building pcs

[JamieC2003]

straight to the point. I'm sick of buying overpriced computers that turn out to be shit after just a few months, or don't have what i want, which seems to be the case with most manufactured technology recently. Does anybody here build their own computers? Is it better than buying one from the shop? Is there anywhere i can go to get info on how to do it myself?
My laptops only about 9 months old, and already it seems to have long passed its best, slowing down, crashing all the time, doesn't have software that was specified. I want to have something that doesn't force you to buy another in a years time

 

[Neji]

My sister used to have a laptop. I hear you have to get it serviced every year to prevent it from overheating. It turns out it kept overheating and eventually, she just went with a desktop. Less hassles, easier to upgrade/change parts. I only buy my own parts and build myself. You get to pick and choose the best brands etc if you do. It isn't hard to learn. There are various sites you can check out such as http://www.buildeasypc.com/ which will give you tips and guidelines. It's pretty much grown into a personal hobby for me to upgrade my parts from time to time.

 

[trawler69]

My main computer has been a laptop pc for about 3 years. It served me well but only because I spent a lot of time maintaining it. Scanning it for viruses, deleting stuff, defragging it etc. If you want to build your own it will be a desktop, laptops incorporate the hardware on the mother board and have few expansion possibilities outside pcmcia and usb.

It sounds as if you have just been using it as a tool without looking after it, no computer likes that and pc's like it even less. Your problem is not with the computer it is with the software. I will probably be shot for this but in my experience 99% of crashes are caused by software.

I confess I now use a mac but it does crash, it is not perfect but the crashes are minor and are quick and easy to recover from: 45 seconds max if I have to do a complete restart.

 

[trawler69]

Oh and incidentally I posted my last message from Linux ubuntu running on my mac. Both O/S's running at the same time I should add!

 

[Neji]

If you are, or are going to be a power user, such as gaming, or overclocking etc, you might want to build yourself. I've noticed that pre-build pcs usually use cheap parts, and they don't tell you what brand ram, motherboard, hard drive etc they use. Just the processor speed, capacity etc. Some stores will build it for you if you choose the parts too. But if you are a casual user who juse uses it for surfing, documents, home theater, then having it built for you will probably be less hassle for you.

 

[mike_n_herrin]

The advantage I see to building your own computer, even in todays world of super cheap name brand machines like Dell or Gateway etc. Is that you can upgrade relatively easily. Because parts are standard sizes and not special sizes like stuff used in name brand PCs. So if you buy a motherboard today that is a P4 but not a core 2, and decide next year you want a core 2 or maybe by the year after there will be core 4 duo or something, then you CAN just buy a new motherboard and new processor and new memory (because the old memory will likely not run in the new board). But you should be able to keep your case, sound card, video card, hard drive, DVD drive, or whatever without having to purchase the whole shabang all over again.

the draw back that i see with building your own PC, is that you don't have technical support now. And you don't get really cheap/free software already installed. As the guys above point out, windows is expensive if you buy it out right.

I have build my last 3 computers, and have built at least 10 for friends. they tell me what they want to do with it, i pick out the parts and put it together for them. it's not hard these days to put one together.

To my knowledge, laptops are still not easily (if at all) buildable on your own.

 

[lifeout]

Sorry, noel, but only Windows does this. In other OSs, apps are installed and deleted by the OS itself. The OS controls installation and deletion so rigorously that there is no opportunity for parts of a program to become inserted into the OS in ways that these parts cannot be identified and erased.

Well, that's a bit of semantics.

If you install a package under Linux it can really shove files anywhere within the filesystem that it wants (with a couple of assumptions -- one being that you have permissions to write files anywhere). There are standard assumptions about where various components should go, but when you remove a package that doesn't mean everything will be removed. Being a gentoo user, these left-over bits are referred to as "cruft". While there are packages to help you identify those unassociated components, that doesn't guarantee anything.

Yes, Windows is a bit different from, say, Linux in that a registered library in Windows may be loaded into memory every time the OS boots, even if the user program isn't started. With linux, this is less likely to happen being that libraries tend to load when the requiring application needs them.

If you're a hardcore tinkerer and you install applications via self-compilation, don't forget the problem with library dependencies. If you update a library in Linux, this can mean you have to recompile applications that depend on that library. All making for a big mess. Try getting a novice user to recompile an application.

So every OS has good and bad. You just have to decide what is best for you and take the bad that comes with it.

 

[Corny]

ok so .. the website basically says nothing. the wiki gives a rather weak explanation. what is sabayon? a gentoo based linux with "pre-installed" (ah-huh? ) multimedia functions and apps that's it?