Avoiding Common PC Building Traps - Episode 4 

Definitely keep this show going!

Build your PC on PC part picker first, to check for any incompatibility.

My advice: don't buy any RAM, solid state storage, or graphics cards until at least 2018. Fuck these prices.

Remember to flip your psu switch to on before trying to boot your pc for the first time I left mine off and was freaking out thought I did something wrong when it didn't power up it was my first pc build 😂

Dont forget to install the I/O panel BEFORE! the motherboard.

One small tip I learned the hard way on my first build is that the motherboard I/O shield is placed on the INSIDE of the case, not on the outside. It actually fits on the outside, but there's nothing holding it there, so it falls off pretty quickly.

I Have One: Forgetting to buy a Hard Drive I Bought Almost Everything Except for an SSD and an HDD

Had to reverse my airflow to make the Noctua NH-D15 fit in my C-70 case. Two 140mm intakes on the top, one 120mm intake on the back. NH-D15 flowing downwards onto my GTX980. Two 140mm exhaust fans on the bottom and two 120mm exhaust on the front of my case. Fans barely run, my 7700k barely hits 70° at 5.0GHz. The airflow in a pc case is way to turbulent to be affected by heat rising, just face the fans in a way that best brings fresh air to the CPU and video card while maintaining a balance of intake to exhaust fans.

remove the sticker on the bottom of the heatsink!

Tip: if you are building your first pc, make sure leave some funds for the keyboard and monitor, especially if you are going up from a laptop. Seriously, when i planned my first build i forgot to take into account the monitor, which was expensive af, about a quarter to a third of the build funds.

2:07 I have RGB blood, deal with it.

This is true for any kind of assembly project, but make sure that all of the parts for all your components are accounted for before you start. Its such a pain in the ass to have everything assembled only to realize that you threw away the motherboard standoffs in the box and now you have to fish through the trash. Maybe that's a bad example, but I think you get the idea.

I was worried this series was dead... Glad it's not

Not specifically a "building" tip but here goes. Don't get rid of your old components/PCs. Selling them or giving them away sounds appealing but they will help you tremendously if something goes wrong with your main rig. Not only is having a system that boots to an OS super helpful when your main system doesn't boot but swapping parts around to figure out which component is screwing with you is by far the fastest way to troubleshoot.

The "cooler fins are sharp" one is legit. I know. For reasons that may or may not involve cutting my finger.

How dare you not even use "Its a trap!"... trap is literally in the title

yes plz continue with "Avoiding Common PC Building Traps"!!!!! i teaches me stuff i am to lazy to find out on my own!!

1. Don't be cheap when choosing the case for your build. I know, you already spent a lot on the components and it seems natural to save on the least essential of parts. But a good case will save a lot of hassle with HDD and cable management, as well as lots of cuts on your hands. Not to mention features (front panel USB 3.0 FTW), better thermals and aesthetics. 2. Also, cheaper cases tend to have limited space for a GPU. So if you (despite my warning) decide to go with a cheap one, make sure it can accommodate your choice of GPU. The length of the GPU is the main concern here. 3. Plug in the CPU power cables before you mount the motherboard in the case. Most cases nowadays have a bottom mounted PSU, while the CPU power connectors are at the top of the MOBO. This will leave you with very little space to maneuver with the CPU power cables once the MOBO is mounted inside the case. This is not too big of an issue when using a liquid cooler. But if you opt for a big air cooler, this will save you a lot of frustration and cuts on your hands.

Building your pc out side of your case is really huge. It seems like a hassel but trust me it makes a difference. Built my first 2 pcs like this didn't have an issue. When i built my third i couldn't get it to post and it was terrible trying to figure out what was wrong. I had to take it apart and build it outside the case again to fix it. Moral of the story its a pain untill its a godsend.

Always check the PSU switch to avoid the heart attack that comes after unsuccessfully trying the power button for the first time.

Once built, never ever open your PC case again. The leprechauns and pixies that makes your PC work with their ancient magic will escape, and it's a real b@stard catching and trapping them back in. The leprechauns tread to bait! Also, don't press the right mouse button. I warn you last time about the dangers.

Trying to AVOID Traps? PC culture has gone too far these days...

The subtitle text at 0:08 is *way too thin* to be shown on RU-vid due to it's compression ("Avoiding common PC building traps Episode 4"). It breaks the look and readability of the text. Please make it larger/bolder next time. Anyways, great video!

For the love of God, check the length of your psu's cables

Continue this series!!

When looking into the case via the front for hard to see fans and if they are working: 1. Remember your front fans are on. 2. If doing this turn them down or off via bios or fan control app. 3. DO NOT forget about 1 & 2 then Proceed to get too close to a 1520RPM fan. 4. Certainly do not do all three twice. Yours sincerely, a cut knuckle and nose... I was extremely tired okay. Lol

Before you try too boot your computer for the first time, check that you connect the sata cables before you pull out your hair 😳

Download correct amount of RAM and GPU while installing ur Windows :)

Remember kids, it's called watercooled because it's fully submerged in water. So be sure to get plenty of tap water ready!

Save all the packaging, save all the books and screws. Receipts. Store it somewhere safe. You might forget exactly what brand of ram or whatever, so if you want to take that 2 dimm 16gb kit to a 4 dimm 32gb kit because you're an insane person, you know the brand and ram speed so you're not mixing and matching

2:00 is the cover from the human centipede? lmao

A little correction, number of intake/exhaust fans does not matter. If you have 2 intake fans running at 100% and 3 exhaust fans working at 60%, you are still making positive pressure.

Best advice i can give. Even if you dont run into any problems, be prepared to debug, be prepared to be frustrated after re-seating everything 2-3 times. Expect it and if you do you wont be as frustrated. My first build i wanted to return everything and just get ibuypower to build it. but just know its part of the process. and if it doesn't happen, well thats even better.

One thing I've found that's common with inexperienced builders is over stretched cables! Sometimes it's worth doing a dry install of the motherboard and PSU to see where cables can be routed, and find out if you need a 24pin extension as some times I've found the GPU gets in the way, or it's just to high up to route through the back of some cases

Pro tip: use the motherboard's manual. Should have a graph showing where every header is and how everything and anything needs to be plugged in, including the most exotic pins.

Continue this series!!! Very good advice, most of it I know, but some of which I forgot when I built my PC, like building it outside the case. 1. It is a lot harder to slot RAM in when the motherboard is mounted in the case. 2. It made it much harder to figure out what was so loud. I thought it was cable whine from the power supply or the gpu... turns out the SSD was very loud. Then I swapped out the SSD and quieter the power supply also had cable wine. It was difficult to isolate between that and the gpu at first though especially with the layout of my case. If I had assembled outside the case the gpu and power supply wouldn't have been right next to each other... and the SSD would have been immediately apparent.

*WHAT!!! a 7 second Intro. How dare you Linus!* triggered people of 2017.

Don't rush into building a system only to find that it doesn't actually fit in its intended location. Check the dimensions of your chosen case, adding 100mm or so to the depth figure to ensure adequate airflow and clearance for cables and connectors. I once had to modify my desk so that my newly built system would fit underneath. The only tool you should need when building a PC is a screwdriver; you shouldn't have to use a saw and a sander as well.

If you're upgrading a graphics card in an existing case check the length of the cards. I went from a GTX 660 to a GTX 1070 Strix and the new card was about 3 inches longer than my old one. Luckily my case had removable hard drive bays so with a little massaging It fits but it sits on my lower drive cage. Something I never thought about being an issue as all of my old cards were the GTX _60 cards. I have built dozens of PCs and this was the first time I had a GPU size problem.

TL;DR: 1) Fan orientation: create overpressure in case for better airflow. 2) air coolers are sharp. cut yourself for brutal colouring 3) custom watercooling: "don't use different metals" ~ Chemistry 4) waste of money: · hard drive watercooler · 300$ sound card · gaming network cards don't waste money 5) consider building outside of case. Easier troubleshoot.

the first time I built a PC, I did it in the case. I can't stress how useful the advice of building a majority first before mounting it in the case. You are essentially just cramping your workspace for no reason.

Yes, please keep this going. Even if it's stuff you've mentioned in other videos (which a lot of this is) it's good to have it all scrunched in a series that someone can binge on before diving into a build.

When i was in high school in our computer glass i was my instructors only intern for all 4 years of high school and this other kid every semester he tried to become and intern but our teacher would not accept him even though he was super smart and a 4.0gpa. he didn't understand why. but every time we made a booboo we always called it "Pulling a James" (james was his name) exp he comes in saying he can't get his soundcard to work( this was back in the 2001-2003 times) so he brings his PC in. then while his system is running he flops his case on its side. pulls out his sound card blows on it like you used to do with those old NES consoles then forces his sound card back into his motherboard then points at his screen saying " see! its still not showing up as a working device" god he was funny. you could ask him any PC question and he's tell you instantly exactly word for word exactly what was written in the book. but when it came to applying what he learned to real world situations he was.... i want to say as dumb as a door knob but even door knobs know how to turn the right way.. lol.. another time. he asked me if i could come help him install a new motherboard in his computer. he had just gotten his mother board back from RMA for the 3rd time and each time it wouldn't post. he was wearing socks while on vary shaggy carpet. he was wearing a antistatic wrist strap that was connected to an aluminum chair. and i said DUDE no wonder your motherboard keeps frying. your not even grounded. his reply was "no see i'm connected to that huge metal chair plus i keep touching my case which grounds you" just did not understand that aluminum isn't conductive. last thing i'm going to say about that little bastard was after mowing lawns all summer and the beginning on junior year in high school i was helping some newer students with something and he comes in and asked me "hey is it ok if i used your computer for a little bit? i need to test something. i said yeah thats fine. then a few minutes later i smell that fried electronics smell and i run into the other room to see my computer up in smoke. when he asked if he could use my computer to test something he meant hey can i take apart your brand new computer and put your CPU in my motherboard to see if my board still works. ok yes it works. ok great then time to test my 266mhz bus CPU into your 333mhz bus motherboard and when it caught on fire no need to shut it off.i'll just put his system back together turning it back on and let the whole thing fry. then he refused to pay for anything because i said it was ok for him to use it. started a huge thing even involving the principle and everything. at the end i lost my first ever brand new $900.00 PC build. he was banned from the computer classes and the tech building. but i got him back for it:) lol. so my answer is yes! PLEASE KEEP UP THE COMMON PC BUILDING SERIES. sorry for this insainly long message. been up for 3 days so i know i have many spelling and grammer mistakes. sorry in advanced.

I am a veteran PC builder. Been building them since the Intel 386SX 33 through the 486DX 66 to the 486Pentium to my current AMD 8 core water cooled CPU, many other CPUs along the way. That being said, I do quite enjoy these videos. Keep up the good work!

Check your case and motherboard dimensions before buying either.. I have an old AMD motherboard that only says "ATX" on the box, so I bought an ATX case... Without measuring the MOBO first.. Now I have a case that's too small for the MOBO and am gonna have to grind off a drive bay or 2 for it to fit.

If you're looking at specs on a fact sheet or PCPartPicker or wherever, and you don't know what something means, look it up. This is particularly useful when comparing similar options; one thing might cost more than another just because it has a specific feature not relevant to you. Understanding the significance of these stats lets you make better decisions based on your use case. Take your time when planning the build and make a checklist. Whenever you find little "don't forget to ____!" things in the course of your research, add it to the checklist. It's really easy to forget things like the infamous motherboard IO shield, making sure your PSU is set to the right voltage and turned on, or that storage drives need both the power and data cables if you want them to do anything. Also, look at the installation instructions for the parts you've bought. PC building is mostly Lego, but manuals have non-intuitive info in them sometimes, like which settings to use in BIOS, which screws are used for which purpose, or which RAM slots are optimized for dual-channel kits.

Check if parts you are buying is compatible with each other or not before ordering them

I just recently built a computer for the first time and I got it to work with no issues first try because of your videos related to this. It is still working great and I have lots of fun playing games I couldn’t before on my old crappy PC.

If you build everything onto the motherboard outside of the case, you'll have a 50/50 chance that you cannot reach the screw holes that attach the motherboard to the case due to the CPU cooling block and GPU blocking these holes (depends on your motherboard ofcourse). It's fine for testing purposes, but if you build a rig with new parts, dont bother building everything onto the mobo outside the case.

Here's another round from me. 1. When buying Ryzen/AM4 , do NOT even consider A320 motherboards. B350 models are both better and quite affordable (usually 10-15$ more than A320 so the money is well worth). Same thing applies with Intel and H110. 2. Ryzen stock cooler is quite solid and is capable of pushing a 200-500MHz overclock (depending on your luck with the silicon). Just keep thermals under 75*C 3. Don't get dazzled by the novelty of NVMe. SATA 3-based SSDs are still plenty fast and a lot better value per gigabyte. 4. The used GPU market is currently a better place to shop. You can get great deals on last-gen cards and get similar performance to newer ones at a fraction of the price (This one is mainly due to the inflated prices caused by miners) 5. If you system takes a minute or two to post initially - don't panic, it's normal for a first boot. 6. Be careful when removing coolers from AM4 as applying too much pressure will result in you tearing out the CPU. Wiggled it around and be gentle.

Zip fucking ties. No one. No one ever mentions these.

If re-using a case for a rebuild, take the time to completely strip everything and clean all metal with rubbing alcohol. Then wait 10 minutes for complete air drying before installing parts. FYI, never use alcohol or Windex on clear plastic side panels. Plastic becomes cloudy.

Someone else's comment about magnetic screwdrivers reminded me of what type of hand tools i use: cheap ones. Sure, there are wonderful ifixit speciality tools for prying and tiny screws. On regular flat and phiilips #2 screwdrivers, never use nice snap-on branded or those ridiculous diamond coated or textured hand tools on PC parts. Its better to strip an $1 screwdriver than stripping out a $10 screw on a $100 heatsink on a $400 motherboard meant to cool a $1000 dollar CPU.

Not recommended to buy single sticks and pairing them up for dual channel/quad channel. Buy ram kits (2*4 or 4*8 or etc ) for are they are already validated to work together. I learnt that the hard way.

1:55 The fins are too fin. ha ha, get it thin, fin .

Don't stop the series - it has been very useful in my first build just a couple of months ago!

my tip is "don't OVERbuy" there's no point in buying a beastly PC if you are only ever going to be using a word processor, likewise if you are a hardcore WOW player that never touches any other games DON'T spend a couple of thousand on your PC , its really not required... its all about diminishing returns, its all well and good if you have money to burn but most people don't, a GTX 1060 will play all games pretty well, and cost much much less than a pair of 1080ti's which WILL run better, but most people wouldn't care too much... don't fall into the trap of the PC master race, by that I mean it's OK to have a decent (but not godlike) PC that suits your needs. we have linus for the monster PC RGB'ed to fuck with 128GB of RAM and 4 titanX, porn

Great video. Keep the series going. I have to agree with an earlier post about removing the protective seal before mounting your heatsink. My first build I was scared as hell to screw something up as it was expensive and a one shot deal. Felt like a surgeon. That was a sandybridge 2600k.

Ooooohh, sound cards! Remember when games would require you to have those so the audio didn't sound like complete shit? Me neither because that thankfully didn't last long.

Please keep this series going. A lot of good advice in here that could have made things simpler when I built my first PC.

hey everyone welcome to techquikie today we're gonna talk about .......... oops my dog just farted,. sorry well speaking about farting dogs, are you a small business owner that is in need of a website? squarespace! manage your site

Back in the day when there was a lot of jumpers on the motherboards, we would have to make sure the jumpers are installed on the correct pin's and configured for the right IRQ's. These day's hardware is more plug&play and the jumpers you see on the board at the least will just reset the BIOS config. Also I have found that some connectors after being plugged in will need a little push on the back of the wire's to fully seat the connector over the pin's. I like Linus and crew with all their knowledge of the current PC industry and hardware. Currently I have been researching the newer hardware to build a new personal gaming PC for around $1k with a gtx 1080. A massive upgrade to what I have now gtx 550 Ti. LOL Keep up the good work everyone!

do *not* force the fan onto the board, when it doesn't fit right away. i broke some of the cpu pins because i pushed too heavy, and this was 200€ down the toilet :D :( but the good thing: this happens only once to you. i never broke parts again after this

If you're willing and able to spend a lot just on aesthetics, you could help out a local 3d print artist and get something more custom. It might be a better value and even more pleasing to your eyes than spending it on hardware that isn't, but for appearance, any better for your experience than something inexpensive.

Only if this video had came few hours ago ....☝need a band aid for my finger flushing the blood out

I normally download all my drivers to a USB stick using a PC or laptop prior to building the new one. Too many times, have I bought a motherboard that needed a driver for the NIC, only not to have a driver that was compatible with my version of operating system. It is always better to download it first than trying to do it after you have already torn your old system out, and can't yet connect to the Internet with the new one.

Connect the cable from your monitor into the graphics card not the motherboard (if you have one)

To the point of building outside the case, some cases come with removable mother board cages. This allows for easy access building which you then slide into the case. I bought a Cooler Master case over 10 years ago with this feature. I've used it for 3 complete rebuilds and I love it!!!

Don't forget to remove the 7-second intro before installing your video!

This are great! Not everyone is an experienced PC builder and these are great for intros and reminders. I remember Luke tried it on the main channel, but it seems really suited for this channel. You should talk about PSU mistakes, some go over kill, but is under kill bad too?

Yeah I got one, READ THE FUCKING MANUAL!!!

1. Make sure you don't tighten your CPU cooler too tight on the motherboard. 2. When you go for the sweet custom sleeved cable management, make sure your new cables fit into your power supply. 3. Plan the build order before you actually build. Sometimes you need to put in a HDD before a power supply our route cables before putting in the motherboard. 4. Make sure you have the proper connectors on your MB for your build. For example it would suck if you are missing fan plugs or can't put in your M.2 SSD

*Complains about the intro just to get likes*

Please keep adding these videos. It is nice to have this extra information, even if one is well versed in the ways of PC building Thank you

(my terrible experience). past year i built my first pc (amd), my previous one was prebuilt and i used it for almost 8 years.Since i'm really in a budget situation and i just need pc for works, i went with amd. 1.Ram frequency. I went with apu, and many ppl sugested that i buy high frequency ram to boost the igpu, so i did. I checked amd web, it said the apu support 2133 ram, i bought ram 2133. On the packaging (ram) it didn't mention anything about tweaking it to achieve said frequency, there was 2133 printed on the packaging. Later in bios it only registered 1866, and after searching interweb for a while, i found out that my ram need to load xmp something in bios. 2. Ssd. After using for a while i noticed that in default ssd software, there was exclamation mark triangle. Long story short i found out that Shan Tsung pro 7xx ssd doesn't compatible (or doesn't support amd chipset, or other way around (it's not a matter of ahci mode)). so yeah, perhaps you could cover those in your next series.

No one ever told me to make sure the I/O hooks or whatever they're called aren't sticking into any of the ports. I didn't realize this was something I needed to watch out for and had to remove my Mobo and reseat it when I went to plug in an HDMI cable to test run it and there was a metal hook in my way.

Lol

very helpful guys! I am in the middle of upgrading my MB, CPU, MC and cooling system with exisitng PSU and case, and all the tips from EP1-4 has been great reminder for my planned upgrade! Please keep it going

am i the only one that has never had any troubles when building?

Certainly continue mate, you never know, it may save some poor gamer's life (computer). Anyway, those two errors had happened to me: 1) First time I bought myself M.2 slot and when I was trying to put it into the motherboard, I pulled out the tiny little screw altogether with the plug. It was so tight ... well, I have used wrong tools. So before you get into more fancy stuff, make sure you have a proper toolset as common equipment from your father's shed may not be enough (unless he repairs watches) 2) Modern midtowers often won't support regular sata dvd slot. They are meant to have system installed with USB flash (or external DVD which is often USB based). I have run into issue where I couldn't run the windows (or anything at all) because the drivers were not preinstalled into the set. I have bypassed the issue by installing windows on the harddrive, then let it boot with new computer, got the drivers in and then reinstalled the whole thing. Now I am building new system and I have asked the shop technician if he is familiar with this problem and he said that its quite common. Advice? Well, probably best to have external SATA device. Or I would like to hear a solution from Linus Tech Tips about what to do if you don't have one :D

*THAT INTRO IS AWFUL*

Just found this series and I enjoy it. I was thinking of recasing a machine and this was super helpful.

Delete system 32 after installing windows it will give you a performance boost

if you have a tight space around the sata ports, plug all your cables in. label the other ends and feed them to the back side of the case and let them hang. This way, if you ever want to add another sata drive, you don't have to pull the whole mobo out just to access those last two sata ports, they're already plugged in and ready to be fed into the drive bay

continue the series please, the water cooling thing was a good advice since I'm planning to buy one to replace my air cooled cpu.

Be careful with thermal paste amount! For my first build some paste got onto the back of the CPU and the metal pads didn’t conduct so my ram slots were faulty. To solve it, I just used rubbing alcohol on the CPU very sparingly.

Keep it going, Linus. These videos have confirmed what I already know, filled in the holes of things I don't know, and even helped my wife understand big parts of my career! Looking for ward to episode 5! Bet you can't beat Empire Strikes Back!

Don't stop these series, they're great!

a mistake i did in my first build: Don'ts try to move/check if the cpu is locked in it place cuz that lead to me bending my cpu socket pins another problem some may experience is over screwing or under screwing some screws , if you over screw you may end up damaging your motherboard , and if you under screw you cpu cooler this will cause throttling and high temps

One thing i'd like to see is how to isolate the defective part. Other then rechecking my connections i'd have no clue. Thumbs up:) Enjoyed the series and will keep the pitfalls in mind when i build.

Yea plz continuethis series its great linus

The one thing I see A LOT of people do (not just building but also selling stuff): using the anti static bag to place stuff on them... they're anti-static inside, but static on the outside. Also, I wouldn't recommend using the boxes to place your build on, since they flex a lot in the middle unless you fill them up with something.

That fan advice reminded me, what happened to the 1 year fan orientation testing? Those PCs are probably clogged up back there. Maybe give us a small update? Even a single picture? I can't wait till december.

yes continue the episodes of Avoiding Common PC Building Traps

If you've got the material, yes please keep this series going!

The only advice I can think of is to never buy your case before deciding on the other parts. You never want to accidentally add size restrictions to your PC before it's even built.

POST checking before connect EVERYTHING. When you have just the basic setup ( mobo+CPU+ram+Video card(or not if onboard is present)+PSU+monitor+k/b+mouse ) check by connect it to power and power it up just to check if the darn thing POSTS. Then switch it off, remove power cable and connect all the rest.

This more obvious but still very useful and important if all, avoid any possible damage by static

I love the "Avoiding Common PC Building Traps" series! Please continue!

Wouldn't mind seeing more of these. They're great.