First Time Advice

[Myotis volans]

Hey guys and gals,

I've been reading the posts across the forums, and seeing some common problems/mistakes being made by people building their first machine like I am about to do. I'm trying to take note of all of them so I won't have the same problem, but I thought I would ask all you experienced folks out there what you feel the most common newbie mistakes are. That way I can have a little cheat sheet of sorts when I'm putting it all together...

Thanks! You cats rule. :beer:

 

[mechBgon]

You cats rule

<--- hey, works for me!

How's this look for help: photo guide for new builders

Common mistakes include:

[*]forgetting to mount the motherboard on standoffs
[*]forgetting to plug in the ATX12V cable
[*]incompatible pizza toppings like pineapple and pepperoni, that is just WRONG :frown:
[*]using a piece-of-junk power supply that came with a cheap, flashy-looking case and thinking it's going to be good enough
[*]not giving PC3200 memory (or faster) adequate voltage (raise it in the motherboard's BIOS menu)
[*]not getting their firewall protection before they plug the freshly-built, vulnerable Windows into that world of worms and hackers known as "your modem"[/list]Hope that helps

 

[tshock22]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
[*]incompatible pizza toppings like pineapple and pepperoni, that is just WRONG :frown:

Exactly......ya gots to go with pineapple and HAM!!


Other common mistakes:

[*]slave/master jumper issues on harddrives (i personally don't like 'cableselect', but YMMV)

[*]too eager to overclock.......You should run your system for a month or so in order to get a feel of how it SHOULD behave. If you buy a system knowing you'll be disappointed with the stock speed, you could be setting yourself up for a big letdown.

[*] Lack of a boot disk of some sort. This was especially bad before bootable CDs. However, lots of people don't have legit OS cds these days, and their cdr isn't bootable. What good is your computer if you have no idea how to get to a command prompt of some sort?

 

[Genx87]

1. Hook the bare essentials up at first. This means Video card, Ram, and MB. Dont bother hooking drives up until you know the machine will post. Nothing more annoying than having to take it all apart and figure out what is wrong. Friend of mine loves putting the whole thing together with the case and everything. Boots it up and of course doesnt work and has to take it all down. Save yourself the hassle and make sure you can get it to post.
2. Make sure you have your boot disk ready. Either a floppy or CD-ROM.
3. Be prepared to troublshoot your way back to the source of the problem.
4. Make sure you purchase quality parts. It may add more costs but I shake my head with my friends who skimp on parts to save 10 bucks and their computers are unstable or dont work.

 

[Myotis volans]

Thanks for all the replies thus far!