It all started over the July 4th weekend. I visited a new to me web auction. There under computers was the term "bare bones". What could that mean? So I looked to see what a bare bones computer might be. Well in this case it was a bare bones computer starter kit which consisted of a motherboard, case, floppy drive, mouse, video card, power, fan, cables and other wiring. I thought what to heck, I'm going to bid on it. Somebody else will probably outbid me anyway. Well the next day nobody had outbid me. I looked closer at the computers description. It did not include a CPU, I better bid on one of those if I'm going to build this computer. On Monday I found out I had indeed won the auction for these two items.
Now I really had to get serious, If this computer was going to work I would need a sound card, CD-ROM drive, speakers, hard drive, and monitor. I went to a web auction for my speakers. There was 24X CD-ROM drive with great rebate at "Future Shop", "Staples" had a 5.1GB hard drive with a great rebate, and CompUSA had a sound card and modem with, you guessed it, great rebates. (I decided to use my really old 486's monitor, well isn't four years really old?)
I have wondered why auction items always take longer to arrive than items you just purchase from web stores. After about 10 ten days my bare bones and CPU were here. I couldn't wait to get started. After all I had visited a couple of "how to sites" bought a "how to book", this should be a piece of cake.
I opened up the motherboard's box and notice a very small instruction manual. I have to do what! Set the jumpers, pick the right power level, put those tiny plastic things over tiny little pins. Man what does all this mean! I learned all about trial and error assemble on this project. The motherboard's holes didn't match with cases holes, glad I got that drill from the web auction. The "how to book" says I can test it now. Nothing happened. Oh yeah there was that one switch that I was no sure of, I better change it. Success the heat sink fan works! Now the floppy works, the CD-ROM works, and I got some sound. What do you mean I only have a 2 GB hard drive in this computer! I have to partition it? Finally a C, D, & E hard drive. Now if I can get the Win98 to work right. How come my INTERNET connection is so slow? Yes I finally works! Hurrah, and all that other happy stuff.
I have to be honest, the above paragraph took me about two weeks to complete in real assembly time. I still have not solved the slow INTERNET access problem, but it does work. Anyway patience is a virtue isn't it?
Should you build your own computer? Well I did feel a great deal of
satisfaction in building my own computer. A couple of years ago I never
would have even considered doing such a thing. On the other hand I did
not save any money on my computer. I could have bought a newer and faster
computer for the same amount of money. The rebates have not come in yet,
we are talking almost two months now. Having two computers also leads
to other problems, I can share my printer, files, Zip Drive, and scanner
if I network them. Back to the good old web auction.