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How Hard Is It To Build A Tower?

J

jvivlemore

Member
Ok, I have the basic knowledge of computers and have of course moved stuff around inside and replaced my own ram, hard drives, etc. My wife is due for a new internet browsing computer for the bedroom. She's got a Pentium 4 2.8ghz with 1.5gb of ram right now. I want to built her something with a little bit more power for the cheap just to play around with a build and see if I can do it.

My question to everyone here is this ... How hard is this? Obviously I can get advice from this site regarding the parts to make sure everything is compatible but how hard is the actual putting it together part? Is it just screw everything together and plug it in or is it more advanced? I know this is a really stupid question that everyone gets asked a lot but "Yeah, I'm the next guy asking it too" ... I figured this would be a fun project to test the waters since I can probably do it pretty cheap.
 
jvivlemore,

The physical act of assembling a tower is easy.

Your local public library may have books you can check out to learn the steps free. Also, there are tutorials all over the web.

Note: you mentioned "cheap." You can almost certainly buy a prebuilt computer from, say maybe Dell or other, for less than building yourself, with Windows 7 included.

Also note: "they" say the mass-market trend is away from desktop tower computers, because home-users prefer the convenience of notebooks & tablets more. Desktop tower computers are fading away for home users. Maybe she'd like it better if you just buy her a laptop.
 
it's not hard at all OP, just a little time consuming the first time around.

but it's good fun and gives a nice sense of accomplishment.
 
If you do it you will feel good about it but to be sure you will spend more than a prebuilt Dell, even if you buy cheap, remember you get what you pay for check the feedback on newegg before buying parts don't buy stuff rated as junk you could have problems.
 
No, it is not as simple as screwing things together. You also have to attach wires with connectors to the motherboard. Your skill set is fine. I enjoy both the physical activity of building a computer and the pride of it working. Yes, you likely can save money by getting exactly what you want and building it yourself. But you also have sole ownership when things go wrong.
 
Troubleshooting problems, if there are any, is the hardest part. Building a PC has become much easier than years ago but its not exactly simple when you do it for the first time. It may even make you feel overwhelmed once you have everything laid out in front of you and ready to be placed together. Don't let that discourage you though. There are plenty of guides and how to on the Net. Youtube has quite a few videos on how to assemble a PC as well. Research your components thoroughly first and you will have fewer problems.
 
Thanks everyone! I really think I want to give it a try. I'm 28 so if I'm going to try I might want to start now before I lose any motivation to give it a shot. As far as plugging in wires referenced above ... Are you simply stating the wires from the hard drive to motherboard, power supply to motherboard, etc? Do I need to do any soldering at all? Once again, Sorry for the dumb questions 🙂
 
Everything just plugs together, and these days there's not really anywhere that you can plug the wrong things into the wrong places any more. You'll be fine.

As I recall the only remotely scary part when I first built (and probably still the worst bit now, if I think about it) is fitting the CPU and mounting the heatsink. . .thankfully these days you don't need quite as much brute force as you used to.
 
No soldering required to assemble a tower. I would rather work on a tower than any other form - more room for my big hands to access small connectors. 🙂
 
awesome. Thanks everyone. I'm sure you'll see more posts from me later in the year as I get input on each part before I purchase it (especially motherboard and processor).
 
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