Do’s & Don’ts When Building A PC Poor Cable Management

For one, it looks straight ugly when your cable management

Install Your Hardware In The Right Order
isn’t done to a good standard, especially if you have a
tempered glass side panels. Building a PC is like an art, so
Assembling the hardware in an inefficient order will cause you need to treat your PC build with love and respect.
headaches, and may even set you backward. Save yourself
the time and effort and use this effective step by step.
Managing cables benefit you by preventing intense dust
accumulation, and thermals to a certain degree. If you can’t
1. Place the motherboard on a non conductive take an extra hour planning a decent cable management
surface, the box it came in works perfectly fine. system, then you will suffer in the long run when you want
2. Install the processor/CPU first, open the processor to upgrade your motherboard for example.
socket, and install the processor in the correct
orientation.
3. Attach the CPU Cooler, If it’s an AIO, then leave Purchase The Correct Memory For Your Motherboard
this process to later.
4. Install the RAM into the correct slots, the DIMM The last thing you want to do is purchase RAM to find out
slots is where the RAM goes. Make sure it’s in the that the notches simply don’t match up with your
correct slots. motherboard. If you’re a beginner, you probably thought
5. Then you can install the motherboard into the any RAM and motherboard could go together
designated case. Screw it in tight, but not to the
point where it can damage the board.
Purchase The Correct Processor/CPU For Your
6. Install the drives HDD/SSD.
Motherboard

Stay Grounded, Static Electricity Is A Killer Static electricity Yes, you cannot pair a CPU with any motherboard, the CPU
can really wreak havoc to your hardware in many ways! It is needs to be compatible with the socket & chipset. Pro PC
important to take the necessary precautions to minimize builders know that an LGA 1151 CPU will only go with an
the chance of hardware failure. LGA 1151 motherboard, and an AM4 CPU will only go with
an AM4 socket.
An electrostatic discharge(ESD) can completely fry
integrated circuits rendering them useless. That isn’t all, an Make Sure Your CPU Cooler Is Compatible
ESD can damage a circuit or chip causing failure overtime,
effectively reducing chips’ lifespan & effectiveness. This is
It is possible to purchase a CPU cooler that is incompatible
also known as “delayed failure”, and it can take weeks-
with your selection of hardware. Your CPU cooler can be
months for the device to truly die.
incompatible with the socket of your motherboard, it can’t
physically fit without certain mounting brackets.
Buying Cheap & Crappy Power supplies
Don’t Forget To Apply Thermal Paste
NEVER cheap out on power supplies, this is one thing you
need to buy high quality. There are certain power supplies
The copper heatsink needs to directly attach to the heat
you should never buy, and there are brands that have
spreader of the CPU cooler, however, it needs a medium
earned their reputation for being reliable, and high quality.
for the heat to travel through effectively.

The effects a cheap power supply can have on your PC is

To the human eye, the heat spreader and heatsink look
not pleasant. There have been reports of cheap power
extremely smooth, but there are slight inconsistencies in
supplies catching on fire.
the surfaces. That’s why thermal paste is so important, it
fills in all the gaps between the heatsink and the CPU heat
Buying Cheap & Crappy Motherboards spreader. All it does is increase the total contact between
the two surfaces, allowing for effective heat transfer.
Buying a cheap motherboard can be perfectly fine when
you consider your needs. However, if you purchase a cheap Don’t Pair A Powerful Graphics Card With A Slow CPU
motherboard, don’t expect to be doing any overclocking.
This is an easy way to bottleneck your Graphics card(GPU).
Many people buy cheap motherboards because they don’t A good example of a bottleneck is pairing an RTX 2080 TI
want unnecessary features the expensive “gaming” ones with an i3 2120, causing a CPU bottleneck. Your graphics
come with, and that’s perfectly fine. But, those pc builders card would try to process x amount of frames, but the CPU
researched their needs and found it was unnecessary to will limit its full potential.
purchase an expensive, feature-rich motherboard.
If you have a CPU bottleneck, then the tall tale sings will Plugging your monitor into your motherboard and not
reveal a high CPU usage percentage, usually in the high 90s. your graphics card

Don’t Buy A Powerful GPU For Low Resolutions Common mistake. If you plug your monitor into your
motherboard, you will receive no GPU power. The only
graphical power you will receive is from the processor, and
When building a PC, it’s great to picture how it’s going to be
that usually doesn’t compete with graphics cards.
used. I say this because it’s important to have a decent end
goal in mind. For example, if you picture yourself gaming at
4K, then you’re going to need a pretty powerful GPU. Forgetting the CPU power connection

Say you pair an extremely powerful GPU with a 1080P Surprisingly enough, your CPU requires power from the PSU
monitor, Sure you’re going to get a ton of FPS, but you will too. This problem is encountered by beginners so
miss out of high definition quality. To be it sounds like a frequently, so you have nothing to worry about.
waste of power and money.
There is a socket on the motherboard which should indicate
Be Gentle With Your Hardware that the CPU power goes there.

Hardware made to be durable but of course you need to be

careful when handling your hardware. When you build a PC,
know you should never touch the pins on a
CPU/Motherboard. If you bend them, you may be able to
unbend them but usually, the CPU is toast.

Touching the bottom of a CPU, or touching the

motherboard CPU socket

Touching the back of the CPU could cause damage. You can
bend a PIN which can be fixed with patience, but it is time-
consuming and you could end up breaking the pins.

If you break a PIN on your CPU, then you will need a

replacement, because the chances of that CPU working is
slim.

Not plugging the CPU cooler in

Many beginners will forget to supply the CPU cooler fan

with power, Worst case scenario, they probably would
never notice too, this is because the heatsink can passively
cool the processor.

The consequences of doing this are poor performance and

decreased the life expectancy of the CPU.

Not pushing RAM sticks fully in

Some devices you install require a little effort when

inserting it. With RAM, you need to push it down till you
hear a click. If you don’t push the RAM stick in enough, your
system simply will not boot up.

Not connecting front panel connectors

Failing to install the front panel connectors will cause your

power, USB, audio jacks not to work. This is one of the
many reasons why your first PC build won’t turn on, and
you’re wondering why it’s being unresponsive.