Today, I will teach you how you can build a computer from start to finish.

These are the things you are going to need:

1. Computer Case
2. Mother Board
3. CPU (Computer Chip) Like Intel P4 or AMD Athelon
4. Memory
5. Hard Drive
6. Operating System Software (Like Linux or Windows)
7. Power Supply (a good 400Watts is good)
8. CD/DVD Rom Drive

Here is a picture of all the component on a mother board
07p-483-mother-board.gif

If you have decided to build your own computer because you think it will be cheaper, than you are doing it for the wrong reasons, in fact, i am guilty of this. i wanted to know how to build my own computer because i thought i would be cheaper or less expensive than buying an already pre-built computer, but i was wrong. As I started to shop for the things i needed (the list above) I wanted to get the best, at the end, it ended up costing me like $1200 dollars to build my own, But it was a fast computer. I could have bout a manufactured computer for like $800 dollars with less performance. I was thinking of building my own computer similar to the $800 computer, if i did, i could have saved like $300 dollars, but i wanted the best, so i bought the most expensive items, (so that's why i mean not to build you own PC if your doing to save money) anyway, let go on with what you will need...

Once you have the list ready, go to your local electronics store and buy them. These are some notes I took when I bought my own peripherals.

1. COMPUTER CASE - If you have never built a computer before, the best thing to do is to buy the cheapest you can find, some cases come already with a power supply built-in, this is the best choice if you are a beginner.

2. MOTHER BOARD - There are so many options to choose from. Some good board makers are: Intel and ASUS. Make sure you buy an ATX type. Some good built-in options for a beginner are: Video Card, NIC Card, USB, Sound, Game. Some Motherboard don't come with these accessories, you just have to decide what's important to you. but if you are starting, i recommend you buy one with out any of them, although, it would be impossible, most board makers put them on already, so you can at least get some learning from this, buy a motherboard without a NIC card, Video Card, this way, you can buy them separately and put them on yourself on the board, and this way you will learn where they go. BUT, to run the our PC, you will at least need a video card, whether you get it separately or already built-in.

3. Now that you have your motherboard, you will need a CPU. A good choice is to buy an INTEL Pentium 4 Processor. They are very reliable. You can also save money if you get an AMD, same quality, but better price. Its your choice. (i just prefer INTEL). Make sure you confirm with the sales person whom you are buying the CPU, to make sure its compatible with your mother board. So Make sure to ask (i am not going to on explaining the details as to how to determine which board goes with what CPU, its too complicated, because there are so many variables, FOR NOW, JUST MAKE SURE YOU ASK THE SALES PERSON)

4. The next thing you are gong to need is MEMORY. Today's Boards come with DDR memory. How much memory do you need? You will need at least 256MB (MegaBytes) The higher you go, the better performance, but unless you are a gamer, you really don't need more than 512MB. These are the types of memory available in MegaBytes: 256, 512, 768, 1024 ..

5. Now you will need a good hard drive, I would start with a small drive. Currently, the smallest i could find is 60Gigs at 7200 RPMs. some good drive makers are: Maxtor, Western Digital, Toshiba. I own mostly Maxtor, I've only had one failed on my so far.

6. Next, you will need a CD/DVD rom drive to install your operating system. You don't have to have DVD drive, a simple CD Drive will do for our purpose.

7. Now that you have the hardware:
COMPUTER CASE
POWER SUPPLY
MOTHER BOARD
PROCESSOR (CPU)
MEMORY
VIDEO CARD (if not built-in in motherboard)
HARD DRIVE (or disk drive)
CD ROM
Now that you have all the hardware ready, its time to put it all together.

first, get your computer case out of the box and install the power supply

once the power supply in installed, next install the mother board

with the mother board installed, install the CPU in the CPU slot, make sure you are gentle, don't use any force, it should drop in nicely, if it doesn't than it means, there is something wrong.

now that you have the CPU in, put the memory stick in each slot

if your board did not come with a video card, its time to put it on the board

next, its time to install the drive, first install the hard drive and then the CD from drive

Now that you have all the hardware together, its time to install the software (operating system)

If you used to using a computer with windows, then install windows, but if you are brave, and want to explore another options, try installing Linux. Linux is free, you can download it form the internet from many mirror site. A good and friendly Linux distribution is Fedora. Fedora came from Red Hat. Red Had was and Open Source (free) operating system, but now Red Hat is for business, which means its not free, so to give out to the open source community, Red Hat created The Fedora Project. The current Fedora Project is Fedora Core 5. you can download your own copy for free at http://fedoraproject.org/

This is how my monster looks like, hey, its works, how do you think i was able to write this tutorial guide?
07p-483-complete-computer.gif