Teach your kid to build a desktop computer

Building a computer yourself is actually a lot easier than most people think. All you have to do is choose your parts, order them, assemble them and install an operating system such as Microsoft Windows. It is easy, costs less, and you can even teach your children how to build one at home.

Why Build Your Own Computer?

There are several compelling reasons for building your own computer.

1. The best reason is because you can actually build a better computer than you can buy at the store. When you build your own computer you have complete control over what goes inside it. When you buy a pre-built machine it will contain mostly cheap, generic, under-powered and unreliable components that prevent your computer from reaching maximum performance. Building it yourself allows you to use 100% high-quality, high-performance parts.
2. Contrary to what many believe, cheap PCs can actually of a great quality. Although some parts may differ in the video tutorials shown, the basic assembly is the same. Even though you will be using top notch components your home-built computer will still be less expensive than the store-bought ones. And that is the second best reason to build your own — you will save money, lots of it in fact.
3. Another reason to do it yourself is to avoid all the junk software, trial versions of programs you will never use, advertisements and other trash that comes pre-installed on computers. All of those programs clog up your system resources and cause software conflicts that bog down your computer forever. The PC you build will be clean and pristine. You can install only the software you actually want to use, and that will keep your computer running on all cylinders for maximum speed.
4. The next reason for building your own PC is that you will develop a useful skill and will gain the knowledge and confidence to repair or upgrade your computer when necessary. The next time you have problems with a computer you will be able to quickly identify and fix the problem without paying an expensive bill at the PC repair shop.
5. The last reason is pride and bragging rights. You can tell your friends that you built a computer from scratch on your dining table.

Is there any downside to building a computer yourself?

Well, your PC will not have a shiny, famous-name logo on the front. And maybe your friends might start asking you to fix their computers once they find out you are smart enough to assemble a PC from scratch.

Basic Parts of a Computer System

Here’s what computers are usually made of: Motherboard, CPU, Memory, Hard Drive, Graphics Card, Cases, Power Supplies, cooling, Sound Card, Speaker, I/O card, Network Card, keyboard, Mice, Keyboard and Mouse Combo, Monitor.

Here are the basic parts of a computer system, in case you decide to set up your own desktop computer for gaming or editing work.

Assembling a computer is much easy if you you have a basic understanding of the various parts that are used within.

Here are the physical components (hardware) inside a computer.

Motherboard

This is the main electronic circuit board, known as motherboard. All the computer components connect to this board. The CPU is located on the motherboard.

Popular motherboard brands include Intel, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, ECS.

Central Processing Unit (CPU)

Most important part of the computer, as it does most of the data processing. It consists of one or more processing chips.

Popular processor manufacturers include Intel, AMD, IBM, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Samsung.

Random Access Memory (RAM)

It’s called a “memory” because this is the place where the computer stores and retrieves data, as it operates. More computer memory means the computer will be able to run faster and handle more software programs.

This is volatile memory; meaning when the computer is switched off everything stored on this temporary storage device is lost.

Power Supply

A computer runs on electricity, so a power supply unit (PSU) is also one of the computer parts; it regulates the electricity needed by the other components to operate.

Hard-Disc Drive

RAM is quick but volatile. Hard drive is the place where you store your data and information so that you can retrieve it later. Hard drives are comparatively slower than RAM, when it comes to storing and retrieving data.

Various Other Drives

This includes drives to read and write CDs, DVDs. In addition to the hard-disc you can utilize these for storing data, and these are quite portable as well.

On earlier computers, you also had floppy drives, but then those are no longer available as that technology is obsolete.

Input devices

The more common ones being the keyboard and the mouse.

Computer Monitor

This is the LCD screen with which you interact with the computer. You can even connect your computer to bigger screens, television, or projectors for a wider audience.

Graphics Card

Every computer comes with a Graphics card that is responsible for processing and displaying images and videos on the monitor of your computer.

Graphics cards come with their own memory and take the processing load off the computer’s main processor unit (CPU).

If you’re going to use your computer for video games or watching movies, then for the best viewing experience you need to have a good graphics card.

It determines the quality of the overall picture/videos.

A Graphics Card is also known by other names such as Video Adapter, Graphics Accelerator Card, Display Adapter.

A video card basically contains the following components: Video BIOS, Physical Memory (Video RAM), GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), RAMDAC (Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog), Video Inputs/Outputs.

A video card is sort of an “expansion card” for your computer. It’s an add-on device that is installed into one of the expansion card slots on the computer’s motherboard.

Expansion cards

Want to increase the functionality of your computer? Add the appropriate expansion card to the motherboard. For example, you can add graphic cards, network cards and sound cards.

Additional ports

These are receptors that help to exchange information (additional means besides CDs, DVDs) between a computer and other devices. Firewire and USB ports are the more popular ones.

Buy computer parts/components on Amazon

Video Tutorials: How To Build a Computer

Here are some easy to follow video tutorials that will show you step-by-step How To Build a Computer.

It will show you how to choose the components, how to put them all together, and finally install the operating system.

Video showing how to select the various computer components

Video that takes you through the actual build

Video showing the installation of the operating system

How to Install CPU on Motherboard

Here’s how to install a CPU on motherboard, in case you are planning to assemble a new computer, or plan to upgrade your motherboard.

If you intend to assemble a new computer or upgrade your existing one, I assume you would know that the CPU (Central Processing Unit) is an important chip in a computer.

In fact it is the brain of your computer.

Where to put it on the motherboard?
So if you plan to do this all by yourself, you should know that it is placed in the CPU socket on the motherboard, from where it forms an electrical interface with the motherboard.

How to install it?
The good part of most installation nowadays is that it is easy plug-n-play. Same goes for the CPU as well.

When installing the CPU, you lock the CPU into place by pressing down the latch. And how do you know it’s locked into place correctly? You will hear a nice click that will tell you it’s locked into place correctly.

Next you need to apply the thermal paste on top of the CPU. When applying the thermal paste, you need to ensure that it is spread evenly and not spilling over the side. You want to put just enough in the middle so that when you place the heat on top, it will spread evenly over the entire processor.

Note about the CPU fan
Almost all the modern processors nowadays come with a built-in thermal cut off, so that in the event of over-heating it just cuts the power to avoid damage to the CPU.

So in case your CPU fan is not working, most probably it won’t damage the CPU. But then, you should quickly get a replacement as it is not a good idea to run the CPU without the CPU fan.

But as you can see in the video, it is not at all difficult to do this step. That is how to install the CPU on motherboard.