Build Your Very Own PC!

It is important to get the components right before you begin. Below is information on each of the parts you'll need to get going.
Information on how to actually build the PC will be further down the page.

1. The Case
2. The Power Supply (PSU)
3. The Motherboard
4. The Processor (CPU)
5. The Memory (RAM)
6. The Graphics Card (GPU)
7. The Hard Drive (HDD)
8. The Optical Drive
9. The Operating System
10. Peripherals

For some, the look of the case is important, and therefore they will be prepared to pay out a little more cash for this particular part.
Cases come in all shapes and sizes, and it really is your choice what you have.
However, be aware that size does make a difference, and depending on what sort of machine you will be building, you have to choose your case accordingly.

If you are planning on building a beast of a machine to play all the latest games, you will want to buy a slightly bigger case, with more ventilation. For a small workstation, a smaller case will suffice.

One thing you should look out for when choosing a case is the form factor.
ATX is the normal size, and if you choose a case with mini or micro ATX, your choice in motherboards will suffer.
I'd advise you get an ATX form factor case unless you plan on building a niche PC such as a media centre.
Cases range from around £10 - £200. The prices vary on brand, size and most of all quality.

Many people like to modify cases (Much like people modify cars) this gives the PC an individuality. However, I would not advise case modification to beginners. But if you become more confident when around computer components, it is a very fulfilling thing to do.

There are several forms of cooling you could go for within your case.

Air Cooling
By far the most common form of cooling, air cooling consists of fans, and a hsf attached to the CPU (See later) and usually a fan attached to the graphics card (Also see later)

There are 2 main sizes for fans:
80mm These are smaller fans that are attached to the case.

120mm These are the larger case fans available.

However, there are several other sizes available on the market, such as 140mm fans. However, 80mm and 120mm are the most common.

On average, 80mm fans cost around £5 ($10) and 120mm fans a little more than that, at around £7 - £10

There are also different specifications to choose from. There are silent fans, that may not shift as much air, or fans that are designed to shift lots of air but make more noise.
There is also a happy medium of course.
What you choose should be down on the type of system you are trying to design.

Watercooling
Watercooling is another option you may consider. However, good kits are usually very expensive to build, and difficult to set up.
They also require some degree of maintenance to uphold, unlike air cooling.

There are several different components to a watercooling system:

Reservoir
Radiator
Pump
Piping
Waterblocks

If you would like more information on watercooling, see here.

Many people disregard the power supply as an important part of a system. However, it is vital that your PSU has enough power to supply your whole system.
It is also important that you havea good quality PSU, as if there is a fault, it could fry other components too.
There are calculators located on the internet that can help to work out the size of PSU you need.
Here's one

This is where you have to make your decision over one of the biggest Computing-Manufacturing wars.
AMD or Intel?

Of course the motherboard has to match the processor you choose eventually, so this decision is up to you.
For Intel processors, you should choose an ATX LGA775 Chipset, as this is the type of chipset that Intel currently use.

Motherboards start at around £50 (around $100) and can go up then to around £150/£200 ($350)

For AMD processors, Socket AM2 Motherboards are the way forward.

There are many reliable manufacturors for motherboards, including Gigabyte, Asus, ECS, EVGA and many more.

Personally, I usually go for Asus, as I have found that their quality and value for money is outstanding.

If you have gone for an Intel Motherboard (LGA775 socket) You will probably want to go for a Core 2 Duo of some sort. Intel have been market leaders for a while now, and the Core 2's are very powerful and great Value For Money. They range from very cheap, to very expensive.

For AMD users, there is either the older Athlon 64's or the new Phenom range to choose from. There is also a wide range to choose from here.

It is very important to get the balance of the CPU/RAM correct, as it could cause bottlenecks in your system, causing it to be slow, or not as fast as it potentially could be.

2GB of any good DDR2 modules is usually good enough, but you may choose to have 4GB as this amount is getting more common with Windows Vista.

RAM is very cheap at the moment, and if bought from any good manufacturor (OCZ, Corsair, Crucial) You should be onto a winner.
Price varies depending on the speed of the modules and the quality.

If your wanting to play games with your system, this could be the most important component along with the CPU!
There are different kinds of video cards on the market for different purposes.
Cheaper ones will still be capable of playing games, but with not as good settings enabled, and frame rates will not be as good, causing games to appear sluggish and with a degree of 'lag'.

The two main players in this market are NVidia and ATI (Recently acquired as part of AMD).

An average gamer will want to spend £100+ on a video card, and will usually purchase high end ATI's or NVidia 8 Series cards.
A person using the PC for work purposes may only go for something that costs £30, and is maybe an older model.

This is where Data is stored.
Hard drives are very cheap these days, and you may wish to have more than just one in your own system. An increase in data allows for more storage of media, such as music, videos and pictures.
I recommend having around 250gb of space free, but it is easy to cope with less than that, and many people may need more than that.
You could always go back and buy another if one gets filled.

As time goes on, more and more optical drives are added for consumers to spend their pennies on.
Currently, the norm is a DVD Drive, or a DVD Writer to write those DVD's from your PC.
However, other drives are coming onto the market to accompany them.
HD-DVD and Blu-ray are the next generation of discs when DVD is made obselete, and drives are starting to come on the market now, but are very expensive.

Lightscribe is another option. It is basically a DVD writer, when after you burn your Dvd, you flip the disc over and can engrave a design into the top.

What drive(s) you choose is up to you. I'm living in the stone age with my 2x DVD drives :P.
However, with more and more content online, are these new age optical drives worth having?

The operating system is the software that is installed onto your computer that you run everything else from.
There is very limited choice here, and I would recommend either Windows XP or Windows Vista.

Many people dislike Vista, but I have used it for quite some time now, and would fully recommend it.

This part is completely up to you. Just make sure you have enough USB ports to power them all!

For sound systems, you may want to use headphones, 2 speakers, 3 speakers, 5.1 or 7.1 sets.
They all vary in price, and you may consider purchasing a new sound card for better sound quality. (Sound Card I'd recommend a Creative X-Fi card)

For the mouse, gamers may opt for something a little more up-market such as one of the Logitech G-Series, or a Razer.
Bog Standard mice are fine for the average pc user.

Most people don't pay out huge amounts of cash on a keyboard, but for the really hardcore gamers there are more expensive 'gaming' keyboards available.

Other peripherals include Joysticks, Gamepads, USB flashdrives, and anything that plugs into a USB port (There are thousands)

It's up to you how much money you want to spend on this!

Now you have all the necessary components, it's time to build the PC.

Prepare yourself
Get your tools ready. A de-magnetised screwdriver is essential, as you do not want to scramble any of the components with a magnet.

Take measures to make sure that you are anti-static. For example, you could wear an anti-static wristband. This minimizes the risk of damaging components.

Find a clean, large work area. parts are easily lost if you are working in a cluttered area. And you don't want any part of the PC to be damaged.

Set up - Remove the components from packaging and arrange them in a way that it is easy to know where everything is.

Fitting the PSU
Usually the PSU will have to be placed at the rear top corner of the case. If the case came with a PSU, there may already be one located there. If you bought a seperate PSU aswell, you will need to remove the PSU that is already there in order to put in your new one.
This will be secured in place using several screws. Grab your screwdriver, and secure it firmly in place.

Fitting the Motherboard
A good quality motherboard will always be supplied with a manual. This is very important, as you will have to follow the specific instructions to that particular motherboard when fitting some components. It should also be supplied with cables that you will need to connect other parts of the computer to the motherboard with.
You will notice, in various places on the motherboard, there are small holes with bare metal 'rings' around them. These can be used to fix the motherboard to the inside of the PC Case.
Find the standoffs inside the case to which the holes correspond to. This should make it easy to attach the motherboard. Make sure that it is connected tightly to prevent the board moving and shortcircuiting.

Fitting the Processor
You will find information on how to fit processors to the motherboard in the specific manual that came with the motherboard.
You may choose to use your own thermal compound to try and prevent the temperature of the CPU getting too high. I recommend Arctic Silver 5.
For information on how to apply it, see HERE

If you take a look at both the CPU pins and the holes in the socket you will see that in one or more corner there are some missing pins. Line these up and raise the arm so that you can gently insert the CPU into the socket.
WARNING - The pins are extremely delicate so be very careful!

Check that the CPU sits perfectly flat onto the socket and is not raised at any corner.Lower the arm again to return it to its original position. The socket will grip the CPU pins and lock it in place.

Take the HSF (Heatsink and Fan) supplied with the CPU, and attach it to the Motherboard (There are pins to hold it in place) Make sure that it is properly attached, otherwise the processor will overheat, and the Computer will not start up properly.

Fitting the RAM
This is straightforward. Simply take the RAM from the packaging, and locate the RAM sockets on the motherboard. Unclip the surrounding pins, and slot the RAM into the sockets and push firmly until the clips click firmly back into place.

Fitting the Optical Drives
You will notice, on the front panel of your PC case, there is an opening the same size as the DVD drives front panel. If there is a plastic cover plate fitted, just gently push it out from behind.

Slot the DVD drive into the slot, and screw it in place.
Hard Drives are inserted in the same way, in the smaller slots below the optical drives.

Connecting Up the Cables on the inside
There are several large cables that connect from the PSU to the motherboard. There is more information on this inside the motherboard manual.
Most components also require power through the PSU, and information on how to connect everything up will be in the motherboard manual.
This also includes all the power and reset buttons etc. To insert these, you will need to follow the motherboard manual carefully, as most motherboards are different.

Installing Peripherals
Most peripherals are USB these days, and providing you hooked up the USB internal cabling correctly, they should be plug and play. However, it is best to consult the manuals of each of the components for further instructions.

And this is it! You have built your PC! You are now ready to install your operating system and get going!

Don't use this guide as your only source of knowledge. It is best to read around to get a good idea of what you are doing first!

Thankyou for looking at this guide!

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