Living To Tell The Tale > Computer, Mon Amour > Build Your Own

Computer Adventures

1   Building Your Own Computer

The next computer adventure, after learning to use Linux, and even running it as the only OS I was using for 3 months, seemed to be to build my own computer. The old Advent 8700, which I have had for nearly 4 years, was just getting a bit creaky and clunky, the CPU fan a bit noisy, and altogether rather slow. Time for some major upgrading, or else?

In the end, I decided the best thing would be to really learn about the insides of the box by building my own. Not being the world's most technically experienced person, I was nervous about selecting all the components myself, so I chose a mail-order company which offered Self-build kits with assembly instructions, CCL Computers.

The system I decided on was based on the AMD Athlon 2100+ processor with 256 MB of RAM, and cost £413 including VAT and P & P. I ordered it by phone on Monday, it was delivered on Thursday, and I put it all together on Friday afternoon.

What came in the three boxes, then, was this:

Building your first computer can be frightening, but in fact is mostly quite straightforward. The worst worry is whether you are connecting something up wrong, or making some terrible mistake that will cause the whole system to blow up as soon as you turn it on.

In fact, all the components from CCL worked excellently. The CPU fitted into the motherboard with great ease. The most difficult bit that followed, was clipping the CPU cooler over the top: it's rather a tight spring clip that's used, to make sure of a firm contact. The motherboard itself fitted neatly to the backing plate.

All the drives: hard disc drive, floppy disc drive and CD drive, also fitted neatly but the uncertain part was knowing which power supply cables fitted where (in fact it seems not to matter too much: if the lead fits the drive, it's OK) but the ribbon cables between motherboard and drives were more complex. The instructions are not always perfectly clear! and I found it very useful to have a couple of books on hand to help.

The most useful of these is Graham Carnell's PC Expert Collection from PCInfocentre, which comes with a CD ROM including photographs and video tutorials. Also helpful was Building a PC for Dummies.

There are some useful websites too: the best I came across was
http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/

If you want to achieve an unbearable smugness quotient of about 160, and be able to boast mercilessly in mostly male company, you could do worse than this. OK, I know there are lots of contexts in which putting your own computer together carries no more kudos than being able to tie your own shoelaces, but I'm still in one of those places where it's a real glorious boast.

And wow! it's so FAST! When you move up from the Pentium III I was using, to the new processor which is about four times faster. It's a joy.

No more expensive PC World with their enormous packages of software you never want, and pressure-sales of extended warranties, for me. I have proudly enrolled in the Order of Geeks.

Sure, you may see me in PC World looking for software or accessories or other small items I don't want to have to wait for. But for lots of things, it's DIY, or a visit to my great little local computer shop in Cherwell Drive, E-ZEE PC.

Living To Tell The Tale > Computer, Mon Amour > Build Your Own