by Jack Thornton

Created on: March 24, 2008   Last Updated: May 26, 2011

The time has finally arrived. Your old computer is just not cutting it anymore. Maybe it is the realization that you should not have to wait for your computer to catch up to you all the time. Perhaps it was the fact that the last kid's toy you bought had a faster microchip in it. Or maybe your old computer finally died on you.

You need a new computer.

The choice comes to buying one pre-built or to build it yourself from scratch. Since you want your computer to just have what you want in it and installed on it you opt to build it yourself. Congratulations and welcome to the club.

Building a computer is not a difficult task. They are designed so that everything goes together easily. Let me help walk you through the process.

PARTS TO BUY

You will need a number of components to build a working computer. They are:

• Case
• Power Supply
• Motherboard
• CPU with cooler
• Memory
• Hard Drive
• DVD or CD Drive
• Graphics Card or graphics integrated in the Motherboard
• Keyboard
• Mouse or other pointing device
• Operating System

I will go through each of these components and then talk about putting them all together.

CASE

The case is what houses everything else. This is one of the most customizable components out there. You can get cases that range from shoe-box size up to waist tall towers. Colors, arrangement of space inside, what it is made from, number and size of fans, side windows, what type and how many ports are on the front, top or back, and more. As long as you get a case that is large enough to hold everything, it does not matter which one you get. Generally, the more it costs, the nicer it will be - better materials, fewer sharp edges inside, larger size, and features designed to make it easy to work inside all increase the cost of a case. Choosing a mid-tower case or larger will give you the most freedom in picking a motherboard and other components.

POWER SUPPLY

The power supply is what converts the AC wall current into the DC current the computer components need. It may come with the case, but often will not. The power supply is a critical piece of the computer. If it is under-powered, the computer can crash anytime there is a spike in demand for power. As I write this, a 500W power supply is generally sufficient, but high-end computers can use 700, 800 or even 1000W power supplies.

MOTHERBOARD

The motherboard is the heart of the computer. Pretty

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