Diy Pc.....

[willz320]

I was wondering if you would be able to help me. I do not know what to check in choosing compatible components for my new computer system. Do you know what to look for in making sure it all works together??

Will

[newlabeluk]

with modern computers it's mostly plug & play but if you say what computer you have & the spec i'm sure the techies will be able to help you a lot further.

jacquie

[Niall Fernie]

If you are building a new system I would put the parts together in the following order:

CPU
pick your processor and find out what socket it requires on the motherboard.

Motherboard
Choose one that has the correct socket for the CPU along with any other features you would like, onboard sound, SLI, LAN etc

Memory
Get memory that fits the motherboard

GFX Card
Again one that fits into the slot on the motherboard. If you are looking to get a particular card check it for being either AGP or PCIe and you should be able to find a motherboard with the correct combination to match up with your CPU

Sound cards will fit anything if you dont get it onboard will all be PCI

All Hard Drives should be supported by modern motherboards as should CD/DVD drives although you should check which the motherboard supports SATA or IDE (or both)

Keyboard/mouse/monitor should all be compatible no matter what you get.

its worth noting that pretty much any power supply that you get free with a case will be rubbish so expect to pay around 50-70 quid for a decent one it can save you all kinds of issues later as I have discovered to my own cost :)

[willz320]

Thanks very much, Im on my way to building by new computer to support Vista, which, in the long run will hopefully control the lighting in my flat, (I like that kind of thing.....lol) and will be running principally on Windows media centre. So, getting all the parts to operate together in the first place will be fairl handy lol, just been getting a bit confused when looking at aria.co.uk! Im getting fairly excited - looking forward to what the new system will be like!!

[PhilR]

Just finished putting together my first PC last night. I'm a mechanical engineer, so dont normally do the 'wiggly amps' stuff. Got top spec bits and a case with blue neon flashy bits! Very gingerly hit the 'On' button and it whirred in to life....magic feeling!
Got a step-by-step guide from a PC building article in PC Gamer magazine from a few months ago. Had some very useful tips.
Good luck!

[PhilR]

By the way, the bits i put in are :

Thermaltake Shark case
Enermax Noisetaker II 600W power supply (See Niall's comment)
AMD Athlon 64 x2 dual core processor
Asus A8N SLI Motherboard
Kingston 1 Gb RAM
GeForce 9500 GT video card
Plextor DVD & CD read/writer
Matsumi floppy & media reader drive

Didnt bother with a sound card as the m/board has good onboard audio (can always add later), and dropped in a temperature monitor & fan control display on the front, and a modem card in the back from my previous PC.

[Bobinovich]

Well done PhilR - having built many PCs from scratch I still get that 'will it work first time' buzz when I push the On button!

My latest custom build was a dual-core P4 on a top-spec Asus mobo with 2Gb RAM, a pair of 160Gb RAID 0 SATA drives and a cracking 512Mb PCIe graphics card - all of which was built in a very nice Thermaltake case complete with more fans (11 in total *) and lights than you could shake a stick at. It went like stink but unfortunately it wasn't for me but for a gamer who's retired and has plenty of budget to throw at it.

* For those of you wondering where 11 fans could go, here goes:-

PSU Fan x2
CPU Fan x1
Mobo Chipset Fan x1
Graphics Card Fan x1
Case Fan x2
Hard Drive Cooler Fan x2
PCI Slot Exhaust Fan x2

Overkill? Maybe, but Hey the customer is always right!!!

[blueivy]

Thanks very much, Im on my way to building by new computer to support Vista, which, in the long run will hopefully control the lighting in my flat, (I like that kind of thing.....lol) and will be running principally on Windows media centre. So, getting all the parts to operate together in the first place will be fairl handy lol, just been getting a bit confused when looking at aria.co.uk! Im getting fairly excited - looking forward to what the new system will be like!!

The only thing I'd add to what Niall said (and what he didn't know when he wrote that post) is make sur eyou get the right hardware to support Media Centre. By that I mean the right vide card mainly as you can get Media Centre branded stuff (which usually costs extra) that will operate out of the box with it.

Having said that you've now built it so I thought I'd add it for others to see.