Legit Reviews

Building Your Own Computer (DIY) Guide

Now that Legit Reviews has been doing system guides since the start of 2006 one of the most asked questions is how to put one of these systems together. We recently had a reader in the St. Louis area order in our March 2006 Do-It-Yourself Mainstream Intel System and we were there to document the build.



Article Title: Building Your Own Computer (DIY) Guide
Hardware Guides: System Hardware Guides

Am I the only one disturbed that the motherboard is sitting DIRECTLY on the carpet?

Not to mention the memory and the hard drive?

you know after building PC's for well over 12 years I have never once fried a piece of hardware ever by having it sit on carpet!

Many people don't understand how tough this stuff is. For example Memory companies used to put memory modules in the dishwasher after they were made to help wash them off. You can take your modules run them in the dishwasher and plug them back in and they should work fine. If you sit something on the carpet nothing is going to happen unless you get a really big static charge going, but I've zapped the wall a couple times carrying a board around and it didn't get hurt.

Hmm... guess it may not be as big a deal in warmer climates.

Up here when it gets cold, just walking around for a bit on the carpet will charge you up. Enough to zap other people with.

it still does that here, but nothing major. As I stated in the article it's best to have the anti-static wrist band on, but i've never used one or even owned one for that matter.

We strongly suggest grabbing a pint of your favorite brew and getting to know your new computer. The early days are the most important as imprinting will take place. This is officially the first encounter between the computer and its new owner. By carefully nurturing your computer from the start you will have successfully started a bond that should last well into the next upgrade.

haha

yeah i have had my system just automatically power off because of wires touching where they shouldnt be and creating shorts. after a few seconds it will work just fine like nothing happened. I dont know about the dish washing part, i wouldnt do it. Well i might with an old stick i will probably never use.... want to to try it and report back?

Yeah, I noticed the anti static-warnings and carpet photo's!

Its what I've always done too, but I guess when your telling other people what to do you have to cover yourselves right?

QQ. I was wondering is there space to install a fan in the Sonata II at the front where the hard drives are?


DAn

I live in PA, and it gets pretty darn cold here I also have a humidifier that we run in the living room because of the static build up by walking on the carpet.

Now the computer stuff - I have NEVER had anything fry do to static electricity...I have touched a motherboard and "discharged" the build up in me, and nothing has happened. I would love to see a test done to see where thebreaking point is for static electricity, or if it is all an urban legend.

Mike

Oh I have been building comp for ---wow---15 years...maybe 16...too old to remember..LOL - and NOTHING I repeat, NOTHING has ever been damaged by static, and I use NO protection what so ever.

If you try it this way and it fries something, its not my fault...blame it on kenc51 hehehehe

KnightRid wrote: If you try it this way and it fries something, its not my fault...blame it on kenc51 hehehehe

??????

I've yet to kill anything by static either, my gfx died, but It wasn't OC'ed and I didn't even touch it when it went

@ the moment I have 2x OCZ 1GB kits sitting on my floor along with 2 HDD's and my TV card.....and yet the floor has a carpet

To this day, I have never seen an anti-static strap in my life!
Even when I was removing the IHS from my CPU, I put the cpu on the (carpetted) floor inbetween me cutting into it and trying to calm down

CPU's/IC's etc are very robust!!!

In the past I had a psu which had an exposed 12v cable (molex connecter came off) --> many times this caused a short on my mobo/chipset hsf etc. -> the pc would shut down, but would boot back up no probs!

BUT it can happen......

Dragon_Cooler wrote:yeah i have had my system just automatically power off because of wires touching where they shouldnt be and creating shorts. after a few seconds it will work just fine like nothing happened. I dont know about the dish washing part, i wouldnt do it. Well i might with an old stick i will probably never use.... want to to try it and report back?

I've toured companies like Kingston and Corsair and seen the dishwashers in use a number of years ago!

ahh yes ye old diswasher test its a oldy but goody

shall i try it?? i bet not to use the hot part of the cycle though huh!?!?!? LOL

why not run the hot cycle? Remember they BAKE all the PCB's in hot ovens a number of times. Unless it's hot enough to melt the lead free connections nothing will go wrong. Although quick temperature changes are not good

Very nice write-up for first timers! I like that black HDD too! I never realized they made them black. Good thing to know on the SATA Power Connectors too, as I didn't know they had two connectors available and you should only use one. What is the reason for this?


I saw one thing for sure that caught my eye that needed to be fixed... I had to read it a few times to make sure I was reading it right.

With the racing stickers installed your computer build it finally complete... or is it?

to

With the racing stickers installed your computer build is finally complete... or is it?

woot good catch editor NAiLs

Seen as though my question appears to have been overlooked, I'll ask again!

I was wondering is there space to install a fan in the Sonata II at the front where the hard drives are?


Dan

1 front 120mm case fan can be installed, but it can't be more than 25mm thick.

You can also place a 92mm fan in the air duct to help cool the CPU if you wanted to also.