How to Go About Building Your Own Computer

Building your own computer can be one of he most rewarding experiences, not only do you learn a lot about how computers work and gain the ability to troubleshoot your own computer to a certain amount, but you will save a lot of money and realize how much of a rip off some shops are.

When building any computer you will need a certain set of hardware components which will make up the machine. These include:

Case
Cables
Motherboard
Hard Drive
CPU & Fan
RAM
Optical Drive
Graphics Card
Monitor
Keyboard & Mouse

Case

Picking a case is as easy as picking a design and look that you like, as long as the case it large enough to house your components it will be fine. Just dont buy a mini case and then buy regular sized components.

Cables

Cable connect all the parts of a machine together, for a standard machine you will need IDE or SATA cables for the hard drive and optical drive. Most other components will fit directly into the motherboard. Power cables are all included with the power supply.

Power Supply

There are a number of power supply wattage’s available. A standard machine will require a 400-600W power supply, for a higher end machine you will want to have at least a 700W to ensure multiple graphics cards etc are getting the supply needed.

Motherboard

A motherboard connects all components together, literally everything within the computer connects to the motherboard. When picking a motherboard it is important to make sure you get one that is compatible with any other components, for example you can not fit an AMD CPU into an Intel motherboard, and vise verse.

Hard Drive

The hard drive is the storage of the computer. This is where all documents and software is stored, so the bigger the hard drive the more storage you will have, a 500GB to 1TB (1000GB) is pretty standard nowadays and fairly cheap.

CPU & Fan

The CPU or central processing unit is like the brain of the computer, it is where all the calculations take place. The fan is simply to cool the CPU and ensure it does not overheat.

RAM

The RAM or random access memory is where any running programs are stored, so the more RAM you have the more software (antivirus, word, IE etc) a computer can run at any time.

Optical Drive

The optical drive is used to run CD’s and DVD’s. In most cases an optical drive will be required because this is how most people will install their operating system.

There are all the comonents used to build a computer. Of course if you do not have a monitor, mouse or keyboard you will have to get these too.

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