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Build Computers:
When building your own computer you will first need to decide what type of design fits your work area the best. There are basically two types of cases:
Desktop Case (Not as common as they use to be)
Tower Case (Very common)
Towers come mainly in these sizes:
Full Size Tower
Mid Tower (most common)
Mini Tower
ATX is pretty much the standard right now, so don't make the mistake of buying an AT case. They use completely different power connectors and are not interchangeable. When building your own computer use only a high-quality power supply that is a minimum of 235 watts (bare-bones system only). 300 watts or more is best, especially if you'll be adding components. Cheap cases often have cheap power supplies that tend to fail much faster than a high quality approved power supply. Also check to see how many power leads are coming directly from the power supply. This is important, because you don't want to be forced to use pigtails to connect your drives. (If you MUST use a power splitter, don't use it for either you hard drive or your CD-RW!)
Another minor problem that many people run into is with the power LED connector. Some cases will have a connector for a 3 pin motherboard connection, while their motherboard has only 2 pins. There are adapters that will remedy this problem. The light isn't necessary for your PC's functionality, but it's nice to have the light in case your PC is so quiet you can't tell when it's on.
AMD and Intel have specifications for the minimum requirements necessary for their components to function correctly. See the AMD web site for details about selecting a power supply for the AMD Athlon and the AMD XP.
Make sure there are enough drive bays for your components---and keep in mind that most likely when you build your own computer, you'll be adding more at some point in time (DVD player, CDRW, extra hard drive, etc.). It's really the pits when you buy a new hard drive or CDRW and then can't find a place to mount it! (been there, done that)
When you build your own computer one of the most important things you can do it to keep the system as cool as possible. Add an extra intake fan at the front of the case and an exhaust fan at the back. There are lots of inexpensive fans out there, so don't scrimp on cooling. Check out the schematics of your motherboard, most have several fan headers, and most good motherboards have utilities to continually monitor the fan speeds and sound an alarm if one should fail. If your board has a decent BIOS, it will also be monitoring speed, temperatures, and voltage.
Some people want to spice up their case when building your own computer. If you want a custom case take a look at this custom case site for some ideas on how you can create a unique case.
Cheap trick: I remove the fans from old (working, of course) AT power supplies---they work well as an extra case fan. You can use a drop of glue and strategically mount it on the case to point at whatever component needs the extra cooling.
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