How many pc's have you built?

[R-T-B]

Well more than I care to count. Many rigs were upgraded so many times they ceased to be the same PC, too.

 

[Deleted member 193596]

a lot.
in 2020 maybe 20-30.

 

[bobbybluz]

Same

hell one of my jobs is repairing PCs

Repairs were the bane of my existence for far too long. Hardware issues were rare (defective CPU's, RAM, GPU's and an occasional hard drive) but idiots fux0ring up their PC's with malware never ended. I finally began doing operating system reinstalls instead of trying to clean everything out. I'd tell the customer their PC was so badly infected only wiping the hard drive and reinstalling Windows was the only way to fix it. Of course every PC that came in with Win 7 Ultimate on it was a pirated version as was a lot of the software on them. They'd ask about activation and I'd tell them that wasn't my problem, I do everything 100% legally. It reached a point where I really didn't give a shit about whatever software they may have had on the PC before wiping the drive., if they'd gotten it legitimately they should be able to reinstall it.

Then there were the notorious timesinks who'd be back every few weeks with their "wifes" or "kids" computer with all the same crap on it again as when they first brought it in. I finally refused to work on their things anymore and told them to take it to the Geek Squad. I don't miss any of that at all. This year make it 5 years since I retired and haven't had to deal with those idiots anymore. I actually had some labels printed up with 1D107 I'd stick onto the worst headache PC's. I'd tell the owner it was the repair code. Never of them ever figured it out.

 

[68Olds]

I haven't really built that many complete PC's, but there have been lots of upgrades. I'm an HVAC mechanic, so not much PC work is offically part of my job.
My first PC was a pre-built that I purchased. It was an IBM Clone Packard Bell AT with a 286 @ 8 or 10 MHz. It had 640k of RAM, a HDD of some sort (maybe 10MB), a 5.25" floppy, and a CGA color monitor. That was 1988 BTW. I added RAM to that PC, a 720MB 3.5" drive and an 80287 math co-processor. So began the updates. lol I upgraded to a 486 DX-50, then a DX2-66 & on & on.
My current system is an upgrade from my FX8320 rig, which was an upgrade from my Q9650. So for me it's really hard to say how many PC's I've built from scratch, but there have been a bunch of updates & upgrades.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Well more than I care to count. Many rigs were upgraded so many times they ceased to be the same PC, too.

One less than this ^^^^ guy.

 

[micropage7]

maybe around 10 - 20 that from 0 and many repairing, rebuild

 

[ratirt]

I stopped counting several years or more ago so I say countless. Come to think of it, the PC building procedure has changed a lot since the earlier days not sure about you guys.

 

[Frick]

Completely new builds are not that many, less than 20 probably. But replacing components (including motherboard) and rebuilding things? That's got to be well over 100.

I stopped counting several years or more ago so I say countless. Come to think of it, the PC building procedure has changed a lot since the earlier days not sure about you guys.

How has it changed? There are fewer cards, but on the whole it hasn't changed much in the last 20 years.

 

[Mouth of Sauron]

Oh, Dark Lord... A lot. For "I charge nothing" class, at least. I find it relaxing, oddly...

All of mine, except the first 2 in late 80's, when I was like 15... So at least 20 of mines, I don't count. About 2-3 times that for friends and family. From deep down the budget hole to really expensive stuff. Never built servers and similar, just recommended models, because guarantee and support and similar stuff. And yes, fixed rubbish made by others, usually 'companies' - we here do mostly DIY or have 'companies' with very badly chosen pre-made stuff... Though recently I watched for fun Linus buying sellers recommendations, was surprised that large international sellers break the same in (lack of) competence with local...

Spoiler: Dowhere is joy for working in non-IT sector for a large company with shady IT politics, non-essential read to say the least

What pains me the most is that I don't have any influence on the machine I have to work with at current workplace (my boss bought me 'new' uber-cr@p HP i3 with 2 cores this April, all along with hdd... She felt she had no need to consult me, even though we had the possibility to buy ssd instead, for mighty 30g more... And that's where options in this non-IT firm end... Worst i3 known to mankind and hdd or ssd, and if you need 24" screen, go explain why to regional director (overlord to ~3000 slaves), which I'd gladly done, I was there before...

You can buy that mean machine and evil screen from the company for 30% less after 3 years, hahahahahaha. Some idiots actually do it...

Funny, my boss hasn't forgotten to consult me for her personal (home) laptop, hahahaha - I've chosen 3 best-for-given-budget, and especially recommended one - just to be safe, she did choose one of them, just NOT that one I recommended the most (they all costed the same) - because I'm probably wrong somewhere - though I do it for decades, and she knows jack about technics of any kind... It's a boss-gag-reflex

 

[witkazy]

Well , i'm more of a modder really but build a few, anywho being mechanic i can tell You that routine can be as perilous as inexperience.Cheers.

 

[taz420nj]

Repairs were the bane of my existence for far too long. Hardware issues were rare (defective CPU's, RAM, GPU's and an occasional hard drive) but idiots fux0ring up their PC's with malware never ended. I finally began doing operating system reinstalls instead of trying to clean everything out. I'd tell the customer their PC was so badly infected only wiping the hard drive and reinstalling Windows was the only way to fix it. Of course every PC that came in with Win 7 Ultimate on it was a pirated version as was a lot of the software on them. They'd ask about activation and I'd tell them that wasn't my problem, I do everything 100% legally. It reached a point where I really didn't give a shit about whatever software they may have had on the PC before wiping the drive., if they'd gotten it legitimately they should be able to reinstall it.

Then there were the notorious timesinks who'd be back every few weeks with their "wifes" or "kids" computer with all the same crap on it again as when they first brought it in. I finally refused to work on their things anymore and told them to take it to the Geek Squad. I don't miss any of that at all. This year make it 5 years since I retired and haven't had to deal with those idiots anymore. I actually had some labels printed up with 1D107 I'd stick onto the worst headache PC's. I'd tell the owner it was the repair code. Never of them ever figured it out.

Oh I had a bunch of those. They were cash cows. I got to the point of it being a streamlined process where I would simply back up the personal files, reimage the drive with "their" image (when someone became a repeat offender I would keep a customized image of their computer separate from my deployment server), and just copy the personal files back. Charged them $100 each time for what took me about 12 minutes of actual work.

 

[ratirt]

Completely new builds are not that many, less than 20 probably. But replacing components (including motherboard) and rebuilding things? That's got to be well over 100.



How has it changed? There are fewer cards, but on the whole it hasn't changed much in the last 20 years.

Well. It changed for me and that is my question. Has it changed for you ? Don't ask me how ask yourself if it did change for you. I'm just curious.
For the record. It did change for me in the features, the availability and units you can choose from. Way more in the market than it used to be back in the days.

 

[xu^]

around 15 in total , maybe 5 for myself and the rest for other ppl, mainly friends who were starting out on the PC journey.
wouldve been more but my last build in 2007 lasted me until 2020 ,altho there wasnt much left of the original 2007 PC left by 2020 , just the ram, motherboard and case , i still have it stored away just in case anything happens to main machine and i need something to get online.

my last was my own around 6 weeks ago

 

[bug]

I'm not sure how to count them. I built for myself 5 or 6 systems. But I have also often upgraded these over the years (that's why we use PCs, right?).
I have built systems for my friends/family and I have just looked up parts for them, handed them the list and they ordered PCs based on those lists.

For a few months, I built PCs for a living. At least one system a day, iirc.

Well. It changed for me and that is my question. Has it changed for you ? Don't ask me how ask yourself if it did change for you. I'm just curious.
For the record. It did change for me in the features, the availability and units you can choose from. Way more in the market than it used to be back in the days.

Add-in cards are mostly the same, whether they're ISA or the latest PCIe cards. SATA storage device aren't all that different from their IDE grandparents (cables are smaller and the connectors different, but it's still the same data+power affair). Power to the motherboard is still about the same, only with more pins. Optical drives have come and gone.
I think what changed the most is mounting the CPU cooler. And diagnostic LEDs, which, sadly, are now becoming increasingly more hard to find.
Oh and we had slotted CPUs for a brief period.

As for diversity, I think it depends. At some point you could choose a CPU from Intel, AMD, Cyrix or VIA. You could choose a motherboard from all the current manufacturers (sans AsRock), but also from Abit, DFI, EPoX, Chaintech, Soyo... We had 3rd party chipsets to go with our CPUs. Some video cards manufacturers also exited the market when GPU makers (for better or worse) starting tightening up the grip around their designs.

 

[Atomic77]

It's a big fat zero pc's built for me. I don't have the time or knowledge to do anything like that.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

I've built (as in from zero) probably half a dozen, and rebuilt perhaps four or five times that.

 

[ratirt]

As for diversity, I think it depends. At some point you could choose a CPU from Intel, AMD, Cyrix or VIA. You could choose a motherboard from all the current manufacturers (sans AsRock), but also from Abit, DFI, EPoX, Chaintech, Soyo... We had 3rd party chipsets to go with our CPUs. Some video cards manufacturers also exited the market when GPU makers (for better or worse) starting tightening up the grip around their designs.

Yes and you could have put it in the same board. There were times when these were using same socket. Some long time ago

If you look at the board now and years back, the looks changed drastically. These boards pack more stuff and they don't look as ordinary as they usually did.
There is way more stuff to mention here anyway. A lot has changed and with vendors as well.

 

[robot zombie]

Several dozen at least. By the time I turned 18 I was doing builds for the whole neighborhood. That was a great time to be building. I feel like you got absurd bang for your buck versus anything coming off of the shelf back then. That was the primary interest for most I dealt with. Just wanted a good PC without spending stupid money not even knowing what they're getting. It was good for a while. None of them had any dealbreaker issues - not many repair calls... and the repair calls were more like 'mild user-error' calls. Eventually life went in a thousand directions and I fell out of it.

But these past few years I've done around a couple dozen more. Two for me and three for family. The rest were commissions through word of mouth. There is an island near here full of people with money who are big on getting everything they want locally. Some probably gave me a shot just on the novelty. I mostly did high-end builds for young affluent people who were more technophile than tech-savvy. Not as bad as it sounds, honestly. The kinds of people I would get mostly just wanted a nice 'centerpiece' build for the living room/rec area. I never did one for anyone who didn't genuinely love tech. Willing to spend the money for the good stuff and have it done right. Again, this is sort of a prestige thing of like "Oh yeah, I had this bangin PC built by this local guy who knows what's up." Good for business, the showoffs. So long as there aren't problems they can't deal with *knock on wood*

They were also pretty curious, maybe just needing something to say to people about it so they don't seem clueless. But I wouldn't say they were really that clueless. They usually did some decent research, even if they weren't clear on the particulars. Maybe just used to paying to have things done, being busy, wanting not to buy the wrong stuff or just unable to imagine a build on the level they would've wanted... never really cared. They at least learned enough to know what they were asking for and what they were getting into. I enjoyed fielding their questions and sharing in a little hype. A lot of the absolute best consumer parts went through my hands because of it. For me, it was just a fun side thing that paid well. Worked well for both parties, I think. Kept me busy in a time when I still sort of down about a few things, and the money was a nice savings-account boost with an occasional side of extravagant purchases. It's how I funded all of my upgrades when I was still trying to get my own build fully where I wanted it.

I think my favorite build to come out of that was for a teenage boy. It would be his first custom gaming PC - no more consoles. His mother was a pretty smart lady. The kid was clearly leaning more into tech and she thought a custom build would be a good incentive to get his feet wet. So it was a bit more involved but very interesting. I started from the beginning with him, breaking down all of the parts and considerations, just trying to teach him as much as possible about how a PC works and what is needed for what. Had him conceptualize it all and really think it through, with me just kind of helping make sure he made good calls. He did pretty well picking parts. When the parts all came in, I came back and we did a little guided build. He even handled the OS install, drivers, and so on. Kid was totally stoked and I gotta admit, I was too. Teenage me would have gone off the wall if he had the chance to do something like that. But I guess the pay was nice, too

It's funny, I don't do a lot of builds for myself. I like to have my old reliable that I almost never mess with. I just want my build to be as optimal as I can, have decent longevity, and no major issues across its service life. Once I get to that point, I don't mess with much and just run it till it doesn't keep up anymore. On the side I may manage to scrape together a salvage or two from tossed machines, but I tend not to keep them and it's really just an excuse to tinker more than a real build.

 

[bug]

Yes and you could have put it in the same board. There were times when these were using same socket. Some long time ago

If you look at the board now and years back, the looks changed drastically. These boards pack more stuff and they don't look as ordinary as they usually did.
There is way more stuff to mention here anyway. A lot has changed and with vendors as well.

Well yes, things have changed, but, imho, not substantially. I mean, if you knew how to put together a 486, you will be able to put together a Zen3 without much difficulty.

 

[PandaH05]

ive built about 100

 

[dorsetknob]

I mean, if you knew how to put together a 486, you will be able to put together a Zen3 without much difficulty.

Putting together a 486 is in my opinion alot harder than modern builds
Modern plug and play add on cards = easy set up compared to what came before

try fiddling with 3 or 4 different add on cards where you have to set up
jumpers IRQ DMA and memory address ranges
and then enable those settings in autoexec,bat and config.sys files.

Its a wonder us old-un's have as much hair left as we do !!!!

 

[Disparia]

Probably 350-ish.

Number of custom systems for others, Pentium II through Athlon MP/Xeon.

When replacing servers at S/M-sized businesses I'd usually start with a SuperMicro kit (case/power/board) and go from there.

Rest were mine, with 3 more systems in "buy later" lists! But it's going to be slow and piecemeal while waiting for items to come into stock.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

Putting together a 486 is in my opinion alot harder than modern builds
Modern plug and play add on cards = easy set up compared to what came before

try fiddling with 3 or 4 different add on cards where you have to set up
jumpers IRQ DMA and memory address ranges
and then enable those settings in autoexec,bat and config.sys files.

Its a wonder us old-un's have as much hair left as we do !!!!

My first was a 586, so PnP did most of the heavy lifting. However, since this was pretty early, I came to appreciate being able to set an IRQ or two manually when PnP didn't quite manage to sort everything out.

 

[Athlonite]

Between Friends, Family and word of mouth customers probably about 150 or so over the last two decades and probably about 10 for myself

 

[Steevo]

Probably about 100.

Started building for friends and family after I got a K6 setup, this computer is the oldest one I have had.....