Advise on new tower

Hope this is the right forum. My current computer (e-machine) mobo fried. What are the advan/disadvan of having someone custom build a tower vs. a retail tower?

 

You get to pick and choose the components and look for the best prices. The biggest advantage I feel is you do not get a bunch of garbage already loaded on the comp that the average person will not use. With a custom built you install an OS and then add the programs you want as you need them. This saves you money to put towards better components as retail comps pricing is mostly for the software that is on it and the quality of the components is generally lacking. This does not mean that there are not good barebone systems out there with no OS installed, these would save some time and searching and still allow you to upgrade in the future. Which can also be a big problem with retail bundle comps. So in the end it's a matter of how much may be salvaged from your current comp and what you want to spend and how much you want to improve. Generally I like building myself for the flexibility, which I guess is what I am actually saying in a long drawn out way

 

You also gain a greater understanding of how computers work and how to repair them when you build your own or have one built custom. Picking the components yourself allows you to make the decision of how good the machine is. Also as eyeblazin mentioned previously your system isn't preloaded with a bunch of crap.

 

You can start by getting a tower with a working motherboard, and then buy the RAM, CD/DVD, floppies or whever you want. You add a hard drive and RAM memory, and install an OS. Is there anything I'm leaving out? That's how I would do it.

I've opened up towers before and taken the fans out to clean them. I've taken parts out and put them back. I've installed RAM on a harddrive too. Lot of it is simply unplugging the hardware from its sockit! That's how I've learned about the inside of a PC.

For sure, you want to get a full, standard size tower, so I you put standard parts in it. I bought a Dell XPS, and it has a small chasis (official name for a tower), so I have to buy special parts.

If you buy a pc already put together, you can also format the harddrive an reinstall the OS as suggested in "Computer maintenance" forum.

BTW, eMachines have a horrible repuation. Luckily, I knew this and never bought one. I recconmend HP as a brand or Compaq. IBM is great too.

 

The best thing about building your own Computer is that you should save a lot more money. Its simply because you can buy basic computer parts and put it together like a new bike. I've built 5 computers myself and i feel like a PC Technician because of it.

A retail tower has the same computer parts but the total price is a lot more compared to building one. Just because of brand names and manufacture costs.

If your mobo fried, you can save more money by using the spare parts like the CD/DVD Drives, floppy drive, and sometimes the power supply.

Anyway, i suggest you try building one on own your own. It will help you in the long run as computer technology improves and retail systems become expensive.

 

:major Another thought is that, if you buy a name brand pc, it comes preloaded with a ton of crappy software which you are paying for, regardless of what they tell you about what you are getting "for free". That means that a part of the $$ you spend is for the pc, the rest is for the useless crap. If you have one built, more of the purchase price goes for just the pc alone. This generally means you are getting better quality components for about the same money, plus, you don't spend the first several hours of your precious "out-of-box experience" trying to uninstall junk software which serves no other purpose than to cause your new toy to crash. The best software I have (i.e., the most functional and the most dependable) is almost all freeware, and you can get a lot of it here on MG. Just because you paid for a piece of software does not mean it is of any value. Check this out:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=20

 

I should have build my own PC :-( Then again, I got a deal b/c of scuff marks.