It’s time for me to ‘fess up. I’m not a PC hobbyist.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d like to be one, I’m just not there yet. I’ve not yet crossed over my Cape of Good Hope because I have yet to build my first PC. This came as a stunning revelation to my wife as we walked the aisles of Costco recently. I’ve been so long involved in the computer trade that she just assumed building them was a long ago hobby of mine. Not so.

I’ve owned computers since way back in the 1980s, when java was coffee, the Russians were the enemy, and Bill Gates was a mere multi-millionaire. I couldn’t afford to buy a PC back then, so the ones I acquired were given to me, usually because their rightful owners couldn’t get them to work rightfully. Then Windows 3.0 came along and people stopped needing me. I was upset with Microsoft for a long time just for having the audacity to market a GUI. (And who do I work for today? Well, if you can’t beat ‘em…)

When one talks about building a PC, one really means assembling it. It’s not like building a house, where you have to pour concrete and sink a wooden frame into place. The PC components are actually just sitting on a warehouse shelf somewhere, waiting to be shipped to you via next-day air. Everyone who purports to make a living in the computer industry should, at least once, assemble a PC from the ground up.

And now it’s my time. While on PCmech last week, I clicked on the link that says “Build Your Own PC,” and found a 27-step article that tells me everything I need to know and then some. I was inspired. I realize that I’m not going to save a great deal of money building my own PC over buying one. But it’s not the savings I’m after, it’s the adventure. I think it’ll be a real kick, not to mention a learning experience. Imagine all the state-of-the-art technical hardware knowledge I’ll have acquired after I complete this simple task. I’ll be saying things like “No need to overclock when you’re running a 3.2 Gig chip with a heat sink” and “Who needs an extra USB port on the motherboard when you’ve got a front-end firewire?”

First on the list is the case. Asking around, it seems that the case near the top of most wish lists is the Antec Sonata, a big black metal box that runs a 380-watt power supply and is supposed to be whisper quiet. I checked one out at my local computer store and, while it didn’t look so special to me, the saleslady was nuts about it. Fortunately, I didn’t buy it that day because when I got home I found that I only had 15 inches of depth in my computer desk. The Sonata measures in at a whopping 18 inches. It’d be like driving home a new Lincoln Continental, only to discover that it won’t fit in my garage.

I knew there must be shorter cases out there, so I clicked around and found an Enermax that will fit perfectly into my computer desk. Only problem is that the case only comes with a 230-watt power supply–not nearly enough for the 2.8GHz processor I’m planning to use. I turned my attention back to the Antec.

I slowly began to understand why Dell and HP do such big business. They don’t sell PCs as much as they sell convenience. It would be so easy to pick up the phone and order a fully built system. But adventure is rarely convenient, and is often expensive. Little did I realize that building a PC would start with buying a new computer desk to accommodate the expansive girth of the coveted Antec Sonata. Now where can I get a cheap computer desk?

Time for another trip to Costco. Stay tuned.

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