Well, I guess each to their own. I only said what I did because last time I decided to build my own, I ended up deciding it was a deeply unrewarding experience and that my time was worth more than spending hours pouring over component spec sheets followed by another few hours of building the thing, only to find the processor was not seated correctly and having to pull the whole lot apart again......

Personally, I would rather buy a high-end "off the shelf" box from HP or Apple and then invest spare time in other hobbies. :ok:

Here's to the home builders.....

http://blog.makezine.com/upload/2008..._wol/fug_0.jpg

How to build a pc.

1) Purchase components, bring together on high tech workbench (dining room table)

2) Screw motherboard to case (six screws, 1 minute).

3) Push fit expansion cards to slots in motherboard (1 minute)

4) Place cpu in slot. Add thermal paste, place cpu cooler on top (1 minute)

5) Place ram in slots (1 minute)

6) Screw hdd/optical drive/floppy drive (Mwahh) Another ten minutes)

7) Wire everything up (40 hours)*

8) Plug in, stand well back & hit the power.

9) Install O/S (1 hour or if LR, allow three weeks.)

10) Enjoy shiny new pc.

That is about all there is to it. Today's Lego kits are harder to build than a pc, the question is why wouldn't you do it?


*Possible exaggeration.


Typed entirely for Mixture's benefit on this homebuilt wheezebox::}
http://i49.tinypic.com/24glziu.jpg

Recently upgraded Bro Drapers HP Pavilion desktop,well replaced everything within,mobo fitted existing case screw hole no prob,had to change the PSU though.
Been bulding me own machines since the days of the 33 mhz 486,before that I had been paying people to upgrade memory install HDs ect,bought a doubler chip to take it up to 66 mhz and had a look inside the case for the first time took out two minutes to figure out a monkey could build one of these things.
:rolleyes:

I once purchased a Packard Bell which worked fine for a while but then I wanted to upgrade the HD. What a nightmare PB do something called a tattoo to the HD so the software disk will only work with the original HD. Eventually after much blood sorted it until I wanted to tweak it some more - impossible. It seemed that branded systems are not designed to upgrade / change / add to etc so it was skipped and went down the home build route. I also thought I had the OS from the PB but it turned out PB only licence the software to the machine so the user has no rights to any software if the machine dies so I vowed never to touch a branded system again. However, if you do go the branded way make sure the OS original install disks are included and not bundled.
I just built another - took about 4 hours & its great I used Scan Computers who were brilliant and good on price
Good Luck

The first PC I ever bought was £1000 from a long since defunct Evesham Micro. It was a good machine in it's time & to this day, I still use the Cambridge Soundworks 5.1 speakers in my home media set up, but upon opening the box up, out of curiosity more than anything else, it dawned on me that these things are no more complex to assemble than Lego.

After that, I never bought another pre built machine & I doubt I ever will. It's too easy to build and get the exact spec. you want.

You are absolutely right.http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ies/thumbs.gif I will never buy a pre-built PC.
There is another thing which some may not realise, :ugh:. Branded PCs usually only have a replacement warranty of one year. However, individual components, like hard disks, optical drives have three year warranties. Some RAM chips have a lifetime warranty, or at least a five year one. Not to mention the price would be much lower than the Branded PC sold by say Dell - of the same specs.
So if you buy your own software and assemble your PC, you probably still end up saving a lot, given that the OEM software bundle usually costs a few dollars lesser than the separate one.
Some OS do not allow you to install other OS. or, the warranty may expire. In the home built PC, you can install any type of software you want. I myself dual boot Windoz with Ubuntu Linux, and quite happy.

Laptops, however MAY be better purchased from the vendor directly. Sadly, there are very few laptops that come without an OS pre-installed.
Well, here is to Open-source too !!