How Many Machines Have You Built?

Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
This might be a bit of a stretch for some of you to remember but what's the stories behind the various machines you've built over the years? Post yours and discuss with others their creations. If you want to post pictures go for it but do links and not embedded as we have other threads for that kind of thing. Also I picked the parts for all of them so you might see some bias towards certain things.

1. My computer in September of 2011 was my first.
Same in my sig except had a Phenom II 955, 4GB, 5770, no SSD, Rosewill Challenger, no CM 212.
2. Early 2012 I built 2 machines for for friends that were fairly similar. FX 6300 on a 970 board with 7870's and 8GB of RAM in each. One of those is sitting a couple feet behind me as he's now my roommate. He's even using my old Rosewill Challenger. :p
3. Built a machine at school actually as a side project for my programming teacher. It was a craptastic machine that we were trying to install Linux on since all the school machines were impossible to do that with. I'm pretty sure the CPU wasn't even AMD or Intel. Piece of crap machine but still fun to do. It never ended up really getting used. Probably still in her room collecting dust.
4. Went over to a friends house to help with his computer because it wouldn't start after he built it and after a basically complete rebuild we got it up and running. Nice system with a 3570K, GTX 660 TI (nice at the time :p ), 16GB of RAM, and a nice Asus Sabertooth board (forget the chispet).
5. Built 2 more machines for 2 other friends around the same time that were also similar. Both had FX 8320's in them coupled with a GTX 760 as well as 8GB of RAM.
6. Most recent machine I built was for my brother last December. FX 8320, GTX 760, 8GB RAM, all in a Rosewill Blackhawk. The Blackhawk was a surprisingly nice case, probably my favorite one I've worked in except my Phantom.

Over the years I added various parts to mine, notably completely rebuilding it in my Phantom as well as getting an 8320 and my SSD due to the prize draw.

Totals
Machines: 8
FX 8320's used: 4
FX 6300's used: 2
Corsair CX600 used: 5
GTX 760's used: 3
7870's used: 2

You could say I like 8320's and the Corsair CX600. :D

Alright I've spouted mine. Go!
 
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strollin

strollin

Well-Known Member
I couldn't possibly recall all the computers I've built over the years. I built my first in 1985. It was a clone of an IBM XT, with an 8Mhz 8088cpu, 640K RAM, 1 360K floppy and a 20MB hard drive. In the almost 30 years since then I've built for myself, family and friends. I'd estimate I've built 25 or so.
 
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ninjabubbles3

Active Member
Lol, Ive only built three, and two upgrades to Dell machines.

Two Dell XPS 8500, which I put a GTX 760 and a Corsair CX600 in both

Two builds with the Corsair Obsidian 350D, with some Asus z97 board, an i7 4790K, GTX 760, and 16 gigs of 2400 RAM, both for my Dad, quite a machine.

Then my own, which was a painful excercise in cable management.
 
voyagerfan99

voyagerfan99

Master of Turning Things Off and Back On Again
Staff member
I've built plenty of machines for customers and other people over the years, so I don't know the exact count myself.
 
Darren

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
strollin said:
I couldn't possibly recall all the computers I've built over the years. I built my first in 1985. It was a clone of an IBM XT, with an 8Mhz 8088cpu, 640K RAM, 1 360K floppy and a 20MB hard drive. In the almost 30 years since then I've built for myself, family and friends. I'd estimate I've built 25 or so.
Click to expand...

This makes me feel really young.

ninjabubbles3 said:
Lol, Ive only built three, and two upgrades to Dell machines.

Two Dell XPS 8500, which I put a GTX 760 and a Corsair CX600 in both

Two builds with the Corsair Obsidian 350D, with some Asus z97 board, an i7 4790K, GTX 760, and 16 gigs of 2400 RAM, both for my Dad, quite a machine.

Then my own, which was a painful excercise in cable management.
Click to expand...

My cable management skills are a million times better than they used to be. You learn some good tricks after you've worked on several machines.

voyagerfan99 said:
I've built plenty of machines for customers and other people over the years, so I don't know the exact count myself.
Click to expand...

I figured that would be a pretty typical answer from some of you guys that have clients.
 
C4C

C4C

Well-Known Member
2 Machines so far! Hoping to start advertising my services.

1 i5-4670K
1 Athlon X4 860K

1 GTX 770
1 R9 280X

My cable management isn't the best but it's better then some new builders.
 
N

ninjabubbles3

Active Member
I also took apart, and put back together the old familt computer

.4 GHz Pentium, 400 MB ram, 60 gig hard drive, and a floppy disk drive, no SATA, just ribbon cable
 
beers

beers

Moderator
Staff member
Quite a few. I worked at a PC shop for a few months before getting into a networking role so there's a couple dozen right there :p

I started building PCs with a 1.2 Athlon T-bird, 256 MB PC133, Azza KT3ABX, 40 GB Quantum Fireball, geforce 2 MX though ;)

I have a good 8-10 rigs sitting around the house, spare parts build up after a while...
 
tylerjrb

tylerjrb

Member
This is the first full PC I've built in my sig started around 1.5-2 years ish. Since then I have repaired a few, helped my brother and dads with a few parts on theirs, taken apart my old laptop to swap out the cpu, few other bits and pieces for friends and family.

Only really become interested in PCs in the past few years. When I was younger I used to like guns, bikes, skateboarding things like that. Never had time really. But a few years later was given my first 1.2ghz 512mb RAM laptop to play runescape with my friends in 2006-2007. Around 2012 got a Lenovo z580, read up and developed an interest in PCs, interesting how they work and how to build them. Then I sold that to go towards building my current desktop.
 
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salvage-this

salvage-this

Active Member
I think I at 11 now?

A mix of gaming, home office, photo editing and HTPC builds.

@tylerjrb- same here. I never had an interest in PCs until I started building them in 2010.
 
C4C

C4C

Well-Known Member
ninjabubbles3 said:
Before, after it looks pretty clean, but the bottom right corner is a mess, actual build looks clean though
Click to expand...

I think I know what you mean.. Having a SATA/4pin connector with one 1 or two things connected makes it messy lol
 
ScOuT

ScOuT

VIP Member
I have only built one for myself...it just constantly evolved over several years. I have done about 10 complete start to finish builds for people. I have torn apart, fixed and rebuilt several dozen for people.

Hard to put an exact number on it.

I just received all the stuff for my son's Christmas build....I am teaching him how to build a complete system!
 
strollin

strollin

Well-Known Member
ScOuT said:
...
I just received all the stuff for my son's Christmas build....I am teaching him how to build a complete system!
Click to expand...
I did that one Christmas about 18 years ago (my sons would have been 13 & 11 then). Bought all the parts for my 2 sons to build their own computers, wrapped everything separately and put under the tree. On Christmas morning they unwrapped all of the parts but had no computer until they put it together. I was available for consult. My youngest had his put together and working in about 2 days with minimal help. My oldest took about a week and needed much more hand holding.

I think doing that paid off in the long run as they are both very computer literate and build their own machines and have also helped friends build machines. My oldest son works as a Technical Sales Engineer for a software company and my younger son is a mobile tech for an IT Services company.

I think you are doing a wonderful thing for your son.
 
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