Who builds their own PC's rather than buy OEM?

My first 386 was a compaq and my brother built my 233 since then all my machines are home made by me

I build my own. Nothing against buying off the rack. I just enjoy the process. And, it's fun knowing I did it.

Current specs:
MSI KT333 Ultra MB
AMD XP 1900+
512MB DDR RAM
SB Live! Plat sound
ATI Radeon 7500 video
Primary Drive: 80GB WD w/ 8MB cache
Secondary Drive: 30GB Maxtor

I run RedHat 7.3 linux for an operating system, though I will switch back to Mandrake once 9.0 is final.

My next computer will probably be a Mac. Guess I'll have to buy that one off the shelf.

OEM bites!!!

I got my system for FREE!!, I friend at church was going to give me a old system of his, but he needed to get a new power supply and a new case for it, when I went over to help him put it together, he had actually ordered a new motherboard kit with a new Athlon 800mhz processor. We put the whole thing together, everything was new exept the graphics card.

Praise God, it was a huge jump from the 166 mhz 64 MB ram beast that I had.
I asked him what I owed his- something, right. He told me not to worry about it, it was FREE!

some stats:
Athlon 800
256MB Ram
56k ram- yuck
old VooDoo3 graphic card
cd rom
CD/R ROM below
Windows XP- yes, I love XP, I am an ex-Microsoft flunky

God Bless- EJO

I build, upgrade, and repair PCs, but I don't really sell them. I've built several for others, but they've all been for personal friends and are 'sold' at cost. Repairing and upgrading has made me some pocket change though.

-jon

Originally posted by Athlon4all
Ah the one thing that OEM's sacrifice far too often, video cards. They should be equiping their $1200 or so PC's with 1.8-2.0A P4's and GF4 Ti 4200/4400 cards not 2.53 P4's and GF4MX's.

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You still using those cheap video cards?

The new ATI Radeon 9700 is incredible to say the least! It's expensive though. Have you seen the video footage for Doom 3? Wow!


Mike

I build my own. I like tinkering and tweaking. It is fun and rewarding for me. Sometimes it gets a little crazy, though. Once, I had computer parts, cases and software strewn all over the place. I was building four at the same time.

Originally posted by Annabel Lee
What language is everyone speaking?
I buy it from the computer store, bring it home, get someone who knows what they're doing to hook it up for me.
And then I cross my fingers and thank the little magic elves who live inside my computer.

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Not elves, magic smoke.

Haven't you ever noticed that when the magic smoke leaks out of an electronics device, it stops working?

I had someone build one for me on a trade in deal but they used cheap hong-kong garbage in it. So I put a new MB and processor in it.


My next system will have a Serial ATA motherboard capabilities with it. AThlon all the way.

man i wish i got hand-me-down computers. i need a new mobo/cpu and case then i'd have a 2nd computer up and running. unfortunently i dont have $120 go run out and get a barebones system. *sighs* anyoen got computer junk? let me know i'll gladly take it off your hands (as long as its not a 286 computer hehe

Originally posted by truth2758

My next system will have a Serial ATA motherboard capabilities with it. AThlon all the way.

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Athlon? Aren't they those cheap processors for people who can't afford a Pentium 4? Just kidding.

I prefer and trust Intel's processors more.

I watched my friend built my computer at the start of the year. After I researched and made the choices on all of the components. Since then computers have become a hobby of mine. I have tweeked many things. Including, fully building a water cooling setup. Overclocking. Adding more hard drives, more ram, volt modding fans, making everything run quieter ....... the list goes on and on.

Next system I'll fully build from scratch myself.

i have always built my own.. if i WERE to buy from an OEM, i'd go with alien ware

We build 'em! Buying new is no-go - you can't really get what you want (i.e. speed, graphics and all the other cool stuff)

Noddingdog

I build my own! I have 9 in the house. 2 are factory built by DELL, one is my laptop and the other is a DELL Ppwer Edge Server 2400 that was given to me so I could not turn it down.

But other than that I build all my own systems and that is what i do for a side business too.

I build about 20-30 systems a month for people that come my way. I also work in the IT industry for a very large worldwide company.

5 years ago I owned a construction company though! How is that for a change?!?!?