10 Mistakes New PC Builders Often Make (Don't Kill Your New Hardware!)

[@TechOverwrite]

Hey everyone, did you make any of these mistakes when you did your first PC build?

[@aero2629]

I remember when I first dipped my toes into getting myself familiar with PC components. It's been well over a decade since I was on an old Core 2 Duo machine with 4GB of DDR2-800 RAM and an old ATI card. Plenty of things that I didn't pay too much attention to, or even outright didn't know about at that time, especially the part about fan airflow direction! Even to this day, I'll still panic when pressing the power button does nothing, only to have forgotten to press the PSU switch in the back.

[@TechOverwrite]

That sounds like a sweet first build, I loved the Core 2 Duo lineup for spme reason. 😊 Glad this video touched on some of the points you experienced - fan airflow is easy to overlook for sure. And yep, I still forget about the PSU button to this day - I forgot about it a couple of weeks ago. It gets me every time 🤦

[@bcdoggie]

Regarding the I/O shield, be sure the thin part that's used to ground against the LAN port actually lays against the top of it and doesn't accidentally block the port's opening, making it impossible to plug in the cable. Not much else is more annoying when assembling a computer than not realizing you have made this mistake until after the computer is all assembled and you go to plug in all of the connectors. I'm speaking from experience and the worst part of it all is that after all of the work put in to assembling everything, most of it must removed and unplugged from the motherboard before unscrewing it so it can be moved out of the way in order to get a screwdriver in to reach the bent grounding tab back into position, followed by reassembling it. I hate having to do the same job twice due to making such a rookie mistake. LOL

[@TechOverwrite]

Oof, that's a great point - and definitely a frustrating one as you say, since everything has been assembled by then 😔

[@familyplans3788]

Lol great video , I made my first P.C. about 6 months ago (i'm 50+) and had a P.C. since , well the early 90's , but had never got round to actually making one Well i found it reasonably easy , after loads of research, and the biggest problem i had was when i installed the NVMe drive screw!! Oh My days , it dropped onto the carpet and it took me longer to find the damn screw than to build the rest lol !!

[@TechOverwrite]

Thanks, I appreciate that! That's great that you did your first actual build from scratch then - kudos. 🙂 Ugh yes that's actually a great point, I probably should have covered the impossibly small screws - the NVMe ones are particularly annoying I agree lol!

[@andrewvickers4487]

I'm coming up on 40 and in the same boat, encouraging to hear your experience (minus that screw) :)

[@TheOne214]

i built my first pc this month made two mistakes my case had built in stand-offs thank god for that i just checked because i made this mistake and my motherboard had built in or preinstalled io shield but i installed it without checking the rest i was very careful with like plugging cables first and correctly, removing the cpu sticker and i placed the cpu in the motherboard before installing it in the case, inserting ram properly and i did this before installing the motherboard into the case just like the cpu, fans facing in the right direction, installing the 360 aio pump correctly because i did alot of research i have been tinkering with pre builts pc alot like removing the cpus cooler and cleaning it and also removing the gpu to clean it same with the ram but had never build an actual pc before now so building a pc came easier to me i used a lightweight screw driver and an led flash light and yes getting an head mounted flash light is a very good idea i could have gotten my pc built for me but i didnt want that you should know how to build your own pc life gets alot easier in the pc world this way when you know what to do.

[@TechOverwrite]

That's awesome, congrats on tackling your first build, it sounds like you did great ☺️ In glad that you didn't make too many mistakes - it's easy to make some mistakes, of course, but it seems like you did a good amount of research 👍

[@andrewvickers4487]

Subbed :) I might build my first pc this year and this was defo worth a watch thank you. I think the IO shield would be the one most likely to catch me out too hehe. I think I've got a good grasp of the basics and I'm confident I could pull off a successful build first time but I'm torn between the DIY route and buying a mini pc. Given the better modularity/upgradeability would you say that DIY is quite a bit more cost-effective in the long run, like over 5-10 years? That is, vs buying a new mini pc every 5-10 years?

[@TechOverwrite]

Thanks for the sub, I appreciate it ☺️ Yes the IO shield is really easy to forget lol! To be honest it sounds like you're approaching the upcoming build well, doing your research etc so I would go the DIY route. It's definitely better in the long run for upgradability and cost-wise - especially if you buy a motherboard with 4x RAM slots, 2+ PCIe x16 slots (i.e. the full size PCIe slots) and 2+ M.2 drive slots. You then will have lots of options in the future to expand things. Mini PCs are really awesome too, but they will tend to sacrifice future upgradability for sure.

[@andrewvickers4487]

@@TechOverwrite Appreciated! Yeah I think I'm going to follow your advice and spend a little more up front to see how long I can string out the longevity (which for me will be on AMD's AM5 platform). I'm guessing most builders spend more on upgrades than they care to admit, hopefully I can keep a leash on that...

[@TechOverwrite]

AM5 is a solid choice for sure - DDR5 (and multiple years of AM5 compatible CPUs) will definitely future proof you 🙂 Yes it's easy to get caught in a 'FOMO upgrade loop' lol, but to be honest I haven't spent on my main PC in 2.5 years now (I purchased a 5900X and 6700XT and those still suit my purposes just fine).