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Geek Culture / Where can i get custom PC parts fitted?

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Squelchy Tom
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 20:40
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Well someone was having me on and tried to charge £40 to fit a quad core and motherboard, i had a little gange and saw a site that builds custom pc's, they would charge £9.95 to build a pc (thats made of a core and a mobo lol).

So anyway, i was wondering where in the UK could i get some custom pc parts fitted, does pc world offer this service?

Thanks.
~SquelchyTom
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Oolite
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 20:45
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If you do a bit of homework, its easy enough to put them in yourself, from what my mates have told me pc world offer this service but they are quite expensive. Give it a go yourself and only use these services as a last resort.


[Looking for work]
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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 20:48
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It takes about ten minutes to fit a motherboard. Open the case, drop in, screw in. As for the processor, 5. It sometimes takes longer because of unclear fitting instructions or poorly designed packaging.


Since the other one was scaring you guys so much...
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phil17
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 21:02
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Yeah use google, its very easy to do just read up on it.

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hessiess
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 21:14
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so it yourself, i just built a pc from parts with absolutely no expiriance, key thing is resertch

learn blender, you will never regret it.

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Silvester
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 21:30
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Hehe, I once actually damaged a HDD, as i had no idea how it would fit... It gave smoke... anyway, if you read the packaging and look into your PC's MECHENICAL parts. you should be able to figure it all out.


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Sopo the tocho
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 21:36 Edited at: 13th Sep 2007 21:39
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don't forget the thermal paste...




Intel Pentium core 2 duo T6600 2,6 mhz 4mb, 4 gb ram 600 mhz ddr2
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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 22:06
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What on Earth did you do to a harddrive to make it smoke? I once tried to power one up whilst it was sitting (circuit down) on a metal box. It wouldn't spin up, and realizing my mistake, I took it off the box, after which it does and has worked perfectly for 6 months now. It is a Maxtor, too, which are supposedly a little sensitive.


Since the other one was scaring you guys so much...
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GatorHex
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 22:12 Edited at: 13th Sep 2007 22:15
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Forcing a PATA cable in upside down would probably do it.

The site who build for 9.99 must be making something off selling the products too or they'd soon go bust.

DinoHunter (still no nVidia compo voucher!), CPU/GPU Benchmark, DarkFish Encryption DLL, War MMOG (WIP), 3D Model Viewer
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Squelchy Tom
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 22:26
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yes i agree :/ however i was worried that i might break something trying to fit the parts in, could anyone suggest a site or something with good guides, or i suppose there is a "building a pc for dummies" book floating about :/
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bitJericho
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 22:52
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http://www.tomshardware.com/2002/09/04/building_your_own_pc/


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hessiess
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 23:02
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just make shore you dont bend any pins when you put the cpu in, if you do you will have a expensive pese of junk!

is it amd or intel?

learn blender, you will never regret it.

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Squelchy Tom
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 23:08 Edited at: 13th Sep 2007 23:19
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looks a little dated, does it work :/ (Dont know a word for asking if a manual does what a manual does in the future)


:/


Quote: "just make shore you dont bend any pins when you put the cpu in, if you do you will have a expensive pese of junk!

is it amd or intel?"


Intel, im upgrading from an Amd, otherwise i would have left the motherboard as it was and just got the CPU.

The only problem i would have with building it myself i would need to find out what they used to screw the bolts on, definatly not a phillips screwdriver, i might have to get a new case :/ and i have lost my windows cd so i would have to pay £50 atleast for vista or what have you :0


So going on instinct and the all mighty google...

The motherboard goes on the back of the case, it has the ports for the monitor, plug and all that lot, the powersupply is attatched to that which powers it, the motherboard has a north bridge and a south bridge, each should have heatsinks or fans to keep the motherboard cool, ram sticks slot into it and it is attatched to the processor/cpu. The processor is basically the brain and also needs to be kept cool, the graphics card goes god knows where but i am assuming that goes into the motherboard as well. The hard drive just basically "exists" and so do the other drives, which are conviniently wired with millions of rainbow coulored confusing wires to the motherboard.

Is that basically right :/ Damn this is going to be a steep learning curve but i suppose i will have to learn sooner than later. What i dont understand is how you install vista onto a motherboard without an oporating system in place allready.

HELP :0000
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bitJericho
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 23:27 Edited at: 13th Sep 2007 23:30
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Quote: "The only problem i would have with building it myself i would need to find out what they used to screw the bolts on, definatly not a phillips screwdriver, i might have to get a new case :/ and i have lost my windows cd so i would have to pay £50 atleast for vista or what have you :0"



If you look at the website I gave you, it will answer your questions about where stuff goes. The motherboard connects to the bottom of your case, (if you were to lay it flat instead of standing).

You should open your case to take a look around right now, so when you're reading you have some context. The screws on the back should just be phillips, I'd be amazed if they were something else, but I guess the manufacturer may have used custom (non standard) parts, which means your new motherboard may not fit in your case at all.

[edit] if you're talking about the bolts, like the motherboard risers (the brass bolt looking things), those are usually hand screwed on and off, if it's on too tight, and you don't have the appropriate tool to remove it, a simple pair of pliers will do the trick.


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Squelchy Tom
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 23:30
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yeah, they look like alan key holes to me but thats a pain because i dont have the right size.

According to that site (thx for finding it for me)

they should be made in order of:

Opening the empty case;
Preparing to fit the components;
Fitting the motherboard;
Fitting the RAM, processor, and cooler;
Installing the graphics card and sound card;
Fitting the hard disk and floppy drive;
Installing the floppy and CD-ROM drives;
Connecting the ribbon cables;
Powering the drives and motherboard;
Connecting the cables for the case front panel;
Final check.


the site is a bit dated but, WHERE THE HELL IS MY SOUND CARD.

This is going to sound really stupid. but i will say it anyway.

Sound is coming out of the computer but i dont have a sound card.
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hessiess
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 23:31
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Quote: "the graphics card goes god knows where but i am assuming that goes into the motherboard as well. The hard drive just basically "exists" and so do the other drives, which are conviniently wired with millions of rainbow coulored confusing wires to the motherboard."


all the screws are standerd philips

it goes in the pci-e x16 slot
your old card may be agp

intal is lickly to be lga775, witch is easy to fit, and the heatsnk is mounted directly to the mobo instead of the cpu socket, so is much less lickly to fall off

there are some build your own pc vids on utube

learn blender, you will never regret it.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 23:32 Edited at: 13th Sep 2007 23:34
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Quote: "the site is a bit dated but, WHERE THE HELL IS MY SOUND CARD."


It's on a PCI slot if it's external (the white plugs near the graphics card (agp) slot, which is highly unlikely. It's usually built into the motherboard unless your a sound buff and wanted to pay for an external soundcard.

One builder's tip no site ever seems to mention, put on your processor and heatsink and ram BEFORE putting your motherboard in the case. It's 20 times harder to do it after!


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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 13th Sep 2007 23:58
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Not that there's anything wrong with on-board sound. I mean, it still kicks out sound, in 16-bit quality at 48000Hz, right?


Since the other one was scaring you guys so much...
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bitJericho
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Posted: 14th Sep 2007 00:05
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Quote: "Not that there's anything wrong with on-board sound. I mean, it still kicks out sound, in 16-bit quality at 48000Hz, right?"


Depends on the sound codec on your motherboard, I'm quite happy with my onboard audio.


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Sopo the tocho
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Posted: 14th Sep 2007 00:12 Edited at: 14th Sep 2007 00:15
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CD quality = 16 bits 44,1 khz, so 16 bits 48,0 khz its more than ok, even you don't will hear any difference between this and one with 192 khz, 96khz or others above unless you are a bat and you can hear ultrasounds because the human ear its capped between 20hz and 20khz, you only will be able to notice an improvement on sound from 16bits to 24bits.

Also AD/DA converters should make a diference but actually all homePC cards (including Audigy, Elite/whatever series) have crap AD/DA converters so...


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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 14th Sep 2007 00:21
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The advantage of paying for it means you get a warranty in case anything happens. If you do it yourself it's your fault. Be aware of static electricity, it can damage most computer parts. Some CPU heatsinks sit so tightly that they may break your CPU if you're careless.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 14th Sep 2007 01:39
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Quote: "don't forget the thermal paste"

Be sure to ONLY put the paste on the die, and just a little bit. Too much and you could fry your chip.


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Squelchy Tom
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Posted: 14th Sep 2007 17:58
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Quote: " Quote: "don't forget the thermal paste"
Be sure to ONLY put the paste on the die, and just a little bit. Too much and you could fry your chip.
"
Im going to use thermal pads, not paste :/.

Would the computer run margionally faster with a sound card over onboard audio, assuming that the motherboard wont be doing all the sound stuff etc? :/
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hessiess
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Posted: 14th Sep 2007 18:06
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Quote: "Would the computer run margionally faster with a sound card over onboard audio, assuming that the motherboard wont be doing all the sound stuff etc? :/"


i hily doubt if the sound card would make even a small difarance to the overall proformance

learn blender, you will never regret it.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 14th Sep 2007 18:11
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Quote: "Would the computer run margionally faster with a sound card over onboard audio, assuming that the motherboard wont be doing all the sound stuff etc? :/"


It can make a slight difference in games where a lot of sound is going on. But the real benefit is simply the quality.

As for thermal pads, or paste, if you're getting a stock intel processor, you don't need paste. And the heat sink will have the thermal pad already applied, you only have to just put it on.

But if you've got a custom heat sink, then no pad will liekly be applied, use paste, as it absorbs heat better than the pads.


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GatorHex
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Posted: 14th Sep 2007 21:24 Edited at: 14th Sep 2007 21:25
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It would help, also a network card with CPU and SCSI CPU hard drive controller helps. Today the presure is to make the cheapest PC available so a lot of the crap they put on the motherboard uses the CPU. With Quad cores I doubt you'd realy notice it.

You can really speed up your PC by buying a motherboard/cpu/memory with fastest bus speed. Also running running 2 hard drives in a stripe set will double load speeds. If one dies though you lose the data on both, but hard drives are reliable these days.

DinoHunter (still no nVidia compo voucher!), CPU/GPU Benchmark, DarkFish Encryption DLL, War MMOG (WIP), 3D Model Viewer
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gamebird
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Posted: 14th Sep 2007 23:36
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The onboard sound depends on whether your motherboard actually has onboard sound, the nvidia nforce motherboards don't. Some motherboards have horrible onboard sound, but they still say that they have it. If you are spending more than $1400 or if you have good speakers then get an external sound card.

A network card will help too by taking pressure off of the cpu. But with a quad core you wouldn't notice the difference.
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Squelchy Tom
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Posted: 15th Sep 2007 01:16
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how easy is it to set up 2 hard drives using raid 0. And would it increase preformace? (2x 80/160 gb hd's)
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GatorHex
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Posted: 15th Sep 2007 01:25 Edited at: 15th Sep 2007 01:28
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It's easy to do, but I've not experience in Vista.

Start -> Control Panel -> Admin Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management

It should be nearly 2x as fast because you use 2 read/write at the same time. All the top spec game systems do it.

DinoHunter (still no nVidia compo voucher!), CPU/GPU Benchmark, DarkFish Encryption DLL, War MMOG (WIP), 3D Model Viewer
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GatorHex
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Posted: 15th Sep 2007 01:49 Edited at: 15th Sep 2007 02:00
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I just speced up a medium spec PC for a friend..

£67 8600GT CPU (if ur thinking vista)

£94 Core Duo 2.4

£35 Motherboard

£36 250Gb HDD

£18 DVD Recorder

£50 Case with window/lights

£115 Monitor 19" wide TFT

£40 1 or 2gb RAM (depends on the quality u want)

£10 Basic keyboard and mouse

Total = £455

No OS! + £65 for vista premium OEM

DinoHunter (still no nVidia compo voucher!), CPU/GPU Benchmark, DarkFish Encryption DLL, War MMOG (WIP), 3D Model Viewer
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gamebird
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Posted: 15th Sep 2007 04:58
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About the raid- you may end up needing a new motherboard depending on whether it supports raid 0 (or raid 1) or not.

@GatorHex- what speed were the HDD and the ram? And could someone do a pound to dollar conversion? Pretty please?
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bitJericho
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Posted: 15th Sep 2007 05:02
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It's about 2usd to 1£. But computer equipment in the UK seems to differ a lot from us prices. Check newegg.com for about the cheapest price you can get on computer parts.


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GatorHex
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Posted: 15th Sep 2007 05:26 Edited at: 15th Sep 2007 05:27
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Yes just double the pound price to get the dollar price.

You can do Raid without hardware support, windows will handle it.

The speed of my medium spec PC is 2Gb 667Mhz or 1Gb 800mhz Memory and 7200 HDD. Standard stuff.

My friends budget was £400, he's gona have to save a bit more, or go for onboard graphics I think.

DinoHunter (still no nVidia compo voucher!), CPU/GPU Benchmark, DarkFish Encryption DLL, War MMOG (WIP), 3D Model Viewer
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Squelchy Tom
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Posted: 15th Sep 2007 15:36
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would 2 different brands of ram work in one motherboard, or for example 1gb stick of 667mhz and 1gb stick of 800mhz. :/
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GatorHex
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Posted: 15th Sep 2007 15:38
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You sould be able to put the 667mhz in slot one and your motherboard should run both of them at the slower bus speed and give you 2gb. If you do it the other way around you would only see 1Gb total RAM.

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