madonion.com) or SiSoft Sandra to check progress with your settings. Diagnostics are great as you can find out what impact those BIOS settings, new drivers and patches are having on performance.

Sometimes it's better to cut down performance in favour of stability.
Having your system running 20% faster if it crashes every 10 minutes is pointless. High-end PC's blow Playstation 2 graphics out the water so don't worry about "going for max performance", stability is more useful. After all, you are using Microsoft operating systems!!

If it all goes pear shaped then take it all to bits, format the hard drive and start again. If you suspect a component is dodgy then take it back to retailer or try using it in a friend's PC. You can narrow down what is wrong and soon your system will sing.

Thanks for reading all this info, I hope it helps you with your build up. It's very satisfying to build you own PC, and you will never need technical support on hardware problems!

TO sum up:

1. research
2. work out what you want your PC for.
3. research some more
4. shop aggressively to keep prices down and buy from good retailers to validate warranty.
5. build it slowly and carefully
6. use the internet to track down drivers, patches, tweaks, etc.
7. use benchmarking software to measure your progress. stability is more important than all-out speed.
8. enjoy!!

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