PC 101

heres a few examples of what NOT to do when working on a pc

Published on April 20, 2005 By HG_Eliminator In Personal Computing

As i sit here looking at the charred remains of what was once my wifes work pc ( i had to bring it home to work
on) I realize that maybe i would share a few of the "no no's" ive seen in pc building. Since this IS a manufactured pc by a big Co. I will state that these no no's apply to all pc builders not just "joe blow" down the lane...

#1. No rubberbands... the pc im currently at task of trying to see if is worth stripping for parts, has been the culprit of these little stretchy "PC killers". As i open the case and let the baked circuit board fumes dissipate i see 2 broken rubberbands. 1 wraped around the P4 CPU fan, the other strangleing the Power supplys fan...rubber bands are oil based and the heat of a pc will dry them out, the weakest section of the rubber band will break causeing it to shoot off on to whatever's near by.(most likely a fan)...spend the 10 cents and get a zip tie.....

#2. NO tape....I have found on many occasions that people tend to think take is a good alternative to zip ties,or that electrical tape is useable in a pc enviroment. WRONG...tape is held on by a type of glue.. in a pc the temperatures will make that tapes glue soften to the point of releasing its hold. thus allowing the tape to unwravel. typically it will get sucked up in to the nearest fan and jam the fan up...if you for any reason actually need to repair a wire in the pc use shrink tubing , its a tubing that when heated will shrink around the wires. The shrink tubing does a better job on insulating the wires as well...you can find various lengths and thicknesses to fit the many types of wire guages.....

#3. NO shocking the PC...This refers to touching the pc in a ungrounded manor.... Pcs are very shock sensitive.. When working on a PC (after unpluging it) make sure to ground yourself to it. I took 2 aligator clips and a coil wire. I soldered 1 clip to each end of the wire. I then clip 1 end to a shirt sleve or other part of clothing. The other clip gets clamped directly to the case of the pc i am currently working on. This allows no static electricity to build up on me as i move around getting tools and stuff...

#4. NO washing the PC...This refers to the inner mechanisms and hardware...often people try to wash the dirty insides of their pcs .. use canned air to remove dust and built up hair etc...never get water near the pc (expecially if its pluged in)...

I will add more to the list as i get time

Comments (Page 2)

tlb123

on Apr 21, 2005

I guess so

Double Zero

on Apr 21, 2005

Looks nice. It looks like you got one of those kits where you put the pieces together to make the case.

I was thinking about coming up with several ideas for Mods and build them. Just getting the time and money is the problem. We'll see....

Sorry I didnt answer this sooner Sid, this week has been quite hectic at work and I havent had alot of spare time..

I did buy a case "kit"..The acrylic case's are cool but I actually would not recommend them to everyone. It takes a bit of effort to add or remove drives for one reason, the case practically has to come completely apart to do it. Then there is the constant "cleaning"..with UV lights within a UV reactive clear case, dust, fingerprints, virtually anything and everything stands out, I am forever cleaning the case so that it looks "cool"..LoL.. It takes a bit more maintenence than a normal case, or at lease a case with a single window.

As for the "Time & Money" What I did was purchased each part one at a time basically..One paycheck I bought the case, the next the Motherboard, next the PSU..ect,ect. Some of the cheaper items like the fans and grilles, lights, wire sleeving I bought altogether, but the more expesive parts I bought one at a time from paycheck to paycheck..
All in All it took about 6 months to collect everything. Putting it together only took a few hours, I did it on a sunday when I had nothing else going on, the most time I spent putting it together revolved around sleeving all the wires coming out of the PSU, I definitely recommend a "Molex" tool if you ever decide to sleeve wires..LoL! I didnt have one and I fought the sleeving every inch of the way over the connectors..
Other than that it was a snap! and ALOT of fun, well, for those of us that actually have fun doing that sort of thing, LoL..to some people I guess it's just work..

Anyway, thats how I did it, it was pretty easy as far as the "expense" aspect of it, and as I say, it really doesnt take all that long to put one together once you have all the "goodies".

Zero.

MaxEvil

on May 03, 2005

Hmm no water only canned air. Does this mean I need to quit using my leaf blower?

Double Zero

on May 03, 2005

LoL..Water cooling is just a bit overdoing it in my opinion..unless your a gamer running one of the AMD's "OC'd" to the max ya may just need Water... Of course I would not be opposed to the idea if there was just no other way to keep the chip cool..some do run hot and I'll be interested to see how warm the Dual Core chips run..If it's going to take a water system to keep it cool then it looks like I'll be investing in one..At the moment though my CPU with 100% load on it runs pretty "chilly" and thats with the stock Intel heatsink and fan..no need for water...

Time will tell,
Zero.

on May 04, 2005

LoL..Water cooling is just a bit overdoing it in my opinion

Not if you want a very quiet system. I wouldn't know this, but I have read a site about reasons of having a water-cooled system, and this is one of reasons.

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