Building Your Own Computer

[Hans Tucker (Hans)]

Does anyone still build their own Computers? I remember going the monthly computer vendor shows where you could buy any hardware components .. HDD's, RAM, Graphic Cards etc but these are now a thing of the past. Yeah you can buy anything online now but these monthly meets were a great Sunday out.

I also had a copy of Muellers Upgrading & Repairing PCs. I tried to see if there was an updated version of this book but it seems the 22nd Edition (2015) was the latest and possibly the last update of this great reference.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Hans....I did for years ....bought parts from MSY and Umart mostly.

Cases / Fans / Ram / Power Supplies / Motherboards / CPU's / DVD Burners / Monitors / Hard Drives...... etc....

Col...

[Drac0 (Mark)]

I do, or did. Been 3 or 4 years since the last one I did. But from what I see today it will probably be easier to get online & simply order a custom built system & pay the extra $100 or whatever to have them assemble it.

I too miss the old computer fairs, been years since I've seen one. As you say, a good day out, especially if you're a bit of a geek...

Cheers,
Mark

[floyd_2 (Dean)]

Depending upon the specs you're after, you may even be able to get a decent second hand computer. I've bought about 10 second hand HP Z series business machines over the last few years for work and home and they're bullet proof. Obviously not the very latest tech but plenty powerful enough if you're not a gamer.

[LonelySpoon (Neville)]

Hans,

Mice ate my last one. I made it to have a parallel port for CNC work.

I've just picked up a Raspberry Pi 5 which has all I can think of and plenty of USB3 ports to extend.

My last buy was an ASUS gaming computer to run the scope / observatory.

These days my time is more important than the money, I find.

But it is fun to build things...

Cheers,

Neville,
LSO

[Max Vondel (Peter)]

I built mine for years, now I use a 10 year old laptop.
Times change .....

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Originally Posted by Hans Tucker (Hans)

I remember going the monthly computer vendor shows where you could buy any hardware components .. HDD's, RAM, Graphic Cards etc but these are now a thing of the past. Yeah you can buy anything online now but these monthly meets were a great Sunday out.

I also had a copy of Muellers Upgrading & Repairing PCs. I tried to see if there was an updated version of this book but it seems the 22nd Edition (2015) was the latest and possibly the last update of this great reference.

The fairs got shut down because it was all tax free (the cash payment aspect anyway) The same thing that brought Al Capone undone, you can do anything, just declare it and give the gubbermint their share, fair or otherwise. The prices however were amazing and I went every month, I was building systems for my friends as well as myself when I had the cash to spare
Upgrading and repairing PC's, amazing books complete with CD, I still have a couple of releases here along with Hardware Bible and using Windows 98 (among others).
I read every one of them cover to cover, now I don't see so well and do as little reading as possible. I spend more time with my eyes glued to an idiot box and have gotten considerably less smart.

I've been building my own computers for over 30 years but my next one won't be my build.
I have a Lenovo D30 here with a motherboard with a corrupted BIOS. My son has been playing with his chip coding adapters and tools and trying to write new code for the BIOS chip to get the motherboard running. It now gives us access to BIOS settings on a monitor so he's made some good advancement. Soon.
The D30 takes dual Xeon processors and a lot of ECC RAM.

D30 mother board still on table with Arduino connected to BIOS chip:



https://i.postimg.cc/T3LZkP52/IMG-21...-1696x1271.jpg

I don't play with code, I used to have qualifications in electronics but with my eyes I long ago stopped playing. My son is self taught in both and amazing.
It's taken a combination of an FPGA and an Arduino (due) to get it from totally dead and no boot function whatsoever to an on-screen display.
And my old oscilloscope......

[leon]

I did and with the help of a very talented IIS member who guided me all the way it turned out fantastic, the fasted Desk Top I have ever had for sure.

Leon

[sharkbite]

I used to build and upgrade....mainly because it was cheaper.

I still have my 'monster' 6 core from 2009 - every now and again i have to replace a hard drive, but other than that it still keeps pace with the modern equipment for the processing i do....which is mainly photo and video editing.

It even copes with my sons CAD software, which was a pleasant surprise.

I haven't had to look inside for quite a few years.

I like desktops because of the massive amount of fast storage you can put in them....

but i find myself using laptops/nas more often than not these days.
They are more convenient - and since i don't need anything game-worthy, just as fast for my purposes.

Having said that - i picked up a free laptop that was on its last legs - upgraded the battery, SSD and memory, and it now has years left in it!
(a fun hobby if you go in for that sort of thing!)

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Having said that - i picked up a free laptop that was on its last legs - upgraded the battery, SSD and memory, and it now has years left in it!

A little trick with laptops if people have the abilities, many laptops will drop USB and other ports, working one minute then gone the next. The thermal compound dries with heat and the CPU gets hot and things stop working. Replacing the thermal compound on a semi regular basis makes a HUGE difference.
Hint: A good set of phone tools is invaluable for separating the plastic cases without breaking the clips, quality steel units not the cheap plastic junk.

I'd bought my son an enterprise level HP laptop many years back and it came with 3 years warranty. When things stopped working properly they sent a technician to our home and he replaced the mother board twice, free of charge (I've rarely had service like that but LG will also send someone to pick up a dead monitor and return it when repaired while under warranty).
After the warranty period expired the laptop did the same thing again, USB ports stopped working. My son and I stripped it down, checked everything and eventually decided to replace the thermal compound on the CPU as well as giving it a good blow out with a compressor, we do that with all of our computer equipment, we have cats and it becomes a necessity. Miracle cure, everything worked again and now we do the thermal compound every two years or so and it's now my go to portable to take out with the scope and camera. My son primarily used it to code on when he was little when he was spending weekends at his mothers place, now he prefers doing it on his desktop and like me, has a liking for the 27" monitor. My primary desktop is an old Phenom II 955. Thermal compound gets done every 12 months- 2 years on most of our computer equipment (my son has blade cabinets and a LOT of server gear.
From memory I purchased the HP i5 laptop in 2011.


I've had other old things here die, including a high spec gaming laptop (also HP) I was given as a dead unit and resuscitated. It worked for 2-3 years but now has an undetectable fault, it's in poeces in a box and I'l have another look one day, we haven't been able to find the problem but the PRO HP unit still works like a charm.

[Suzy_A]

My home desktop computer is one I found on the side of the road that someone was throwing out. I opened it up to have a look to see if there were any useful bits inside - memory, HDD etc, and it all looked pretty good, apart from the fact that it looked like someone had spilt a cup of coffee or something on/in it. So I took it home, stripped it, cleaned all the gunk out, washed it in isopropanol, dried it out, and switched it on - runs perfectly! Took me about 10 minutes to hack the Win10 password. It's a high-end gaming computer and I was tempted to go online and play some of the games that were on it, but as I'd probably get killed in the first 2 minutes, I thought that might be a bit mean and that 'Jake' (original coffee-spilling owner) would wonder what the hell happened, so I just ended up formatting the SSD and reinstalling Win10 and other stuff.

My laptop is about 8 years old and was getting a bit slow, so I replaced the HDD with a SSD, added another 4 GBq of memory, a new battery and a clean install of everything and it's now a lot faster than when it was new and even faster than some of the current laptops around.

One of the biggest improvements you can do is a clean install of the operating system and software. Takes a day or so, but the computer runs so much better.

[Mosc_007 (Charles)]

I used to update my Games PC every couple of years. It has been 8 years this time. My Games PC was a 5930k with Two GTX980's in SLI. Both the CPU and and GPU's were custom water cooled. In a massive Corsair 900d case. Two large Radiators and many case fans. Was a great system but I had to eventually update. Not capable of 4k Gaming in anything buy very low settings.

Just before Xmas I decided it was time. I wanted a smaller case as my old system was that heavy I couldn't lift it.

I went to Scorptec at Auburn and Purchased $5000 in parts.

I went for a Mini ITX motherboard with the largest Mini ITX case I could buy. I bought a Thermaltake The Tower 200 Mini Case. Large for a Mini ITX case though.

Asus ROG Strix Z790-I Motherboard.
Intel I9-13900K CPU
64 GB Gskill 6400 DDR5.
Samsung NVME Drive.
240mm Water cooler for the CPU.
Asus TUF RTX4080 GPU
Corsair 1000W PSU
Extra Case Fans.

Man This thing is awesome. Finally have 4k Gaming Maxed out and the GPU doesn't even hit %100. Red Dead Redemtion 2 did hit %90 in one scene, but Max Settings it's mostly around %60-%70 at 4K 60 FPS Vsync.

The CPU is a monster. 24 Core. It's rated at 125 Watts with a Burst to 253 Watts. Up to 5.8 Ghz.

One thing I didn't bet on was the Noise from the fans on the GPU. The RTX4080 is a massive GPU which is rated at 320 Watts. It is very noisy at high loads. Thinking now I should have gone water on it.

I was using a FHD Projector but 4K is mostly a myth with Projectors. You need to spend Min of 10K to get a 'REAL' 4K projector. Most use Pixel Shifting which is not true 4k even though Texas claims they a real.

I ended up buying a 75 Inch 4K TV. It is awesome.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Originally Posted by Mosc_007

I used to update my Games PC every couple of years. It has been 8 years this time. My Games PC was a 5930k with Two GTX980's in SLI. Both the CPU and and GPU's were custom water cooled. In a massive Corsair 900d case. Two large Radiators and many case fans. Was a great system but I had to eventually update. Not capable of 4k Gaming in anything buy very low settings.

Just before Xmas I decided it was time. I wanted a smaller case as my old system was that heavy I couldn't lift it.

I went to Scorptec at Auburn and Purchased $5000 in parts.

I went for a Mini ITX motherboard with the largest Mini ITX case I could buy. I bought a Thermaltake The Tower 200 Mini Case. Large for a Mini ITX case though.

Asus ROG Strix Z790-I Motherboard.
Intel I9-13900K CPU
64 GB Gskill 6400 DDR5.
Samsung NVME Drive.
240mm Water cooler for the CPU.
Asus TUF RTX4080 GPU
Corsair 1000W PSU
Extra Case Fans.

Man This thing is awesome. Finally have 4k Gaming Maxed out and the GPU doesn't even hit %100. Red Dead Redemtion 2 did hit %90 in one scene, but Max Settings it's mostly around %60-%70 at 4K 60 FPS Vsync.

The CPU is a monster. 24 Core. It's rated at 125 Watts with a Burst to 253 Watts. Up to 5.8 Ghz.

One thing I didn't bet on was the Noise from the fans on the GPU. The RTX4080 is a massive GPU which is rated at 320 Watts. It is very noisy at high loads. Thinking now I should have gone water on it.

I was using a FHD Projector but 4K is mostly a myth with Projectors. You need to spend Min of 10K to get a 'REAL' 4K projector. Most use Pixel Shifting which is not true 4k even though Texas claims they a real.

I ended up buying a 75 Inch 4K TV. It is awesome.

Puts my AlienWare 17inch Laptop to shame .... ...I'll just go and put it in the corner

Col...

[alpal]

I'm an electronics technician and I can't be bothered building
my own computers anymore -
it's better to buy one fully made with 2 years warranty -
but I did add a Hard Disk and some more memory to mine
without affecting the warranty.
I did some maintenance on my computer 2 weeks ago.
The desktop computer is just over 2 years old running Win10.
It was getting hot when running all 8 cores at over 55% CPU -

as monitored by the program Core Temp 1.18.

Solution:

I cleaned the dust off my fan and heatsink -
by pulling it out of the computer.
see pic:
https://i.ibb.co/dGkJs7P/Heatsink-cleaning.jpg
I didn’t have an air compressor to blow it out
and I wanted to check that the heatsink compound was correctly applied.
It was applied correctly but a previous computer built by another company wasn’t - over 13 years ago and caused many problems.


I cleaned the dust off each fan blade with a tissue moistened with water and a weak solution of Palmolive liquid detergent.
The heatsink was vacuumed out from all directions
with a small air nozzle attachment.
Also by not using an air compressor I didn't spread dust everywhere through the computer.
However my method is risky as the 4 plastic clips can break when they get old.
2 years old is OK but at 5 to 10 years old & they could easily break –
they are cheap and nasty.
Unless you buy a commercial Server - that’s all you get.

Re-assembly -
It was a fiddly job to get the 4 clips right that hold the fan on to the heatsink and connect it back to the PCB.
It took 3 goes in the end.
I cleaned off the old heatsink compound and used new Nano Diamond compound:

https://www.jaycar.com.au/nano-diamo...cator/p/NM2018

I ended up having to put slightly more Nano Diamond heatsink compound on until I was satisfied with the results at 55% CPU.
It's been working well now in the summer temperatures.


cheers
Allan

[AstroViking (Steve)]

My current machine is a Hackintosh - commodity PC hardware running macOS.

It runs really well and is significantly faster than a comparable Apple device and for a fraction of the cost.

The downside is that you have to be really careful if you fiddle with any of the OpenCore configuration - as I found out to my detriment tonight.

V.

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Originally Posted by alpal

The heatsink was vacuumed out from all directions
with a small air nozzle attachment.
Also by not using an air compressor I didn't spread dust everywhere through the computer.

Heatsinks are aluminium and once removed, taken outside and bulk of grub brushed off with cheap reject shop paint brush (I buy them in various sizes for cleaning electronics (anything)) then a good scrub in a sink and a good dry. I don't vacuum the things, straight in the tub.

Quick question regarding the photos you put a link to, why do you have heatsink compound on both the heatsink and the processor?


https://itigic.com/thermal-paste-on-...or-too-little/


It's only required on the processor and it's better not to apply it too thick, a thin, even coating is best. The purpose of the thermal compound is to fill and level valleys and ridges on the CPU and heatsink and allow good thermal conductivity between CPU and heatsink. Too much and you create a thermal insulator/barrier. Many people (and manufacturers) claim it's better to only use 5 small dabs, one on each corner and one in the middle and not spread it out. I've tried that method and it has worked well but I still usually spread it evenly, force of habit (we'll do 20-30 processors in a row from our server gear).
Hint: $2 sticker remover from Reject shop comes with a great plastic applicator great for spreading thermal compound. Failing that, old plastic coated business cards work.


Sorry, I mentioned blowing computers out with a compressor, I didn't mean those little cans of refrigerant gas (Air duster spray, my son and I turn the cans of air upside down and drizzle the gas out in liquid form and use the refrigerant gas for many things, we don't use the cans for the air), I meant a proper compressor out in the shed (you mentioned you don't have, sorry, I missed that) that blows the dust from everything and most importantly, the PSU (power supply unit). By using a decent compressor it won't spread dust throughout the entire computer, that's the point of the compressor, it blows the dust right out.
Dust left within the case, on mother board, RAM and other small crooks and nannies, sorry, "Nooks and Crannies" will soon get picked up by the case and CPU fans and blow it around into everything. Again, no available compressor, a good, clean, cheap soft bristled paintbrush is your friend, put a mask on (we all have them, right?) and take the case outside. There's nothing a soft bristled paint brush will damage if used with a small amount of care.
There's a lot of dusty crooks and nannies out there, LOL.

Prior to touching RAM, if not using a anti-static wrist strap or mat, touch the computer case to ground yourself and discharge any built up bodily static charge. I do it frequently through any build/strip down /repair. d I've been building and servicing computers for over 30 years (electronics and IT qualifications).

I also remove RAM and wipe the contacts on the RAM sticks with methylated spirits, electrical contact cleaner or Isopropyl alcohol and brush/blow out RAM slots. Dust in RAM slots accounts for a lot of PC problems, as does poorly seated RAM

We have a LOT of server gear here, my son has 4 C7000 blade cabinets (only 1 populated with 16 blade servers thankfully), a C3000 (8 blade cabinet), a rack mount DL360 twin processor server sitting on a cupboard in the kitchen which is our firewall and my sons VM's he plays with, 24 and 48 port switches in multiple rooms (plus more gear than I can mention (or remember, all bought cheap from Grays auctions in Sydney)) and basically rely on a decent compressor to keep it all clean because we have cats too.

Though I have a back yard where I can do that and a decent compressor in a shed to use for the purpose. Those little air brush compressors and most tyre inflators are toys depending on how much you spend (fit for their intended purpose) and won't blow dust from a computer, heaven knows I've tried when I can't be bothered going up to the shed late at night in the rain

[alpal]

Originally Posted by Leo.G

Heatsinks are aluminium and once removed, taken outside and bulk of grub brushed off with cheap reject shop paint brush (I buy them in various sizes for cleaning electronics (anything)) then a good scrub in a sink and a good dry. I don't vacuum the things, straight in the tub.


Quick question regarding the photos you put a link to, why do you have heatsink compound on both the heatsink and the processor?
It's only required on the processor and it's better not to apply it too thick, a thin, even coating is best. Many people (and manufacturers) claim it's better to only use 5 small dabs, one on each corner and one in the middle and not spread it out. I've tried that method and it has worked well but I still usually spread it evenly, force of habit (we'll do 20-30 processors in a row from our server gear).


Though I have a back yard where I can do that and a decent compressor in a shed to use for the purpose. Those little air brush compressors and most tyre inflators are toys depending on how much you spend (fit for their intended purpose) and won't blow dust from a computer, heaven knows I've tried when I can't be bothered going up to the shed late at night in the rain

I originally put only a tiny smear on both the heatsink and CPU
but the temperature rose too fast and had to stop the 55% CPU program.
The reason is that the 4 clips holding down the fan and heatsink assembly
were not clamping it tightly enough.
There is no adjustment with that assembly - it's a cheap system -
so I put slightly more compound on and it worked perfectly.
Not to worry - the nano diamond compound has very low
thermal resistance.

Those cans of air spray are not powerful enough to clean the
dust off heatsink/fan assemblies.
A vacuum cleaner won't do anything either.
You need a powerful air compressor and one with a water trap too.
However - sometimes the dust will not come off the fan blades unless
you wash it off so a disassembly is required.
In my case the heatsink blades were nice and shiny so
they didn't need a full immersion wash.

Disassembly?
It's worth it sometimes to see what's going on.
I've seen heatsink compound go brown from being cooked so much -
That was in a laptop where the air duct was clogged from a thick layer of dust
that was a like a piece of carpet completely blocking it.
However - disassembly is not for the faint hearted and
those without the experience to test with a program to run the CPU hard
and a temp monitor program too.

cheers
Allan

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Not a big fan of those plastic heat sink attachment mechanisms.
I have one here I removed form an old processor and it was broken when I got the computer. I have a lot of older computer gear and printers given to me. A short time ago I was given an A3 ink-jet printer near new which the owner claimed wouldn't work and warranty was voided because she inserted after market third party ink cartridges. I brought the thing home and offered to fix it free and return it (A friends daughter) but she said she didn't want it, she'd already replaced it.
My son and I took a look at the thing, bought a cheap third party cartridge set from eBay and the thing works like a charm. Her problem, she was out of black ink. And it was an expensive Brother A3 printer.

My HP laserjet I was given as a dead unit (irrecoverable) by a former local computer repair shop. I brought it home to strip for motors, gears and components. My son wouldn't let me strip it because it is an amazing looking all in one machine. I bought a cheap third party toner cartridge on eBay, inserted it (the only error it showed). It still had an error and continually asked for a toner cartridge. Eventually I turned the thing upside down and had a good look and noticed what I thought was a spring in an unusual place. It turned out to be an industrial size paper clip jammed in the feed mechanism, I removed the clip and it's a new printer, an expensive home office unit which had done 800 prints in total from new. The repair shop technicians couldn't find the fault and had no idea. it's our primary printer (mono).

My being on a pension means often the only way I'm getting any decent stuff is resurrecting other peoples throw away units.
As mentioned, I've been doing this for over 30 years and before plug and play became a thing I would diagnose and repair mother boards and other system boards down to a component level with an oscilloscope, multimeter and soldering iron. I had better eyes back then....
I cut my teeth working for Rank NEC and National (Matsush!ta electric company) building and fixing TV's back in the mid 70s till sometime in the 80s.
I'd been studying and messing with electronics since I was 11 and played mainly with valve stuff at home.

Canned air, good for keyboards and dripping the refrigerant into empty 1.5 litre water bottles (it boils at -24.7C, sealing them and wait till the gas boils and they reach maximum expansion and striking them with my old xylophone hammer. I'll have a full set to play tunes on soon

[alpal]

Originally Posted by Leo.G

Not a big fan of those plastic heat sink attachment mechanisms.
I have one here I removed form an old processor and it was broken when I got the computer.

Yes - a different system? -

it would be better to have 4 threaded inserts in the motherboard PCB
so it could be tightened with equal force on all 4 corners
of the fan/heatsink assembly.

But - maybe people would over tighten them and crack the PCB?
You'd really need a low force torque wrench to get it right -
maybe 2lbs/inch?


Allan

[Leo.G (Leo)]

But - maybe people would over tighten them and crack the PCB?
You'd really need a low force torque wrench to get it right -
maybe 2lbs/inch?

I tighten them till they stop, no force and no torque wrench. The plastic stuff is tricky but again, I don't over tighten them, I guess it's a feel thing when you've done enough of the things, as soon as I feel them bite, that's it.



Our Lenovo home server gear and all of our HP server gear (we have a lot, currently not being used other than the rack mount DL360 acting as a firewall) all have an amazing system of screws with springs going into a catch nut mounted on the board itself. I think the quality is in the higher priced stuff but most of the stuff I'm talking about is more enterprise level.
I have a Lenovo D30 motherboard on my coffee table in the lounge room (no other room in the house to do anything), it has a dead BIOS and my son is working on recovering it with an FPGA and an Arduino. He now has BIOS settings showing on a screen (the device wouldn't even reach the boot stage prior when I got it with an unknown fault from auction and Lenovo WON'T release fault codes for a "00" fault showing on the motherboards LED display) and, we can access and edit the BIOS settings. Hopefully soon it will become my primary computer running two 8 core Xeon processors and 64GB or RAM per processor. It's a big machine though.
My son has taught himself to write code in any language you can name, if he hasn't seen the language before give him 5 minutes to look at the syntaxes and he's off and running with that language too. He also taught himself electronics, the internet is amazing. I spent years at TAFE at nights obtaining my qualifications in electronics (and don't remember any of it, my brain is now like a sieve).