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So you subscribe to Maximum PC, opened an account on the forum, and currently find yourself debating whether you feel confident enough to build your own dream machine, or have someone else do it for you. Having read guide after guide and post after post, you're fairly certain you could pull it off, but what about any tech support issues that pop up afterwards? Wouldn't it be easier to just configure a Dell and be done with it?
The answer is yes, it would, but it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying as building yourself.
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And tech support shouldn't be a compelling reason to go with an OEM boutique, unless you consider being told to check if the power cable is plugged in to be more useful than pinging an experienced forum base's collective experience to help you out of a pinch.
But hey, I understand that building that first rig comes with a fair share of jitters, but trust me, you CAN do it. And once you do, you get to become one of us. By us, I'm talking about old vets that, like myself, take as much satisfaction from building our own rigs as we do in helping others to do the same thing. Pay it forward, if you will. I've spent a lot of time on Maximum PC doing just that, having first registered back in 2000 when it was known as Commport. My tenure's consisted of answering troubleshooting issues and offering buying advice, while more recently contributing material to the magazine and maintaining this blog. And when I'm not bantering with fellow MPCers, I can be found over at HardwareLogic, a website I help run that's devoted to, you guessed it, helping new and upcoming enthusiasts.
In short (too late!), I, like many, have been doing this a long time, and while the components of yesteryear have dramatically changed (the race to 1GHz is but a distant memory), many of the common problems and pitfalls remain the same. It may be old hat to some of us today, but that doesn't mean we didn't have our own nagging butterflies when first starting out. But we buckled down and ignored an urge to go with a cookie-cutter OEM boutique, and with some help, you will too.
By Paul "One4yu2c" Lilly
View the rest of the article at MaximumPC.com: MaximumPC.com |
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