Last weekend, I set out to do something that I had been itching to do for a while... Building my own PC!
I just wanted to share some of my experiences during the build process and point out some difficulties that may aid those that are looking to get into PC building!
PCPartPicker
Probably the most useful site that everyone needs to use when building a pc is pcpartpicker. This website nicely lays out all the parts that are required to build a new PC as well as a compatibility checker that lets you know if there are any compatibility issues between the pieces of hardware you check out.
PCPartPicker pc building tool
The website nicely lays out the necessary components as well as some compatibility issue information. This website made the building process very manageable since it broke down and listed exactly what parts I needed as well as compatibility information between them.
Picking out my parts for my build
As a newcomer, finding all the parts to build a PC with a theme was really overwhelming especially when considering all of the compatibility issues between the hardware pieces.
I ended up opting to look at the parts of that someone else had already made and then I substituted pieces that I wanted from that already made build.
To me, this was the way to teach myself about the options I had for each PC part and how to find the compatibility between the different parts since I could focus on just one part at a time. Looking back on it, this method is not really necessary because PCPartPicker's compatibility check is super helpful, but it was the method that made the most sense for me.
Picking out the parts
I, by no means, am an expert on the technicalities on different PC parts and the exact compatibility knowledge between every part, but throughout this experience, I picked up a few tips that might be helpful! Also, I think PCPartPicker warns you of most of the compatibility issues I am listing.
The Motherboard
The motherboard was one of the most important parts of the whole process as it interacts with all of the other parts of the PC. This is where a majority of compatibility issues will arise.
Here are some of the compatibility tips that I learned:
-
Make sure that the model of the CPU is compatible with the motherboard that you pick
- Often Intel CPUs have models that only work with certain motherboards while AMD have their own respective compatible models
Double check if your motherboard comes with features like a wifi adapter and the number of PCIe slots for your video card and other expansions that you put in the motherboard
If you buy an M.2 SSD, make sure that your Motherboard supports that, I think most modern ones do
PC Case Dimensions
- The size of your PC case should be big enough to fit all your components! Often the video card is the biggest part so make sure the case's width, height, and depth are big enough to fit the video card
Power Supply Unit
- Make sure that your power supply unit covers has more than enough wattage than what is utilized by the parts. This can easily be found on PCPartPicker's building service. My build said it uses around 513W, so I got a 850W PSU just to be safe
The build process!
Building the PC was quite a process. Since I spent so much money on the parts, I really really didn't want to mess anything up and accidentally break any pins or scratch my motherboard. I watched Linus Tech Tips POV video and Bitwit's Step by Step PC building video over and over and over again following every step carefully.
It was probably a good thing that I followed the videos meticulously, but also the creators of the parts did such a good job in abstracting a lot of the details out. Assembling things together was really simple and error-prone, I genuinely think that anyone can just pick it up and do it.
The easiest part was probably connecting the parts to the motherboard.
Motherboard with CPU, SSD, Memory, and Cooler installed
I won't go through all the details because the Linus and Bitwit cover the details so much better than I can.
The parts that they recommended to install first on the motherboard were: CPU, Memory, M.2 SSDs, and the CPU cooler.
The PC Case and the dreaded Wire Management
Where I really had trouble and the part of the building that took the most time was assembling all the parts onto the PC case.
The PC case itself has a bunch of wires that connect to the front of the PC and the manual has no explanation on what any of the wires are for. Because it was my first time and I wanted to be super careful, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the wires go and what they were for.
Hopefully, I can save you some time. The wires are basically to connect the buttons on the front of the case with the motherboard. Generally, your motherboard manual will layout the specific pins that should connect to the front of the case and what each one does.
These buttons include turning the PC on and off, reset, LED control, and connection to USB ports.
More connections mean more wires and sooner or later they will start to get overwhelming as the number of connections to your motherboard increases.
Managing all of the wires was very overwhelming at first, but I think the most simple and manageable way is to use zip ties and bands to group up wires for similar purposes. I grouped all the front case wires together, the fan connections together, and the ones coming from the power supply unit.
Also, bring the wires from the back to the front from a hole closest to the place it should connect to. It is the most efficient and cleanest way to connect wires to the PC.
Don't connect the video card until the end!
One of the most annoying mistakes that I made was connecting the video card too early. The video card took up much more space than I thought and I connected the video card before connecting the front wires to the bottom of the motherboard.
Since I connected the video card early, it was like defusing wires trying to connect the other wires to the bottom of the motherboard without damaging any of the pins.
Connecting the big boy wires from the PSU
Figuring out what wires connect to the PSU was also sort of ambiguous to me. The manuals didn't explain what parts needed to connect to the PSU so I was a bit worried.
I think generally any wire that can't connect to your motherboard and requires power is going to be connected to the PSU. This includes:
- CPU
- GPU
- Fans
- CPU Cooler
- External Storage Devices
With everything connected, I finally finished my PC!
My Finished Build!
Installing Windows!
Finally, I got to the step of installing Windows! Unfortunately, I had a lot of issues installing because the other machines that I had available were MacBooks and the file systems for windows and mac were different.
I had to format my USB to FAT32 format, but this format doesn't allow any files greater than 4GB and the latest windows iso image has a file install.wim that's bigger than 4GB.
This guide by Quincy Larson on FreeCodeCamp worked like a charm for me and I was able to end up booting windows! For some reason, I kept failing to install Windows since I think something was wrong with my memory partitioning. However, after multiple tries of formatting my USB and redownloading Windows, it just started working randomly; I am still not sure what the cause of the error was. After booting I followed this video by JayzTwoCents and it helped me walkthrough step-by-step what I needed.
In general, I figured out that the right drivers need to be installed for all of the hardware parts (Asus had a Q-Installer program that did it all for me). Also, I configured my memory speed to run at the advertised speed in the BIOS which apparently a lot of people forget to do.
Gaming and Linux!
This whole process was super fun as it was a really cool beginner hands-on project on something that is very useful to me. I would highly recommend building a PC for everyone. It's more approachable than it looks like and feels super rewarding!
I can't wait to max out the graphics settings on Final Fantasy 14 and install Arch Linux on it to customize my development workflow!
Please let me know if I messed up any information or if something could be improved in my build or explanation!
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