DH Guide: Building a PC (Step by Step guide)

***Zardon*** · May 1, 2007, 05:55 AM

Read The Guide Here
___________________________

Are you a PC building virgin? Don't worry we all had our first time and it really isn't the black art you might think it is. Today Driver Heaven shows you how to pop your electronic cherry and by following our step by step guide you will no longer be a slave to overpriced OEM PC systems. Combine this with the ultimate satisfaction you can get from building your own machine and it is a guide well worth reading!

GutterPunk · May 1, 2007, 07:34 AM

Nice guide, if i wouldn't have just repped you... I'd do it again! btw how do you keep your hands looking so nice? j/k

CDsDontBurn · May 1, 2007, 08:57 AM

should have also included a pinned AM2 socket as well.

still a nice guide though

.

**Mousey** · May 1, 2007, 04:47 PM

pop your electronic cherry... lol
and 775 ftw

Kemita · Jun 9, 2007, 09:34 PM

Thanks a lot for this guide. It saved my day, and my pocket...

Kemita · Jun 10, 2007, 02:19 PM

I can not put more emphasis in my words to explain how I thank you for making this guide.
I really need some advice with this where in the guide says:

You have to be careful because the firewire and USB connectors look exactly the same though and inserting a firewire cable to a USB connector will damage the motherboard.

Is there a proper way to notice which cable is which?

WhO_KnOwS · Jun 10, 2007, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kemita

I can not put more emphasis in my words to explain how I thank you for making this guide.
I really need some advice with this where in the guide says:

You have to be careful because the firewire and USB connectors look exactly the same though and inserting a firewire cable to a USB connector will damage the motherboard.

Is there a proper way to notice which cable is which?

The best way is to look at the manual you got with your motherboard. Inside you'll usually find a schematic which clearly marks which connector is the USB one and which is the firewire one.

As for the cables, just track them down or look if they have anything written on them. The USB cable should have USB2.0 or something along those lines written on it, while the firewire will probably have something like IEEE 1394 or FW something.

alexyov · Aug 16, 2007, 05:52 PM

this is my very 1st post ever, so i like to say hello to everybody, i like computers a lot, don't know too much about them, but i think i'm in the right place to learn...

WhO_KnOwS · Aug 16, 2007, 06:04 PM

Welcome. If you have any questions feel free to ask!

alexyov · Aug 16, 2007, 06:25 PM

thanks who knows, i will

LeanWolf · Oct 9, 2007, 03:08 AM

so what happens next? provided everything went fine, I assume some kind of diagnostics are displayed when you first turn it on so you can check that everything's connected right. do you then pop your OS disc in and proceed? anything I should know to do or not do at this point? should the OS go onto a seperate partition? i'm installing Vista home premium and will have twin hard drives.

Thanks for this guide! Everything seems straightforward, I look forward to building my first rig later today (hopefully!). My only criticism is that the images could be better labelled, so you know what they're actually meant to show. I'm sure it probably becomes obvious once you start into it, so it's a small thing.

LeanWolf · Oct 10, 2007, 05:15 PM

ok I've started, so far so.. well.. soo many connectors!

question 1: I have a gigabyte GA-p35-ds4 mb and it has both intel ICH9R and gigabyte sata2 sata controllers, which one should I use to configure my RAID0 array? does it matter?

**temeteus82** · Oct 10, 2007, 05:23 PM

intel ICH9R. I think that the gigabyte's own is used for E-SATA and one SATA on board.

LeanWolf · Oct 10, 2007, 08:50 PM

thanks! should've figured that out by the amount of available controllers of each type..

next queation: with an intel core 2 quad q6600 should i use both ATX_12V connectors or just one?

also, there's a 12v PCIe molex connector on the mobo, should i connect it? i'm running one geforce 8800gts xxx

***Veridian3*** · Oct 12, 2007, 01:28 PM

If the board has a 8pin 12v socket, then you should use the 8pin plug on your PSU. As for the 4pin molex, generally the rule is that they are only needed if using a 4pin 12v plug OR two graphics cards. Changes from board to board and you are best to check the manual. (Chances are you wont need to use it)

Wolfraider · Nov 1, 2007, 10:42 AM

Nice guide do you have video?

***Zardon*** · Nov 13, 2007, 05:26 AM

we have plans in doing a full video system build, hopefully shortly.

Astronaut · May 24, 2008, 04:47 PM

This is a brilliant guide; it will come in handy.

mos2k · May 24, 2008, 06:59 PM

Cool guide... is quite easy to understand.

Giorgos · May 25, 2008, 10:21 AM

This is the guide I was looking for!! Thank you!!

Mourgolikos · Jun 11, 2008, 10:35 PM

Very nice guide

Thank you

3111 · Jul 10, 2008, 01:21 AM

Thanks From 3111

Captain Acid · Aug 15, 2008, 12:08 PM

Any plans on fixing the images?

I only get "forbidden

You don't have permission to access http://www.driverheaven.net/guides/b...%2520-%2520-,1 on this server."

I get that on a lot of reviews as well.

adroel · Oct 13, 2008, 07:53 AM

oh thanks for the tutorial
i'll built my first pc tomorrow today

Dea · Dec 4, 2008, 05:30 PM

Thanks for the tutorial !

tanka12345 · Dec 22, 2008, 02:40 AM

Great guide, although I think you forgot to mention antistatic precautions. I would try and build a PC myself, but I'm too scared I'll fry the components. I've never opened my 5 year old PC because of this!

Zotacer · Jan 2, 2009, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zardon

Are you a... virgin...?

Zardon's dirty!

Hawk-1 · Jan 4, 2009, 11:01 PM

This guide is good but like all the other PC building guides like this,it always ends there. They never talk about the rest of the build like, how to install an OS. And in what order should you install the drivers for videocards, DVD burners,tuner cards and so on.

**kris23** · Jan 4, 2009, 11:26 PM

note taken, thank you and welcome to DH!

OmegaRED · Jan 12, 2009, 03:02 PM

All my PC parts have arrived (save for the OCZ Vendetta 2 cooler) so I'm going to attempt to assemble the PC using this guide. I'm nearly ashamed to admit I've never gone the full length to install a cpu,mb or psu before but I'm too impatient to wait for a comp store to put it together over

Specs for the build on the side
<---------------

May 1, 2007, 05:55 AM	#1
*Zardon* lifeless Join Date: May 2002 Location: Driverheaven Posts: 31,959 Rep Power: 3148	DH Guide: Building a PC (Step by Step guide) Read The Guide Here ___________________________ Are you a PC building virgin? Don't worry we all had our first time and it really isn't the black art you might think it is. Today Driver Heaven shows you how to pop your electronic cherry and by following our step by step guide you will no longer be a slave to overpriced OEM PC systems. Combine this with the ultimate satisfaction you can get from building your own machine and it is a guide well worth reading!

May 1, 2007, 07:34 AM	#2
GutterPunk I = Greatest Dood Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Nebraska Posts: 5,945 Rep Power: 54	Nice guide, if i wouldn't have just repped you... I'd do it again! btw how do you keep your hands looking so nice? j/k __________________ Rock On \m/ Thank you Mousey for the Sig! --------------- Intel Core2Duo E6660 (3.4GHZ) ~ Tuniq Tower 120 ~ Enermax Galaxy 1000W ~ Corsair Dominator @ 1090MHZ 5-5-5-15 (OCZ XTC Modded Cooler)~ EVGA 8800GTX W/ HR-03 Plus 120MM ~ Asus DVD-RW LiteScribe ~ LG DVD-RW ~ Corsair Voyager 2GB ReadyBoost Drive ~ Vantec Nexus Fan Controller ~ ThermalTake Armor 25CM fan ~ Personal Finance Blog: Dent Your Debt

May 1, 2007, 08:57 AM	#3
CDsDontBurn 127.0.0.1 Join Date: May 2003 Location: Southern California Posts: 21,842 Rep Power: 133 System Specs	should have also included a pinned AM2 socket as well. still a nice guide though . __________________ CD's Corner // Her first day // A year later // RX-8 Club 3Dmark06 - 4176 // 3Dmark05 - 7459 // 3Dmark03 - 14289 // PCmark05 - 4453 // PCmark04 - 6297

May 1, 2007, 04:47 PM	#4
Mousey Bang. Bang. Bang. Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 5,318 Rep Power: 104 System Specs	pop your electronic cherry... lol and 775 ftw __________________ Visit hardWIRED Free Lockerz invites! PM Me with your email! Who we are, is but a stepping stone to what we can become.

Aug 16, 2007, 05:52 PM	#8
alexyov DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	Hello this is my very 1st post ever, so i like to say hello to everybody, i like computers a lot, don't know too much about them, but i think i'm in the right place to learn...

Jun 9, 2007, 09:34 PM	#5
Kemita DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Canary Islands Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	Thanks a lot for this guide. It saved my day, and my pocket...

Jun 10, 2007, 02:19 PM	#6
Kemita DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Canary Islands Posts: 13 Rep Power: 0	I can not put more emphasis in my words to explain how I thank you for making this guide. I really need some advice with this where in the guide says: You have to be careful because the firewire and USB connectors look exactly the same though and inserting a firewire cable to a USB connector will damage the motherboard. Is there a proper way to notice which cable is which?

Aug 16, 2007, 06:04 PM	#9
WhO_KnOwS The Knows Mister Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Slovenia, Europe Posts: 415 Rep Power: 41	Welcome. If you have any questions feel free to ask!

Aug 16, 2007, 06:25 PM	#10
alexyov DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	thanks who knows, i will

Oct 9, 2007, 03:08 AM	#11
LeanWolf alpha male Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: offpiste Posts: 5,570 Rep Power: 56 System Specs	so what happens next? provided everything went fine, I assume some kind of diagnostics are displayed when you first turn it on so you can check that everything's connected right. do you then pop your OS disc in and proceed? anything I should know to do or not do at this point? should the OS go onto a seperate partition? i'm installing Vista home premium and will have twin hard drives. Thanks for this guide! Everything seems straightforward, I look forward to building my first rig later today (hopefully!). My only criticism is that the images could be better labelled, so you know what they're actually meant to show. I'm sure it probably becomes obvious once you start into it, so it's a small thing. __________________

Oct 10, 2007, 05:15 PM	#12
LeanWolf alpha male Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: offpiste Posts: 5,570 Rep Power: 56 System Specs	ok I've started, so far so.. well.. soo many connectors! question 1: I have a gigabyte GA-p35-ds4 mb and it has both intel ICH9R and gigabyte sata2 sata controllers, which one should I use to configure my RAID0 array? does it matter? __________________

Oct 10, 2007, 08:50 PM	#14
LeanWolf alpha male Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: offpiste Posts: 5,570 Rep Power: 56 System Specs	thanks! should've figured that out by the amount of available controllers of each type.. next queation: with an intel core 2 quad q6600 should i use both ATX_12V connectors or just one? also, there's a 12v PCIe molex connector on the mobo, should i connect it? i'm running one geforce 8800gts xxx __________________ Last edited by LeanWolf; Oct 10, 2007 at 08:59 PM.

Oct 12, 2007, 01:28 PM	#15
*Veridian3* Administrator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cloaked Posts: 2,997 Rep Power: 72	If the board has a 8pin 12v socket, then you should use the 8pin plug on your PSU. As for the 4pin molex, generally the rule is that they are only needed if using a 4pin 12v plug OR two graphics cards. Changes from board to board and you are best to check the manual. (Chances are you wont need to use it)

Nov 1, 2007, 10:42 AM	#16
Wolfraider DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 31 Rep Power: 0	Nice guide do you have video?

Nov 13, 2007, 05:26 AM	#17
*Zardon* lifeless Join Date: May 2002 Location: Driverheaven Posts: 31,959 Rep Power: 3148	we have plans in doing a full video system build, hopefully shortly.

Dec 22, 2008, 02:40 AM	#26
tanka12345 DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: New Zealand Posts: 440 Rep Power: 16 System Specs	Re: DH Guide: Building a PC (Step by Step guide) Great guide, although I think you forgot to mention antistatic precautions. I would try and build a PC myself, but I'm too scared I'll fry the components. I've never opened my 5 year old PC because of this! __________________ My New Rig - Windows 7 RC Build 7100 Intel Core i7 920 OCed to 3.2GHz \| CoolerMaster V8 \| Patriot Viper 3x2GB DDR3-1333MHz \| MSI Eclipse X58 \| LG W2261V 22" 16:9 \| Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB \| MSI ATI 4870 1GB \| Enermax Revolution 85+ 1050W PSU \| CoolerMaster HAF 932 \| ASUS DRW-22B1LT Lightscribe \| Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme \| Logitech X-540 \| Razer Carcharias \| Razer Lachesis \| Razer Destructor/ Razer Goliathus Speed/ Fnatic SteelSeries Qck+ XL \| OCZ Alchemy Elixir

May 24, 2008, 04:47 PM	#18
Astronaut DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	This is a brilliant guide; it will come in handy.

May 24, 2008, 06:59 PM	#19
mos2k FREEEEEE....!!!! Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Lahore Posts: 469 Rep Power: 21 System Specs	Cool guide... is quite easy to understand. __________________

May 25, 2008, 10:21 AM	#20
Giorgos DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: May 2008 Location: Greece Posts: 9 Rep Power: 0	This is the guide I was looking for!! Thank you!!

Jun 11, 2008, 10:35 PM	#21
Mourgolikos DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Greece, Salonika Posts: 243 Rep Power: 13 System Specs	Very nice guide Thank you

Jul 10, 2008, 01:21 AM	#22
3111 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: BayArea Maryland Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	Thanks From 3111 __________________ 3111Learning,Studying,Improving

Aug 15, 2008, 12:08 PM	#23
Captain Acid DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: The vast emptyness of my mind. Posts: 20 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Any plans on fixing the images? I only get "forbidden You don't have permission to access http://www.driverheaven.net/guides/b...%2520-%2520-,1 on this server." I get that on a lot of reviews as well.

Oct 13, 2008, 07:53 AM	#24
adroel DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Re: DH Guide: Building a PC (Step by Step guide) oh thanks for the tutorial i'll built my first pc tomorrow today

Dec 4, 2008, 05:30 PM	#25
Dea DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Re : DH Guide: Building a PC (Step by Step guide) Thanks for the tutorial !

Jan 4, 2009, 11:01 PM	#28
Hawk-1 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Re: DH Guide: Building a PC (Step by Step guide) This guide is good but like all the other PC building guides like this,it always ends there. They never talk about the rest of the build like, how to install an OS. And in what order should you install the drivers for videocards, DVD burners,tuner cards and so on.

Jan 4, 2009, 11:26 PM	#29
kris23 Going Insane..... Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 5,237 Rep Power: 64 System Specs	Re: DH Guide: Building a PC (Step by Step guide) note taken, thank you and welcome to DH! __________________ Driverheaven Super-Moderator Building a new computer system and not sure where to start? Click Here! last updated (9/4/09) New i5 systems with more to come! Building a PC: Step by Step Guide Written by Kristopher Pedemonte and Nathan Marks-Forder Edited by Allan Campbell Questions or Comments? feel free to post them in the forums!

Jan 12, 2009, 03:02 PM	#30
OmegaRED In Fedor We Trust Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Ottawa , Canada Posts: 4,743 Rep Power: 82 System Specs	Re: DH Guide: Building a PC (Step by Step guide) All my PC parts have arrived (save for the OCZ Vendetta 2 cooler) so I'm going to attempt to assemble the PC using this guide. I'm nearly ashamed to admit I've never gone the full length to install a cpu,mb or psu before but I'm too impatient to wait for a comp store to put it together over Specs for the build on the side <--------------- __________________

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