first time around

[NeWbiE :-)]

well i went to my first computer show today...copmuter shows= mass confusion, now i dont mean this to sound racist or in anyway discriminating but i wasnt aware of all the orientals in this buisness...but i guess it makes sense they're usually the gurus when it comes to video games. so anyway i took ur advice and didnt buy alot today just got a basic atx case and 80gb hdd but of coarse i already came across a problem...i didnt take ata/133 into consideration when buying my hdd, will this give me problems in making an AMD based PC???...also my case was in retail box and came with ZERO intructions...im sure everything will fall into place but i got 2 casefans plus a temp controller and im not aware in anyway of how to hook these things up...so it'll be interesting incase u know of any site that might help me out its a COLORSit Soho Series...seems nameless right now havent even found a homepage yet but hopefully it works out...thanks

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Soo, what is the harddrive?

If the case was cheap, hopefully if the power supply croaks, it's a standard size nd you can put a quality one in it's place if necessary.

[saphalline]

As long as you bought an ATX case, everything will fit fine. Too bad it didn't come with any instructions, but sometimes that's the way it goes. What you absolutely need with that case is the box/bag of screws. Those are quite handy! The temp sensor we can work out, as long as you describe it?

ATA/133 has no incompatibilities based on CPU brand name. It's the chipset that matters, and as long as you aren't going to buy ancient hardware, that ATA/133 hard drive you bought will work flawlessly. What brand of hard drive did you buy? Any specs on it? Spindle speed, cache/buffer size, average access time, etc?

[NeWbiE :-)]

well as for the case im gonna wait till i get atleast the processesor and mobo be4 i start hooking stuff up im hoping i can figure out the whole chipset idea to figure out wat i can choose from im hoping for AMD but its a close one between the 2...btw i do have the screws and stuff in a little baggy plus sum little aluminum peice looks like a slot protector

as for the hard drive i checked its specs on the website its a maxtor Diamond Max16 80 gig and i was so focused on making sure i was getting ata and a good about of gb that i didnt think to check on rpms and it turns out to be only 5400 and i heard a decent spead is 7200 so im kinda disappointed by my well who knows like my 6th mistake....a. buy case wit no instructions...(DURRRR) b. not check hdd specs... im sure ill find more mistakes eventually...lol

also this may sound dumb...and im pretty sure i understand but i dont wanna do anything dumb....lol i want rounded cables but i dunno how many i need


and also i got my stuff fairly cheap didnt even spend much and had about 150 in my pocket that i wanted to get more stuff and i thought about a basic mobo but it seemed like it would be better for someone like me to buy a combo which everyone had but obviously cost a bit more then wat i was hoping to spend and then i decided on looking at some vid-cards...then it hit me....i dunno wat to look for in a video card....lol i wanted a tv tuner but now i decided im gonna get wat it takes to run my pc then put on stuff like that....basically i want to play games...im not looking to spend like 200 bucks on my card but i want summin nice!


and finally my biggest noob question...my hard drive is in a case that says do not open or handle except in a static free workstation...kinda scares me....am i gonna be safe when it comes time to put this thing in my pc?...anyway guys u been a big help next comp show date...feb 12&13th...after that mar12th&13th....bday is march 30th so im hoping i could talk the pparents into gettin me a nice lcd screen and save me a good 250...lol...well ill be on tomorrow guys thanks alot

[NeWbiE :-)]

i just noticed i see alot of mobo/cpu combos with micro atx form factor...do u need micro atx everything or can u mix n match?

[Jim McCoy]

i just noticed i see alot of mobo/cpu combos with micro atx form factor...do u need micro atx everything or can u mix n match?
Post the link to where you see them most, if possible !

[Reid]

This could be a long process to answer all the questions that you have. There are a lot of sources that give step-by-step instructions, and also recommedations of hardware for the type of system that you want to build. I think a little reading will help get you off to a better start. This Google search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=build+computer+yourself&btnG=Google+Search) has links to a lot of do-it-yourself guides.