I've built eight computers so far...three of them mid-range, five of them bottom-of-the-barrell cheap! Yee-haa!

My favorite circuit boards are ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte. Thermaltake, AMD, Ultra, are other name brands I like to use. I really like Seagate Barracuda hard drives.

Two of the computers were for myself and one for my wife. Others were for family and friends.

Not sure if anyone will be surprised with this or not, but I only built maybe 5 or 6. I can really only remember 5, but I may be forgetting a couple.

I like building them up until the heatsink for the CPU, I swear I've put them on 50 times, second guessing myself at almost every application, I've put them on every possible way and I NEVER get as low of temps as people claim publically. I can't be continually screwing them up. So I don't even pay attention to temps unless I'm having stability problems.

Lost count...6 brand new, mid - high spec...Quite a few from harvested parts...Quite a few for the cybercafe...

Over the years... perhaps a couple dozen from scratch? Add to that the incessant PC upgrades I've given to my own until you can count it as "new" when every possible part has been replaced .

In some strange way I equate this post to your thread, "What do you do with your computer". So oddly, and a bit off topic, I'm going to reply to that thread here (!) or (?) (readers choice)
Well, I run "Memtest" for a while, then I fire up "Prime 95", when I've overheated my machine with that, I head toward my half dozen or so favorite online AV scan sites, and let them scan my machine for a day and a half. When that's finished, it's back to more benchmarking, I got to have them great specs to let everybody see. Maybe by next week I'll have a spare minute or so to buy more computer parts.

April Fool's Day is for amateurs, April Idiot's Day is for "computer enthusiasts". So everybody join in, and let's revel in the holiday!

I don't seem to run into picture perfect HSF fan installation either. One time I had one install too easily! Wowie, I thought that was going to screwup big time! So I thought to myself, "I had better quick rush over to Newegg and write a good review, 'cause I didn't think I was going to break my motherboard". Luckily I realized in the nick of time that this was my own incompetence. I kept my mouth shut, but I did login and downgrade my "technical ability" to "below average".

I read a post here at TS, that said the OP's CPU temp was about 19C. The room was about 21C, so I guess the desktop was in the refrigerator. I believe what "Speedfan" says, as if my life depended on it. And so should you!

I've built 4 computers recently, which through no obvious fault of my own, tragically booted on the first try. Well, in the case of an Intel G965, second try. This was because the BIOS and I didn't see "eye to eye" on how to configure the HDDs. Silly me, I tried to feed to it 2 SATA drives at once, and still expected it to know that it should run them as IDE anyway. Boy oh boy, did that BIOS help me to outsmart myself......., yet again! As the song goes, "here we go loop de loop".

I think all of us builders would find it uplifting to console ourselves with this little re-imagining of a movie classic;

And now a scene from, "Gone With the Wind--ows"; Scarlett turns to Rhett, voice quivering and says, "oh Rhett, I de-clay-ah, I just don't know how to get my new computer to boot. I am just Bee-SOD myself with anguish.

My tongue seems to have completely crashed and stuck in my cheek. Being straddled with limited diagnostic skills, I'm not certain if this is due to improperly installed attitude software, or a massive overdose of Lipitor. Should I start a new thread?

I've built seven. Three high end gaming PCs for me, one mid-range for my wife, a mid-range for someone else and two budget PCs for others. These were all built from scratch from brand new parts. I've also replaced a bunch of hardware on two other Dell PCs.

Too many (starting from a 8088 XT machine), and I'm not really interested in building them anymore. I don't want to waste/spend my time tinkering and tweaking with software either. Maybe I've grown old...

I embrace the answer that I fear most, exactly what do you consider old?

Just one, my own low end < $650 gamer, though that excludes the monitor and phericals, well in access of about $400...

Major downfall of text communication, no tone to signify sarcasm or joking D:.

Same here, just the one. But I've taken apart and tinkered with my fair share. I prefer doing hardware stuff with laptops over desktops though. Their compact nature makes them much more interesting and challenging to work with, which I like. I just won a Pentium M 1.8 ghz laptop without a hard drive off ebay, and i'm planning to water cool it...

Well HK, perhaps if you read the name of the person that posted that statement the, "joking and/or sarcasm" would, or rather should, automatically be understood. I did use emoticons, "rolleyes", "wink", "embarrassed", and certainly last but not least "confused". I dun done what I could! Seriously though, at one time I wanted to have custom t-shirts made that said, "I'm just joking".

Besides, isn't anyone going to comment on my "Gone With the Wind-ows" parody?

Also, I think I hit the foibles and maniacism of computer enthusiasts / builders, (including myself), pretty much on the head.

Disclaimer; My previous post was a work of fiction, for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity between persons living, dead, or addicted to the PC, is purely coincidental.

Didn't read it, don't really get it, I tend not to read those books you would read for schools...all very unique in a strange way.

I did catch that one though .

"Gone With the Wind" (1939) won 8 Oscars, but yes, it is taken from a novel. The movie is set in the South, in the period before, during, and after the Civil War. As a consequence Scarlett O'Hara speaks with a heavy Southern accent. Plus, she's a drama queen.

So, "beside" with a heavy Southern accent becomes "Bee-SOD" when written phonetically, and "Bee-S-O-D as we all know is, "blue screen of death". And face it, most of us are "beside ourselves with anguish", when we encounter a BSOD.

"Gone With the Wind-ows", now do you get it? The reference really isn't that obscure, but I'm what you would call really old. Which helps, but hurts, as it were.

Around 10 or so, whenever I'm bored and have some extra cash to play with the latest and greatest.

Lol...got that part, not the accent, though I did actually notice BSOD, despite all odds.

Anyway, i've only built one personally, a low budget build. Maybe I should add up the numerous computer threads...of course i'm not alluding to anything here at techspot.

Oh well, how many can a person actually build and still maintain a passable credit score? I'm pretty sure I've bagged the limit, at least for the time being, and maybe a little bit longer

I've built about 16 or so, which includes 6 of my own machines and around 10 for others, including some friends and relatives.

At Rage_3K_Moiz,
I just realized...how is it that you get by with a meager 2x 250gb + 2x 74gb raptors? It is certainly not because your hardware is not sufficient? Or maybe it's just how do I use so much, i'm sure I'm under 10 games on my poor 500gb hdd?

I have three 1TB external HDDs.

I'd say a couple dozen or so including all the machines I've built for other people.

Old is a state of mind... I'm starting to get old. I don't mind putting them together, but it better work right after I do so. I don't want to do too much tweaking of hardware, software, or overclocking. All I care about is stability.