wow, big heatsink! looks like a highrise
wow that makes a ton more sence now i nstead of peeple saying that you want dual intel1243 or somtethin u actually explained it
Hello, by any chance, would you have any step-by-step guide for super amateur and intensely klutzy PC builders?
I was looking at these photographs and instructions, and Iām likeā¦ whoa. I donāt think I can do this yet.
Jeff,
I enjoyed the article series when it came out.
But I thought I would let you know that I was able to use the article as a ārecipeā to build a PC with a 16 year old friend of the family.
He was able to do most of the build himself after reading the article and having some guidance from me.
Thanks.
Joel, stopped by to re-read this post before starting my shopping list and saw your comments about the risks of static discharge being greatly overblown.
We just watched a great training vid at work this week about ESD. The folks that put together the vid rigged up a device to measure the voltage being transferred during typical tasks.
I was surprised to learn that every single thing that I thought was good enough to discharge before touching electronic components, was actually/virtually worthless.
they concluded that wrist straps and a grounded work area (uncluttered by plastic, paper or anything) was the only safe way to work.
Great article. Two years on it has helped me immensely in building my developer rig for the first time. Iāve just finished part one and did a little celebratory gig! On to part 2. Thanks very much!
Nice cooling setup.
Please visit my blog 
Most of the time, your motherboard will come with the necessary cables. Do make sure that whatever you buy is actually supported by the motherboard (e.g. if youāre buying SATA-II hard drives, or a PCI-E video card). If itās your first build, Iād suggest double checking either with someone at the store where youāre getting the parts, or with a knowledgeable friend.
YOU ARE AWESOME!!!i was kind of hesitant aboutā¦goig about building my pc myself, but this really helps!and i think ill have all my parts in about a month and will get right to it! one question though,do all the parts come with the right cables/ide connectors?or do i buy thses myself?
Itās certainly true that to get started, itās hard to go wrong with a prebuilt system from Dell or the like. The real benefits from a DIY job come at upgrade time.
For example, I have my own DIY job that suddenly wouldnāt even get to POST. It took me about an hour to figure out that the problem was the power supply. I replaced it, problem solved.
Contrast with the typical Dell customer, who will typically spend about $500 for a new setup. Note that at this point the user has already spend more money but less time, not a bad tradeoff necessarily. But thatās just the beginning, now the user gets to worry about how to migrate all his data to the new drive and OS. The time savings are now gone.
Caption for your āCat helperā pic:
āI am geeksquad cat. I am defraggin ur hard drive for 99 bux.ā
Iām intrigued by the idea that someone who is ānot a hardcore gamerā gets the āmidrangeā option of a pair of SLI-configured 8600GTS cards. You consider that āmid rangeā?
Correct me if Iām wrong: is Scott Hanselman asking for a 3 to 4 monitor setup? Thatās the only way youād definitely need 2 of those cards. Quite possible for hardcore devs, especially those with VPCs running at the background all the time. Or probably he just wants to have an ultra-realistic flight simulator experience 
One of the best reasons Iāve found for building your own machine is that you donāt get saddled with all the bloatware and ātrial versionsā that the vendors pre-install on the hard drive āfor your convenience.ā
Great article! Looking forward to part two
Built this Lego kit in about 10 to 12 hours a few weeks back:
http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?p=B8421cn=57d=70
Eyeing off the 5000 piece Millenium Falcon kit now.
I wouldnāt be so sure if PC assembly can really a easy task. Sure, I have been doing it since i was a teenager anal about the exact specs to power my games, so it appears to be easy. But for anybody who has never assembled one before, Iād caution get a live person with experience for some coaching. There are quite a number of items like the sitting of RAM modules and HSF placement that have high potential for mistakes.
It is not something Iād advise a person to just read a web site guide and attempt it alone.