Got some fun planned

[Panama Red]

I've learned a lot from the folks here at PCMech and since I love working with kids, I'm going to combine these two areas tomorrow night. My hair stylist (she won't let me call her a barber!) has a 13 year old son that is quite interested in computers and wants to save his money to build one. A couple weeks ago, he spent a couple hours with me and I showed him the inside of one of my units and we talked about system configurations, showed him the Mech site and the articles available to read and he's enjoyed the learning. I'm going to be putting a system together tomorrow night from a combination of new mother board and cpu along with old parts from cannibalized systems. I've invited Aaron (the 13yr old) to come over and give me a hand putting the whole thing together. He doesn't know it, but I'm going to let him do most of the work. Should be fun. No greater joy for me than having a positive influence on young people. Now I just hope my parts all get along with each other!!

[DrZaius]

Sounds great, have fun!

[Redo40]

Way to go Panama, I have done this in the past myself. Let us know how it goes.

[Fastfly]

Good Stuff Panama Just make sure it works. Could be a bad feeling for the kid if it doesnt work. No worries though.

I have done the same thing...but in my case older people I am only 16 so almost everyone is older then me.

[Panama Red]

Step #1 complete. Parts arrived on time! And since I'm reusing the old Compaq case, I had some concerns about the M-ATX mobo mounting and psu mounting matching up. I measured everything before I ordered, but still had some concerns. Another relief, all mounting patterns match for the psu and mobo. Keep ya'll posted.

[Mr N8]

You realize that you will be to blame for this kid starting an early addiction to building computers?

Good luck, I hope the build goes well for you guys.

[Panama Red]

Gotta love it!! Aaron arrived at 5:45pm (brought his own screwdiver!) General discussion of what parts we were using and assembly procedures. Reviewed the mobo installation manual and followed them step-by-step. Connected all cables and discovered first challenge; front header wiring/connectors didn't match. (Fixed that today.) Not to worry, use the screwdriver on the connectors trick (Aaron gave me a strange look then touched the screwdriver right where we discussed) Voila! 6:45 first post and all was well. All hardware recognized after loading the mobo cd and only one device conflict - the old modem. Fixed that today with a download from the Compaq site using the old Compaq model #. By the time Aaron went home at 9pm, the Win 98se was loaded and udated, the second stick of ram was added (and it's compatible w/ the first stick), AVG was installed and I'd done all the downloading connected to my home network with the onboard LAN. We both had a lot of fun. I think I'll post back later with a parts list in this "new" build cuz it's so full of salvaged stuff. Amazing what you can do old stuff.

[Redo40]

Good to hear ya'll had so much fun and didn't have any major problems, you probably made yourself a buddy for life.