One of the best things I did for myself in terms of learning experiences was build my own computer before my third year of university (Editor’s note: Been hanging outside the U.S. for a bit, hence the non-American term “university” rather than the uninspired “college”). I came to UC Davis with an HP desktop with a blazing fast Intel MMX processor and 15″ HP CRT monitor. This thing complemented the rise of Napster my freshman year as it had a whopping 4GB of hard drive space - total!
After my second year I knew it was time for an upgrade, but having had a bad experience with the overpriced and flaky HP and being a curious nerd-to-be, I started researching building my own desktop PC. This gave me an opportunity to do two things: Set a goal in terms of saving money from my part time job at the UCD Campus Box Office (UCD CBO as Yen used to say), and learn about the inner workings of a computer while having complete control over the quality of the parts and being ultimately responsible for any failures with no one to blame but also achieving a sense of triumph for accomplishing a task most would never attempt. That might be more than two things.
I spent the summer of 2001 working at the CBO and putting in overtime to save as much money as possible. Now, before I come off sounding like I’m trying to pretend college university was some big struggle, I have to say that my school and housing were paid for by my parents. I got the job at the beginning of my second year because my parents didn’t want me to be lazy, and the money went to improving my wardrobe (concert tees and $20 jeans to Banana Republic and J. Crew) and other non-essential expenditures. So I made my $7-$7.50 an hour and opened a separate checking account so I wouldn’t touch the money (That’s also another thing I learned: how to open my own bank account), and I knew by the end of the summer I was gonna make something nice.
I spent a lot, A LOT, of time researching how to build a PC, what components I would need, the performance I wanted, etc. Anyone who knows me will tell you that if I am even a bit unsure about something, I will take forever to decide if I want to spend the money and go through with it - I mean, it took me over a year to buy a new car! A lot of the websites about DIY computer building were centered around gamers, which I wasn’t even sure was something I would be doing. But I knew I wanted a kick-ass multimedia machine that would let me do some processor intensive tasks like chatting on AIM and listening to Winamp. This was gonna be one sweet machine.
I did my due diligence and came up with a really good parts list well within my budget of $1000. I don’t remember everything I got, but it included: an Antec full tower, 1GB Crucial memory, 60GB IBM Deathstar, ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon with 32MB DDR, an awesome sound card which was way over the top, an Asus motherboard, AMD Athlon 1.4GHz, slot loading DVD player, 3.5″ disk drive, and more. I went with AMD because I wanted to avoid giving my money to Intel, which in retrospect is silly because they’re not a bad company. They just seemed to be monopoly-esque and I wanted to support the little guy. I ordered most of these parts from NewEgg.com because they had the best prices and great service.
I spent a week putting the computer together, and the little things were really frustrating to a first time builder. For example, putting the RAM was really stressful. I understand you had to be forceful, but for the longest time I thought I was going to break the motherboard. You really have to put a lot of weight into it, and it’s something you don’t expect at all. But the biggest issue I faced was that after it was all put together, the machine just wouldn’t turn on. I spent days trying to figure it out and I wasn’t sure if it was me or a faulty component. I finally called Asus support because I thought it was the motherboard. I remember the call well because it was the morning of September 11, 2001, and rather than sit and watch the news I just wanted to get my damn computer working. The CSR was probably like “WTF? Whose calling today?!” He was really helpful and diagnosed the problem within a few minutes: There were no plastic spacers between the case and the motherboard, so it was shorting out every time I tried to boot up. So for day I had the motherboard all hooked up sitting on a cardboard box as I installed Windows XP and all my software. I later made a trip to Fry’s and got the spacers.
I installed a burned copy of Windows XP as well as Norton Antivirus and Office XP. I guess my budget isn’t really honest in that way since those would have increased it by 50% if I had been honest. It’s funny because I am completely against software piracy now… even for Microsoft products.
The clutch component after everything was all hooked up was the ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon video card which had TV outputs and inputs, so I could watch TV and play GameCube on my computer, as well as record video. When you’re in college, this is huge because you’re usually dealing with little space for a TV in your room.
I also got a 5.1 Cambridge Soundworks surround sound speaker set that was amazing and really annoyed every roommate I had. But watching downloaded Friends episodes never sounded better.
One mistake was getting the full tower. Since a lot of the DIY sites at the time were centered around gamers, I was under the impression that if I didn’t get a full tower, all of my components would melt. Also, this thing was steel and not aluminum. It was the heaviest and biggest computer case ever, and I was surprised it was so popular but apparently it was/is. Over the next few years I would switch cases twice, the first time to an aluminum mid-tower with a side window and blue lights, and lastly to a black Antec aluminum mid-tower that was perfect.
I didn’t want to spend my money on a new monitor at the time, so for over a year I kept the HP 15″ monitor, waiting for prices to drop. I eventually got a great deal on a 19″ Dell LCD during my fourth year, right when LCD prices were dropping.
I used this machine for about 4 years and learned a lot about computers on it. I understood all the pin-outs on the motherboard, the jumper settings, driver conflict issues (on a Windows PC? Never!), etc. I would later upgrade and sell components to suit my needs, and eventually got into overclocking.
None of this process was easy, but that was kind of the point. When things went wrong, it was up to me to figure out what was causing the problem and I would learn more. I went from being afraid to put in a new CDRW drive to adding multiple drives and configuring masters and slaves. From being afraid of breaking the motherboard with the RAM to opening up the case while the computer was running.
If I had to do it again, there are some areas where I would cut back (the case, sound card) and others where I would have invested more (RAM). I would have also opted for a Linux OS instead of Windows to get off that horrible OS earlier - I would eventually switch to Mac OS X and never look back, but I still wish I had more experience with Linux.
Anyways, if you’re set on having a desktop PC and have the time, I highly recommend building your own at least once to understand where all that noise is coming from when you boot up. I’m past having a desktop or a PC these days, but I’m glad I made this project for myself while it made sense.
