I like computers very much. I blame my younger brother for that. At one time I was happy running my Nintendo Entertainment System, and later Super Nintendo, in the recesses of my darkened cave. My graphics were much better than his IBM PC Jr and I never had to go out and buy a new card for some outrageous price just because the old one broke. When he transferred to Germany he tried to sell me his stuff for pennies on the dollar. Big deal, SNES was running just fine. Then a few years later something happened. Nintendo decided that Americans didn’t like RPG’s and for the most part quit producing them. I actually called the company and complained. They were cordial, but really didn’t care.
Then something else happened. My dinosaur Monroe CS 8000 printer died. I was told it would be cheaper to buy a whole new computer than repair the printer. Besides, the Monroe was only a glorified word processor using Super Word. So I broke down and bought one. I paid $200 for a 386 running windows 3.1 with a 40 MB hard drive. Much better than my brothers PC Jr, I had a hard drive! I was told I would never be able to fill the hard drive up. That computer only lasted me a year, I couldn’t get the dot matrix printer to work right and to be quite honest it wasn’t what I was looking for. So I had a company build me a Pentium 100. The CPU had just come out and was supposed to be the best on the market. My tastes had changed also, now I wanted a home office and a gaming rig at the same time. As luck would have it, the computer I had built was non-proprietory, so I could upgrade it as new and improved parts came out. Unfortunately, my wife talked me into saving a few bucks, cutting a few corners, you know the best bang for the buck. I got banged. I was never happy with the cheap parts and had problems continuously. So I decided to build my own computer. My wife still talked me into saving a few bucks though. To heck with saving massive amounts of money and buying unreliable parts. This time I did it my way. Its the best thing I ever did. I’ve been running my P4 for two and a half years so far and I am very satisfied with it. If I pass the entrance exam at PC Mechanic, maybe I will tell you exactly what is in my box and why.
My major interest right now is showing you what NOT to do when you consider building your first computer. Also there are some myths out there about certain products that are just not quite true from my experience. You, however, may have had experiences that are different than mine so I need to tell you first and foremost, that my opinions on these products are not governed by any self-interest. I am only conveying what my experiences were in an effort to provide valuable advice. I’m a blue collar worker and I have been working swing shift for over seventeen years. I’m too old to hate any company and too young to care. Lets get to work….
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