Welcome to The Computer Connoisseur!
Hello everyone, and welcome to the first edition of The Computer Connoisseur! I'm Adam, and I'm a desktop computer building enthusiast. Building a computer is my favorite thing to do. When I'm not building one, I'm checking out the latest and greatest tech videos on Youtube, or browsing through computer part websites to see what's new.
I like to think of computer building as akin to cooking or baking by following a recipe. While the individual parts needed to build a functional computer are each necessary, just the same as the ingredients in a specific recipe are, the end result of a computer build is also almost exclusively dependent on an individual's personal choice and style. No two people will usually make the exact same thing using the same recipe, and I think the same applies to building your own computer.
First, I do want to mention that I am not a cook. At all. I can make simple recipes, but I am not what you would call a culinary specialist in any way. That honor in my house goes to my youngest daughter. She's the chef in the house, and she likes to make bread. She asked me one time if she could make pancakes from scratch, and, I literally asked her "You can do that?" because I was unaware that pancakes are not made solely from pancake mix. So, watching her, and helping her cook, I have observed that in cooking, common ingredients like flour, eggs, butter, water, and sugar can be combined into a recipe for bread, or biscuits, or cake, but each person's recipe is just a little bit different, those same ingredients often turning out widely different versions of the final product because of the unique combinations the chef decides to use. I believe the same can be said about building a computer, because just in selecting the common components such as the case, the fans, the motherboard, the graphics card, the RAM (the memory), and the lighting (if any), you can make a unique build that is very personalized, and could be seen as a sort of "work of art", and not just an "appliance".
You often see online companies and individuals that build "custom" computers, and like in the automotive industry, the word "custom" is most often seen as a system that is modified in some way from the way the components were originally built, and is meant to be a showpiece or uniquely themed build. I believe however that any computer built from unmodified components and a little creative thinking can make for a very personalized and "custom" system. In other words, no cutting, etching, painting, or anything "artsy", because, well, while I am not a cook, I am not an artist in any way, shape or form either. I cannot draw, paint, or sculpt my way out of a wet paper bag. I like to therefore think that my "creative" talent is building a computer in ways that may not be seen as the "normal" way of doing it. And yes, most times, the end result does just look like a "regular" computer. But each one is unique, and built by hand from a collection of parts, by a human, so, it's still "custom".
So, among other things, I intend here to chronicle my experiences in building desktop computers, from early conceptualization to final build, and everything in between. I will talk about the steps I have gone through in finding the parts I wanted or needed, to how I went about building the system, as well as the many fails and pitfalls along the way. There's a lot of choices out there, and there's a lot that can go wrong!
I want to point out things that may be helpful to other builders, such as when certain combinations of parts may not physically fit in a chassis, or when there's what seems like a failed part, but it's been the builder's error that is making things not function. (This one I've done a lot)
I also want to discuss the parts themselves, and my take on what is good, what may not be so good, and what a person shopping for parts can expect to find out when what they saw in the pictures is not what they receive at home.
Oh, and before I forget, a little about how I got to this point in my computer building escapades.
I have been working on computers since about 2001, the year I received an old Dell Optiplex from my father in law. I did have some exposure and instruction on computers in my youth, even having a programming class in high school, way back in 1988, but I had never owned one of my own. Being pretty mechanically inclined (I was an automotive technician at the time), I was curious about it, so I immediately opened it up to see what was inside. I found out all I could about it, investigated options to upgrade it, and, even though I didn't fully realize it at the time, that was when I fell in love with computer hardware. Fast forward to 2005, and as I found myself losing interest in a career in the automotive field, I decided to attend a technical college, and in 2007, acquired an Associate's degree in Network Administration. I had 2 different jobs soon after, in 2007 and 2008, diagnosing and repairing desktop and laptop computers, but as the economy suddenly changed and corporations started to downsize, in each year I was laid off from each job. And I'm sorry to say I have not been able to find a job in the industry since then. I do not have any certifications, such as "A+" (an extensive and somewhat expensive "I know how to work on and with computers" kind of test), so my degree proved to be pretty useless, as most employers require either a bachelor's degree or other credentials for you to be considered a viable candidate for a job in the IT field. Money then became an issue, as trying to pay bills and get extra money to get certified proved impossible, as the jobs I then got did not pay very well.
But I digress. I discovered pretty early on working those jobs that I did not like the software end of things, but I was still fascinated by the hardware, and how the different manufacturers put their computers together. I also found that when you work on computers for a living, you are sometimes offered used computers that are either obsolete or broken, from customers who no longer want them, and I began to acquire a collection of computer parts. I sometimes got complete systems that just needed a hard drive, or a partial system with a bad motherboard that could be swapped for another one I had in my collection. At one point I had collected enough hardware to build a dozen functional computers. It's not as great as it sounds though, like I said, most if not all of it was already obsolete by the time I got it, and I mean so obsolete that it was not worth more than being a museum piece. I did however piece and part together functioning systems that were built using OEM (Dell, Hp, Gateway) components, and I did make some great strides in maxing out their potential. But I had yet to build a complete system brand new. Mostly because of the cost involved, but I also didn't see the need, as I had good enough hardware for the most part to do what I needed to do. Then, in 2015, I decided to build an entire system from completely brand new components. Why did it take me so long to decide to do that? Well, there's a couple of reasons. First, since it had been so long since I had had a job in the industry, the influx of used parts had long since dried up, and the ones I already had become even more obsolete. I was starting to have trouble even loading web pages, as the changes made on the internet moved towards more content per page. Also, before that time, I did not really play any games on the computer, so I did not need to have powerful processors or graphics cards, but I did start playing some games, and found that the systems I had could not keep up. So I set out to build something new, that I hoped would have better performance.
I do not consider myself to be an industry expert, and hope that I do not come across that way. I do not have a piece of paper that says I know all about computers, and that I am qualified to teach others about them. However, I do feel that the experience I have gives me enough insight into computer hardware that I can be helpful to others who are interested in building their own computer, maybe for the first time, which is really why I started this blog in the first place. I want to share what I know, being just a regular person, talking to other regular people. I'd like to inspire others to take up what I feel is my passion, maybe it can become your passion too.
This blog will be the story of what I have learned, and what I would like to show others about; building desktop computers.
I like to think of computer building as akin to cooking or baking by following a recipe. While the individual parts needed to build a functional computer are each necessary, just the same as the ingredients in a specific recipe are, the end result of a computer build is also almost exclusively dependent on an individual's personal choice and style. No two people will usually make the exact same thing using the same recipe, and I think the same applies to building your own computer.
First, I do want to mention that I am not a cook. At all. I can make simple recipes, but I am not what you would call a culinary specialist in any way. That honor in my house goes to my youngest daughter. She's the chef in the house, and she likes to make bread. She asked me one time if she could make pancakes from scratch, and, I literally asked her "You can do that?" because I was unaware that pancakes are not made solely from pancake mix. So, watching her, and helping her cook, I have observed that in cooking, common ingredients like flour, eggs, butter, water, and sugar can be combined into a recipe for bread, or biscuits, or cake, but each person's recipe is just a little bit different, those same ingredients often turning out widely different versions of the final product because of the unique combinations the chef decides to use. I believe the same can be said about building a computer, because just in selecting the common components such as the case, the fans, the motherboard, the graphics card, the RAM (the memory), and the lighting (if any), you can make a unique build that is very personalized, and could be seen as a sort of "work of art", and not just an "appliance".
You often see online companies and individuals that build "custom" computers, and like in the automotive industry, the word "custom" is most often seen as a system that is modified in some way from the way the components were originally built, and is meant to be a showpiece or uniquely themed build. I believe however that any computer built from unmodified components and a little creative thinking can make for a very personalized and "custom" system. In other words, no cutting, etching, painting, or anything "artsy", because, well, while I am not a cook, I am not an artist in any way, shape or form either. I cannot draw, paint, or sculpt my way out of a wet paper bag. I like to therefore think that my "creative" talent is building a computer in ways that may not be seen as the "normal" way of doing it. And yes, most times, the end result does just look like a "regular" computer. But each one is unique, and built by hand from a collection of parts, by a human, so, it's still "custom".
So, among other things, I intend here to chronicle my experiences in building desktop computers, from early conceptualization to final build, and everything in between. I will talk about the steps I have gone through in finding the parts I wanted or needed, to how I went about building the system, as well as the many fails and pitfalls along the way. There's a lot of choices out there, and there's a lot that can go wrong!
I want to point out things that may be helpful to other builders, such as when certain combinations of parts may not physically fit in a chassis, or when there's what seems like a failed part, but it's been the builder's error that is making things not function. (This one I've done a lot)
I also want to discuss the parts themselves, and my take on what is good, what may not be so good, and what a person shopping for parts can expect to find out when what they saw in the pictures is not what they receive at home.
Oh, and before I forget, a little about how I got to this point in my computer building escapades.
I have been working on computers since about 2001, the year I received an old Dell Optiplex from my father in law. I did have some exposure and instruction on computers in my youth, even having a programming class in high school, way back in 1988, but I had never owned one of my own. Being pretty mechanically inclined (I was an automotive technician at the time), I was curious about it, so I immediately opened it up to see what was inside. I found out all I could about it, investigated options to upgrade it, and, even though I didn't fully realize it at the time, that was when I fell in love with computer hardware. Fast forward to 2005, and as I found myself losing interest in a career in the automotive field, I decided to attend a technical college, and in 2007, acquired an Associate's degree in Network Administration. I had 2 different jobs soon after, in 2007 and 2008, diagnosing and repairing desktop and laptop computers, but as the economy suddenly changed and corporations started to downsize, in each year I was laid off from each job. And I'm sorry to say I have not been able to find a job in the industry since then. I do not have any certifications, such as "A+" (an extensive and somewhat expensive "I know how to work on and with computers" kind of test), so my degree proved to be pretty useless, as most employers require either a bachelor's degree or other credentials for you to be considered a viable candidate for a job in the IT field. Money then became an issue, as trying to pay bills and get extra money to get certified proved impossible, as the jobs I then got did not pay very well.
But I digress. I discovered pretty early on working those jobs that I did not like the software end of things, but I was still fascinated by the hardware, and how the different manufacturers put their computers together. I also found that when you work on computers for a living, you are sometimes offered used computers that are either obsolete or broken, from customers who no longer want them, and I began to acquire a collection of computer parts. I sometimes got complete systems that just needed a hard drive, or a partial system with a bad motherboard that could be swapped for another one I had in my collection. At one point I had collected enough hardware to build a dozen functional computers. It's not as great as it sounds though, like I said, most if not all of it was already obsolete by the time I got it, and I mean so obsolete that it was not worth more than being a museum piece. I did however piece and part together functioning systems that were built using OEM (Dell, Hp, Gateway) components, and I did make some great strides in maxing out their potential. But I had yet to build a complete system brand new. Mostly because of the cost involved, but I also didn't see the need, as I had good enough hardware for the most part to do what I needed to do. Then, in 2015, I decided to build an entire system from completely brand new components. Why did it take me so long to decide to do that? Well, there's a couple of reasons. First, since it had been so long since I had had a job in the industry, the influx of used parts had long since dried up, and the ones I already had become even more obsolete. I was starting to have trouble even loading web pages, as the changes made on the internet moved towards more content per page. Also, before that time, I did not really play any games on the computer, so I did not need to have powerful processors or graphics cards, but I did start playing some games, and found that the systems I had could not keep up. So I set out to build something new, that I hoped would have better performance.
I do not consider myself to be an industry expert, and hope that I do not come across that way. I do not have a piece of paper that says I know all about computers, and that I am qualified to teach others about them. However, I do feel that the experience I have gives me enough insight into computer hardware that I can be helpful to others who are interested in building their own computer, maybe for the first time, which is really why I started this blog in the first place. I want to share what I know, being just a regular person, talking to other regular people. I'd like to inspire others to take up what I feel is my passion, maybe it can become your passion too.
This blog will be the story of what I have learned, and what I would like to show others about; building desktop computers.
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