Building a destop PC

C

cooldude3552000

New Member
I am going to build a computer because right now I have a dell optiplex gxi that my dad got me from his work when they upgraded so it is about 7 years old, has 64 megs of ram and is a peice of junk. I have never build a PC but am good at using them. I have been reading on how to build a PC and it doesn't seem to complicated for me to do but I had some questions. I have 500 bucks to spend and will be using ebay to save cash. I made a post here asking about what motherboard to use but I have some other questions.

1. are these all the componenst I need or am I missing somthing?
case, motherboard, processor, ram, video card(if not build into the motherboard), sound card (if not built in), hard drive, cd drive, and floppy drive.

I have a CD burner out of a dell that we got last summer but we upgraded it with a dvd burner. I plan to use that in it but I wanted to know fi I could use the CD rom and floppy drive from my old dell in the computer I am building.

Also are there anyother tips I should know?

Thanks,
Colin
 
Sounds like you got it all. I built my first last year. Of course mine cost three times as much as your spending. It went together in less then a few hours but software took a few days. But as long as you have the basic comcept you will be okay. Make sure everything you buy is compatible with each other and it will go together fine. And the cd and floppy from the old computer should be okay too. Just dont be afraid to try and remember static is a bad thing when handling the components.
 
That was the other thing I was kind of confused about, how can I tell if all of the components are campatible? The other thing was, if I want to run XP on this can I use the XP re-instalation disc that came with our new dell? Or do I need to buy a copy of XP?

Thanks for your help
 
From what I understand you will have to buy a new copy of XP. I was lucky because since I am at a University and in some type of computer courses, They will sign off on copies of any microsoft product we might need.

As far as compatibility just look over the boxes, most things will give you the info you are looking for. Like, if you buy a motherboard that is a socket A compatible, Make sure the CPU is a Socket A type, And if the Motherboard is ATX, the case must be ATX. and so on. You shouldnt have to worry too much about Cdrom and floppy, just MB, CPU, Ram, Video, HD compatibility.

THere is a cool site called About.com that has a five day course in Computer building. THey send you an email for five days on the steps to build a new computer. Hope this helps.
 
1. are these all the componenst I need or am I missing somthing?
case, motherboard, processor, ram, video card(if not build into the motherboard), sound card (if not built in), hard drive, cd drive, and floppy drive.
Click to expand...
You'll also want to have a power supply if the case doesnt have one and you might consider some cooling as well

I plan to use that in it but I wanted to know fi I could use the CD rom and floppy drive from my old dell in the computer I am building.
Click to expand...
You can

Also are there anyother tips I should know?
Click to expand...
Be careful on ebay :P
 
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