**Frustrated Rant**

Well, it looks as if I'm not going to get these new PC parts after all - my nephew from Michigan came here for a visit and Mom wanted him and Tim (my Penna. nephew) to finish her studio, with is just about finished, before she tells them about this new PC - these nephews showed up at 2 PM as Mom and I were leaving to go to Office Depot for my free backpack, and when we returned, the boys were gone. Then around 7:30 I saw Tim's car (he is 22, will be 23 next month) next to our house, and all day and evening I kept waiting on pins and needles for them to return and finish up Mom's studio, and just now I went down the basement and out the cellar door to check to see if Tim's car was still there, but it was gone. Nate (he's 29 years old, single, lives out of state 4/8 hrs. away) and both boys are sleeping up at my Penna. sister's house (which is a mile from us). Tim is my Penna. sister's son.

The boys never came upstairs to tell Mom what/where they were going or what they're planning to do - they just jumped in Tim's car and took off.

I'm so angry that Mom's studio isn't getting completely finished (it's not quite done) that I'm ready to just give up after days and days and days of waiting (a total of 4 months, along with Mom) for my Penna. nephew to finish her studio, but he never tells us anything - it's like he's on another planet living his alien life with his alien parents (they don't communicate with Mom, I, or my Michigan sister, either) while Mom and I are humans living our human life on earth.

Well, it's better you know how it's going to be with them now than find out halfway through building the computer.

You might email ecollegepc.com and see if they can still build you a computer with XP.

Or maybe build the computer and set it up for a dual boot with XP/Win 7 myself so long as you, Jenny100, InlandAZ (I greatly admire his expertise), and Drac would be so kind as to walk me thru it, as I've never built a PC all by myself before.

I just found out from Mom that that the longest that she's willing to wait for my nephew(s) to finish her studio is up to a year since the time when Tim started stripping the multi-layers of paneling off, and after that, she told me that she'll finish it herself one way or another - as soon as Mom told me this, my frustration/anger level zoomed back down to the zero point.

And, indeed, yes they will build a computer with XP. You just have to e-mail them and ask. Someone over at MM just did exactly that.

Cruise02,
Before you decide to build your own, have a look at some of the youtube videos that show how to do it.

There's a series that starts here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNbEBARu6LY

He doesn't actually start putting things together until along around the 14th or 15th episode
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9x52cH3lWA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8vZbW7ZNpE

There are 23 episodes in all in this particular series.

I've never used ecollege PC, so I can't speak to their quality (or technical support skill sets). But, for about $820.00 (USD) you can get a pretty good deal on a Value Series rig (with XP Home). Of course for that price you don’t get a monitor (but they had several models for under $150.00).

Building a rig isn't difficult, but it does require patience, A little experience doesn't hurt either - there are a lot of small retaining clips and harnesses that you don't want to damage, not to mention all the various flavors of power connectors. In other words, don’t tackle a several thousand dollar custom rig as your first project.

You can also peruse places like eBay, they have many used PC’s for sale. Shipping isn’t going to be cheap, but if you’re lucky you might be able to locate a local seller and negotiate a self pickup (always ask in advance).

Mom's not in a hurry to get her studio finished, the year will be up come April 2011. But as for me, I'm in a hurry to get these new PC parts and get the PC built - especially getting the parts as I might be able to build the PC myself if I take it in tiny little baby steps in case Tim's too, too, too busy to build it - just because I started this thread back in Dec. '09/Jan. '10, and I'm afraid that if I have to wait until April/May 2011 or even June, this thread will fall so far back into the slush pile of GB's glitches forum that I might have trouble finding it and worst of all, it'll be archived come January 2011, and and I'll have to go deep, tedious digging to revive this thread.........and it'll get locked in archives?

umm, if I do have to wait that long, won't I be able to get even better, more advanced PC parts from Newegg - b/c Tiger Direct doesn't have some of the components that Inland, Jenny100, or Drac recommend, they pointed me to Newegg - I'll probably have more money saved, but these more advanced components might be cheaper to buy - I wonder if I'm either doing myself a disservice by having to wait that long, or if I'm doing myself a favor?

And about that Jaton 3DFORCE6200Twin-LP GeForce 6200 256MB 64-bit DDR2 AGP 8X Low Profile Ready Video Card video card that I might have to get for the old Dell that Inland linked me to at Newegg - will this become rare, expensive by then (hope not)?

and, even if my original vid card in the old Dell is still good, how do I explain to my computer illiterate mom (she's 81, doesn't want to bother with learning about computers at her age) that it would be good to get this card sooner rather than later so I'll have a backup?


Have any recommendations on what I can practice on so I can gain experience during this long wait?

Cruise02, I can tell you you aren't going to save much by building one yourself. When I built mine I did it to learn something. The other two I've built since then were essentially "rebuilds" of components and motherboards into new cases.

If you have the money all at once, I would still recommend you have ecollege build you one. I've priced several builds with them and then put the same parts together using Newegg parts and the savings from doing it myself was pretty insignificant.

And if you have to wait, just start a new post since you will be starting from scratch anyway.

Eventually it will disappear, but for the time being there seems to be a plethora of them available.

There's always eBay

Inland, I was hoping you would answer this question - could you please give this some thought?

I did take a hands-on PC building class at the local community college about 10 years ago, but this was back in the days of DOS/win 95/98, and although I let my mind drift during the boring lectures, I couldn't wait to do the hand-on stuff, and I kept thinking about doing more hands-on work during the teacher's lectures, so I missed a lot as a result. I really enjoyed this class, and I wanted to take more classes like this - but that class was the only such course the college offered. However, I was able to pay attention to and hear the speaker quite clearly from these "how to build a PC" videos that Jenny100 linked me to while at my Bible study teacher's house yesterday.

You might look into the possibility of retaking the class if you enjoyed it. A lot has changed inside computers since the DOS/Win95/98 days and I don't see why your community college would deny you taking the class just because you took it 10 years ago.

If you really want to try to build your own, just keep in mind that unforeseen problems tend to crop up. We'll help you as much as we can, but describing things over the Internet is different from being there and actually being able to see the situation first hand.

There's no shortage of folks available here to help you, so if that's what you want to do, we'll be here. What specifically do you want to build and what's the intended purpose? On top of that... how much are you willing to spend?

There are a couple of things you should consider -

1.) If you just want to get your hands wet there's no better way than an upgrade (although that route does have pitfalls).
2.) If you're comfortable with electronic components and PC's in general, then building a new rig from scratch is actually the easiest approach.

Even the best of us have problems -- PC's as well as their bigger brothers just seem to be problematic (which is why I'm still overworked, even at my age).

Edit -



These are the words of experience (and wisdom)

Nah, thanks, Jenny, my school days are over - I get more out of learning things over the internet from videos like you linked me to that tell how to build a PC because I can go at my own pace, instead of going lockstep with the class, sitting in class for several hours listening to a boring lecture before getting into the hands on stuff - oh, I know the teacher is right there to help me, this is the same with taking Digital Art at the college where you learn photoshop, but I learn better if I can go at my own pace and not have to worry how I'm going to get home. Also, I don't like to study or take exams too much, and besides, the college has a rule that a passed class cannot be retaken. Moreover, I have absolutely no desire to go back to school and take a class, and I, for example, taught myself photoshop CS right at home at my own pace out of a guide book, and when I came across any problems, I made an .png/.jpg image illustrating the problem and posted this on the appropriate forum.




Thanks for the kind offer of help, Jenny, I'll gladly accept it. As for an unforeseen problem, can't I take a photo illustrating the problem and post a link to that photo here?

Over the past couple of years since I first joined gaming forums I found that good, kind, honest people like you folks at GB were available to help me many, many times to fix a computer problem and thus I avoided countless arguments with my family over when my way-too-busy nephew was going to pop over and help me with said computer problems, and getting my family upset. I'm also a member at PC Guide, but I never started a build-my-own-PC over there b/c the people at PC Guide aren't really into adventure gaming (as I'm assuming)


I want to build a PC that will not only play the upcoming adventure games that are listed on the GB New & Upcoming Adventures List, but games such as MS Flight Simulator X Deluxe, Thief 3 Deadly Shadows (if my old Dell cannot handle this), games such as Immortals of Terra, Nikopol, Overclocked, etc. No new FPS, or games that have fighting in them, don't know whether I'll play any new racing/flight-sim games, but I will play games like Darkstar (not Darkstar One) on this new rig.



As must as I have to spend regarding the components I'll have to buy for my intended purpose - as of today I have $650 saved; if I have to, I'll put away more money in the coming months in order to meet the price of components that are required for my intended purpose.

I agree with you on this, Inland - I want to get my hands wet now - they're pretty dry right now. How about if I spring for that Jaton 3D GeForce video card and put use it to upgrade the old Dell's graphics card at the present time?

How many upgrade projects do I have to do before my hands are thoroughly wet enough to tackle this new PC building project?

I still have the old PC tower from my Penna. nephew sitting in the dinning room near the desk where I access the internet on my MBP - should I use that tower as my practice project, and if so, what should I do with it?


I'm comfortable with installing game patches, hardware drivers as long as I have the instructions, but on the electronic components - (gasp) I'll have to get my bone-dry hands wet first - they're not even moist!

If I can get them wet by tinkering with that old PC tower in the dinning room, I'll feel pretty safe because first of all, it's old, it's not my gaming PC, it's not my work PC, it's just a practice PC.

What kind of things did you do in that PC building class? (after the lecture part was over)
Did you actually build a computer in that class or did you only learn what the parts looked like? Did you replace things rather than building from scratch? Did you have your own practice computer to work on or did you have to share with a group of other students?

Is the old PC tower in your dining room an empty case or is there any kind of computer inside it? If there's something inside, does it work or is it ailing? Does it have parts missing?

If we're going to come up with a project for you, it would help to know what type of starting material you have to work with. If there's nothing inside the computer, maybe buying an old motherboard off ebay and installing that would be possible. If there's a motherboard already inside, then you could practice removing it and reinstalling it. Or you might want to start with something easier, like installing a CD drive.

first, all the students were grouped into 2's or 3's, each assigned to a desktop pc case that sat atop a desk. all we had was our grounding wrist-strap and, a regular screwdriver, a phillips screwdriver, and maybe a couple of other small hand tools. each pc case - there were no towers - was fully assembled, and as the small groups of students progressed thru the course, the first thing we did was hook up the pc to a electrical outlet, turn it on, and delete the operating system. next, we opened the pc case, and removed a few parts after first unscrewing them from the motherboard and disconnecting the connectors, then after the sound card, memory sticks, video card, floppy diskette, cd rom and hard drive were taken out, we disconnected all the wires from the case's battery compartment as well as the case itself, then removed the motherboard, the psu, the fan, and then we removed the psu, and the fan themselves, thus leaving ourselves a bare, empty pc case. this took a couple of months to do since we only had hands-on work for like, from 1 - 1.5 hours, and the class was only once a week.

after all the parts were removed from the pc cases, they were placed in - if my memory serves me well - ziplock plactic baggies and of course, carefully labeled along with the date.

next, we had to reverse everything we did during the re-assembly, and this took a couple of months, until finally the pc's were all completely reassembled. then we had to install the operating system, which was windows 95 back then.

after this, it was spring '98 semester/easter break, and next, it was time to take our finals where we had to take a written test and a hands on test where we had to fix a broken pc.

i answered the first part of this question above. regarding the second part of this question, yes, i took another pc course - introduction to pc's - to learn what the parts looked like the semester before this one, in fall '97.

no, we didn't actually build from scratch, we removed and then put back inside the parts that were originally in each assigned pc tower.

no, i did not have my own practice computer - i shared a computer with 1 or 2 other classmates, and we worked together, helping one another. the other person did most of the work, and all i did was help him on several small things.



afaik, it's not an empty case - i'm sure there parts inside that thing.


i'm not sure. i have to ask my nephew.



first, i'd want to start in the wading pool, and go gradually deeper during this practice period. of course, i'd like to start by installing a cd drive first, then the memory, video and sound cards, take a break, then move to the deeper parts. but as for buying an old motherboard off of ebay? i don't know if Mom would allow it - how might I convince her to allow it? She might think it's a waste of money - wouldn't it be better and less stress on Mom's nerves if I can obtain an old pc from one of my local friends for free, perhaps?

But then again, if that tower does have parts inside of it, wouldn't it be excellent practice material to remove all the parts and wires to end up with an empty tower, and then reassemble these parts back into the tower and try to get the pc to actually work, and if it does, install an os?