Blog 5: Let’s Get to Building! + A Special Guest Appearance
James P -
Hello everyone and Welcome back to another week of my blog. Last week, I ended up working on starting my website out and making a program to help find parts while I waited for all my parts to arrive. Now, all the parts have arrived, and so I think it’s time to actually start building some computers. Just as a reminder, I plan on building two computers – one will be using the Linus method, adding a GPU to an already existing PC workstation, and the other will be using the eBay method, building the entire computer from scratch using each individual component.
I started out by building the Linus PC since I thought it’d be the easiest PC to build. Building the Linus PC was actually very simple, the workstation that I got was already a completed build, so to upgrade it all I had to do initially was insert the GPU into the correct slot. I did end up having a slight issue when it came to the size of the GPU however, the case that the workstation came in was a “mini” case, so the full size, more powerful GPU I bought wouldn’t fit within the case. To fix this, I came up with two solutions: 1. insert a smaller GPU in the same slot or 2. remove some of the case peripherals (extra components) to fit the GPU. I ended up testing and getting both of these solutions to work out, but for the final build I ended up sticking with the first solution since I found it to be the simplest for less experienced PC builders. The final thing I had to change for the Linus PC was the power supply, when adding components, it’s important to make sure the power supply is powerful enough to support the parts, so I did have to replace the power supply to a more powerful one. So, in the end, I ended up simply inserting a GPU and replacing a power supply to create the completed build.
The eBay method ended up being a bit more complicated, but it was still something completely manageable. When building the eBay PC, I ended up doing it in a slightly different way from the Linus PC. As a part of my project, I want to create a detailed manual on the step-by-step process of actually building a PC. So, when building this PC, I decided to also write the rough draft to my manual alongside it as I write down the process of building the PC. I’ll spare the details of actually building the pc since all that can be found in the manual itself, but I would like to outline the timeline of actually building this PC. First, I build the entire computer at home, writing down a rough idea of how I built it, but I didn’t power it on nor see if it works. Then, at my internship, I added thermal paste and powered it on to see it work. I also ended up adding Windows to the computer. Finally, after completing the build, I went back to the manual to refine the exact details. Overall, this entire process was very similar to “classic” computer building.
Now, I know what some of you may be thinking: “There’s no way I could build a computer; I’ve got no experience with computer building, I’m a total beginner”. Computer building may seem super intimidating at first, but I want to prove that anyone can do it. To do this, I asked my friend Moorea, who in her own words knew “nothing about building computers”, to build a computer on her own. To achieve this, I took apart the eBay PC I made, laid out the parts, and guided her through the rough draft of my manual, trying to stay as hands off as possible. This process also helped me refine my manual, seeing which parts could be clearer. As usual with computer building, we did end up with some hiccups. For example, describing where some parts go without using technical words was tricky. Also, some misused screw types when installing the motherboard ended up causing a lot of problems for the completed build. However, even with those hiccups (especially the screws), Moorea was able to build the computer entirely by herself and was able to get it up and running. For reference, it took me ~4 hours to build this computer when I was writing the manual at the same time. It took her around the same amount of time, though taking out the time dealing with the screw problem, she only spent ~2 hours to build the entire thing. In the end, Moorea went from knowing nothing about computer building to building one entirely on her own, proving that anyone can get into computer building, no matter the experience.
By the end of this week, I was able to make both the Linus Method PC and the eBay PC, got started and refined my manual, and most importantly proved that computer building is possible for anyone. For next week’s blog, I plan on taking all the computers I’ve built and benchmarking them to see how each computer compares when looking at their costs. I also plan on testing the GPU accelerator when it comes to gaming-type GPUs vs rendering-type GPUs.
Pictured: All The Parts I Received
Pictured: PC Workstation with added GPU
Pictured: My Completed eBay PC Build
Pictured: Moorea working on her PC
Pictured: Moorea showcasing her completed build
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