Building a PC is fairly easy and if you’re like me it’s simply the only way to get what you want. Granted you may have to jump through a few hoops to do so but the result is a more powerful machine for the money than you can buy from the store and you’re friends will think you’re an uber geek with magical powers (well maybe just a geek).

First thing is to order the parts: I bought the following from NewEgg:

* Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply – Retail $118.00 (NOT RECOMMENDED)
* eVGA 256-P2-N515-AX Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 – $345.00
* AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor – $400.00
* Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3160812AS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive – OEM – $92.00
* OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Platinum System Memory Model – $252.55
* ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard – $169.00
* Antec Performance I P180 Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case – $118.99

Subtotal: $1,492.55 – compared to ~$2500 from a store/bespoke retailer.

I had to return the Antec Neo HE power supply and would not recommend it. It has extremely low amps on the +5V rail which powers the CPU and motherboard chipsets. As a result the machine once built would power off after a few mins.
I replaced the PSU with a Seasonic 600w S12. NewEgg then sent me the wrong one (a 330W version) so had to RMA that one also. They were nice enough about it although it was extremely aggravating. All told I’ve had far worse experiences with Gateway customer service back in the days when I bought off the shelf. Comes with the territory.

General rule: Don’t over-tighten anything.
General rule: Push firm but not too hard, don’t want to break anything.
General rule: Hold cards by the edges and try not to touch anything electronic.
General rule: Don’t do this on carpet, you’ll probably get a static discharge and zap something.

1) Take your case out of it’s box and remove the packaging. Keep a phillips head screwdriver handy and be sure to DE-STATIC yourself (touch something metal).

2) Unpack the mobo and find the back-plane cover. Replace the one in your case with the one that comes with your mobo.

3) Screw in your mobo. You may need to add brass stand-offs to the case (these just screw in).

4) Push in your memory modules. Consult the motherboard manual for which slots to use depending on how many memory sticks you’re using.

5) Remove a PCI card cover from the case and push in your graphics card. If you have 2 repeat the process and push on your SLI connector. Do the memory first (step 4) as some boards won’t let you fit in memory once the graphics card is installed.

6) Clean your hands and take out your CPU. Whether it’s Intel or in my case AMD there’s only 1 way this goes in, make sure you line it up right. Raise the lever and drop it in. There should be NO pressure required for it to slot in.

7) This is the part when you begin to sweat. Install the CPU heatsink. Don’t touch the bottom of the heatsink, you don’t want grease or anything on here. Remove any pieces of plastic that might be on there. Before you start figure out what you’re doing as once it’s on the thermal grease or pad will stick to the CPU and it’s hard to re-position. Manufacturers recommend a thermal pad on the heatsink as it lasts longer than grease but most enthusiasts use grease (arctic silver) as it lets you change out your heatsink/processor more frequently. Either way you’ll usually need to apply some force to the heatsink to get it clicked in. Don’t be shy but be careful, too much pressure or uneven pressure will snap the CPU and it’s off to the silicon hospital for you.

Next, snap out the metal covering your 5 1/4″ drive bays. Keep the plastic cover. Install some drive rails on your optical drive and push it in from the front of the case. Repeat per drive.

9) Install your hard drive using the screws from the case.

10) Install the PSU and snake your wires all over the place. You’ll have some combination of the following:
a) Either a 20 or 24pin connector on the mobo.
b) A second 4pin connector on the mobo (might be 8pin if you have dual CPUs).
c) A Sata power cable for each drive – looks like a thin wide connector.
d) A molex (4pin) for each IDE drive.
e) Some PSUs can power the fans in your case. Some fans can be powered off the motherboard. Depending on your setup connect the fans either to the motherboard (look on the board for the connectors, usually 3 pins sticking up) or the PSU (through a molex connector).
f) Power for the PCI-E graphics card (looks like a 6pin connector with 3 yellow and 3 black wires) or a 4-pin molex to your AGP graphics card.
g) The case you bought will have a power button, some lights that come on when the hard-drive’s working, a power light and some other stuff. For the power switch and lights, there’s usually a little tiny bank of pins all in a row where you plug in the connectors from the case. Find these and consult the motherboard manual for where to plug in what.
h) If your case has other connections for things like USB or front Firewire ports or Audio connections just take these one at a time and find them on the mobo using the manual and plug them in.

11) Last thing, install your IDE cable to your optical drives (big wide ribbon) or a SATA cable to your hard drives (skinny red cable).

Button her up and you’re done. Check the connections, tighten any screws and you should be ready to fire up the machine.

Install the OS by booting from CD. Once you get the OS installed it’s time to “burn in” the machine. The idea is to stress the machine in it’s first few days. If something’s going to go wrong it’ll go wrong then (usually).

a) If your motherboard has self-diagnostic features, turn them on the first few times you boot. Run any memory tests the board has. This stuff is typically enabled by default, if not you can go into the BIOS and turn it on. You can also test memory with Microsoft’s memory scanning utility.

b) Update your motherboards BIOS and drivers. The BIOS flashing procedure is usually described by your motherboard’s manual. Sometimes you’ll need to update the chipset drivers (done through the WindowsUpdate or nVidia.com) BEFORE flashing the bios, again read the manual and you’ll be all set.

c) Install something like SANDRA lite and use it to check your machine’s temperature and voltages. CPU should be around 30-40C whilst idle but don’t be surprised if it gets up to 60C under load. Any higher and I’d start to get concerned. GPU (graphics processing unit) temps can be checked through the utilities that came with your card, in the case if nVidia just right-click on the desktop and click “Nvidia Properties”. ATI will have something similar. GPU temps will be around 40-50C and can get as high as 80C but this is unusual.

d) Run utilities like 3DMark and SuperPi to generate some load on the machine. Run these for a couple of hours. If the machine doesn’t overheat or blue-screen then you’re golden(probably). If it does overheat or bluescreen it’s time to hit the message boards and diagnose the problem.

Hopefully that helps de-mystify the process of building a PC. Of course you may run into problems, but there are plenty of forums to help you.

The Motherboard Box (you’ll need one of these)	Open Motherboard box	The motherboard itself	Alternative motherboard angle	The Case box (you’ll need one of these)
The Power supply (you’ll need one of these). DON’T buy this one, it’s garbage. I recommend the Seasonic S-12 600Watt. You’ll see later that I returned this Antec unit for a Seasonic.	The Video Card. You’ll need at least one of these but could buy 2 for an SLI machine. This is an eVGA brand 7800GT PCI Express card. Good value for the money and a killer card overall.	The motherboard box again (it’s too pretty). This is an SLI motherboard from Asus. It sports a passive (no fan) cooled chipset and an excellent layout.	The Hard Drive (you’ll need at least one of these). This is an OEM hard drive and literally comes with NOTHING else. You can save money buy buying OEM parts.	The Processor (you’ll need one of these). This is an AMD 64 bit Athlon 4200+ dual core. An EXCELLENT processor. I don’t recommend buying an OEM processor, it’s not worth the savings.
2 sticks of Memory. You’ll need at least 1 memory stick but I recommend buying 2 matched sticks like this. This is 2x1GB of OCZ Platinum DDR400 memory.	The Antec P180 case coming out of it’s box.	The Antec P180. I have a passive recommendation of this case. It’s cheap and quiet but don’t expect Lian Li build quality.	The motherboard box’s contents. Don’t be alarmed, you don’t need all this stuff. It’s nice to have for the future though.	The mobo one more time.
Take off the side panels.	Take out the drive cages and other removable fans.	This is the backplane, it’s gotta go and be replaced by the one that came with the mobo.	The P180 hides it’s screws in a box behind one of the cages.	You can find brass-standoffs in this box but I didn’t need them.
The new backplane in place, it just pushes in.	Slide the motherboard up and lift the tabs on the backplane up over the motherboard ports.	The mobo is in place, screw that baby down.	The Power Supply contents. NOTE: This is an Antec 550W and I ended up returning it. I’m just leaving the pictures in to demonstrate the assembly.	Unscrew the cage from the P180 and wrap the PSU with it.
It’s a good fit but the Seasonic I ended up using won’t fit this thing. It’s not needed anyway.	Depending on your PSU you’ll have different cables. This is what a 4 pin motherboard connection looks like. There are 2 in case you have a dual cpu motherboard. Plug in 1.	Can you guess where this goes?	These are molex connectors, they go to things like fans and IDE drives (not SATA drives).	This big fan is not really needed but blows air on the PSU. I took it out to make wiring easier.
For the optical drives, you’ll need to break off a piece like this for each drive.	Screw two of the drive rails onto each drive. Metal tabs face the front and should be flush with the front of the drive.	I use these itty bitty screws.	Slide the drive in from the front until it clicks.	Hard drive next. Screw each drive into the drive cage.
You have to use these elongated screws to make it through the silicone grommits.	Nice drive in it’s cage.	Contents of the video card box.	This is where the video card is going.	Put the memory in like this, BEFORE the video card. Otherwise the memory won’t fit past the card. Use slots 1 and 3 or whatever your mobo manual says.
Push in the graphics card.	Contents of the CPU’s box.	AMD CPUs come with a easy to follow sheet.	Hold the CPU gingerly, remember not to touch the pins and not to get grease on the chip. Marvel at the amazing pins. Lift the handle and slot that sucker home. No force should be needed.	Here’s the bottom of the heatsink. Keep that baby clean.
It’s the most nerve wracking thing to squash that heatsink on the chip but here’s the finished product.	Slide the drive cages in.	No time to wire up the case to the motherboard. This is a mess but take your time, consult the motherboard manual and you’ll find where everything goes.	Stick a SATA cable in your drive (the red thing).	Some wiring is needed.
	A cable tie can help keep things neat.	I ended up replacing my power supply as the Antec 550W has a low Amp rating on the +5v rail. This meant the machine would turn off unexpectedly. I returned it for a Seasonic S-12 600W. Here you see a Seasonic S-12 330W which New Egg sent me by mistake. Imagine my dismay!	Finished product, ready to be powered up.