Have you got anxiety when you build?

I do! I want it to work (and would hate to send parts back, and wait) so I'm tense when when putting it together. It helps I think as I haven't failed. My last build was with the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master and a 9700K. Anxiety thru the whole build. Wasn't easy to get the MB in place, and thought I bent it a little, but works fine.

renderTimingPixel.png
 
I think as you acquire more machines you'll have less anxiety around the build. Knowing that I won't be without a decent computer if I mess things up makes the build process almost worry free, but if my ability to compute and game is based on making sure the build works then I may have a little concern.
 
@LNCPapa I hadn't given it the slightest thought until I read this thread but, wouldn't it be interesting, (just for laughs), to have a separate, "computer builder's emotional support" sub-forum?

For example, I had an older i3-3225 system laying around just gathering dust. So, I thought to myself, would it be fun to get this up and in service with a vertical 1200 x 1920 monitor, to do portrait orientation photo editing.

Thinking even further ahead, I said to myself, "this turd / relic, only has 8 GB of RAM. I should order 2 more foursies for it". As I searched for the original memory package, to order another 2 x4 GB sticks, I found that I already did that, several years ago. (I think I convinced myself I was saving them to replace a possible bad stick, sometime in the future, then forgot I had them).

with a renewed vigor, and maybe half drunk, I set about installing the additional RAM.

This involved needing to lop off the lowest part of the fan shroud ring on an Arctic Pro 7 to clear the GSkill's heat spreaders., and trying to force the DIMMs in backwards several times as I cursed, and had a few drops of sweat fall onto the motherboard. (By then I was sweating profusely, but managed to keep my head over the side of the case, and the excess sweat mostly landed on the floor.

At this point, I had completely convinced myself I had ruined the memory sticks, and likely the board as well, due to the fact I was uncertain I had successfully found and removed all the sweat droplets from the board.

The moment of truth arrived. I hooked the sucker up to a monitor, and began to try and boot it up. After a half dozen or so POST failures, it finally took and the "starting Windows" screen appeared..........and.................just hung there. No joy. No joy whatsoever..

After disconnecting all the drives save for C:/, and all the memory save for 1 stick in slot 1, I took another shot at it. With several failed POSTs, several long and longing looks at the "starting Windows" screen for minutes at a time, it finally did boot into Windows, but sadly, it wasn't in any way shape or form, repeatable.

By this time, I had myself thoroughly convinced that I had ruined either the board, the memory or both, which caused my anger and anxiety meters both, to blow their needles completely off the dial. As I surveyed the machine for reusable parts, and contemplated a long, embarrassing drive to the recycling center, my head down in shame, I said to myself, "self, for no particular reason why not yank the vid card (EVGA GTX-750 ti), and save it for a future project.

After doing so, I plugged the DVI cable into the board's IGP graphics port, muttered, "what the hell have I got to lose", and hit the power button. What to my poor drunken eyes should appear, but the EUFI notifying me "the BIOS has been corrupted and the backup is being loaded. After that, the machine booted immediately into Windows in mere seconds. (A Samsung 2 1/2" 860 SATA SSD was part of the restoration effort}..

I called EVGA, and as expected, they refused to warrant the 750, as it was maybe 4 months out of warranty, in spite of my truthfulness and sincerity about only getting a day's service tops, from their turd of a graphics card

Oh well, my next graphics will either be Asus or Gigabyte, and I have further promised myself, to fortify myself with Xanax, instead of Bacardi rum for my next project.

Facing a new build, is something akin to opening a closet in one of those dreadful "Chuckie" movies. IMO, Benzodiazapine based anxiolytics are your best defense against the "I'm about to do a new build", jitters.
 
Last edited:
Lol... maybe there should be a Building War Stories thread. You've already created a great first post for that.
 
I think as you acquire more machines you'll have less anxiety around the build. Knowing that I won't be without a decent computer if I mess things up makes the build process almost worry free, but if my ability to compute and game is based on making sure the build works then I may have a little concern.
That's true. With practice anxiety goes away. Though it depends on the person
 
Aye absolutely, I just upgraded my PC in July but completely botched it.

I got a Ryzen 5 3600 and a MSI B450 MOBO with it, I knew I'd need to flash the BIOS before I could use the CPU so I tried that with the FLASH USB stick - wouldn't work. Got Amazon Prime Now to deliver the Ryzen 3 1300 or something just to get it working so I could update the BIOS properly and I just couldn't get it to work.

In the end I returned the MOBO and Ryzen 3 1300 and just got a X570 MOBO delivered the next day where it'd work out the box like a charm.

That's put me right off building PCs for a while.
 
,,,,,[ ].....In the end I returned the MOBO and Ryzen 3 1300 and just got a X570 MOBO delivered the next day where it'd work out the box like a charm.

That's put me right off building PCs for a while.
I suspect it just might have put Amazon off selling you computer parts as well (**)... :rolleyes: :laughing: (At least for a time).

EPILOGUE: Oh well, I have no love nor pity in my heart for Amazon. I tried to order a left handed 12 string guitar from them. They had it listed as "only two left", and a low ball price. I got two right handed guitars in a row.

I noticed they had restocked the identical instrument at a much higher price, I obviously asked them to make good on my sale, albeit at the much lower agreed upon price. Which is when, New Delhi's finest tried to tell me, "that's a different seller". I pointed out .that I had the web page on the new stock right in front of me, and it clearly stated, "sold and shipped by Amazon", right next to the "click me to buy me" button.

After reassuring the customer assistance agents that Jeff Bezos wouldn't be pushing a shopping cart and living out of a cardboard box, even if he took a nasty bath on this one sale, they relented and sent me guitar three, which was indeed, left handed. (y) (Y):)

I will give them kudos for overnighting both the replacement guitars to me, in spite of the fact the original sale was, "free shipping". :heart_eyes:

(**) In hindsight, perhaps, "apprehensive about"< might have been a better choice of words.
 
Last edited:
Regular reasons for nervousness incorporate these states of mind: Panic issue: notwithstanding uneasiness, normal manifestations of frenzy issue are palpitations (feeling your heart beat), dazedness, and brevity of breath. ... Summed up nervousness issue.
And any one of a number of benzodiazipines alleviate those manifestations
 
Last edited:
Yes, but it's a rush too :). Hooking my gpu up to a $20 Chinese CPU water block using a 50 gallon tote of water as cooling solution last month was fun. Still runs just fine :).

Here is a thread I made with pics if anyone is interested. With optimal mounting I stay below 43c now at 2050 boost core 960 ram. Still ironing out some mounting kinks. I was at under 40c at one point before I just had to twist a wingnut a little bit more squishing out all my thermal paste. I need to file the mount down a bit more, it still doesn't line up quite right.
https://www.overclock.net/forum/67-...oop-blower-non-xt-break-down-disassembly.html

I also used cardboard to recreate my blower fan for mem with heat sinks. Works really well. Hybrid.
 
Last edited:
Never had any anxiety, well not for as long as I can remember. I've built and repaired probably thousands of computers in my lifetime. But maybe I've gone the other way because in my new personal build just last week I forgot to screw in the motherboard.

I woke up in the middle of the night just after finishing building it and thought to myself... I don't remember putting in the screws to mount the motherboard. The computer was running at the time, downloading some games IIRC. I got up and had a look and sure enough there were only two screws in the top of the board and even those were not tightened down. I shut it down and put the rest of the motherboard screws in, booted it back up, re-started the download and went back to sleep. It's all good, it was fine and has been fine since.
 
Aye absolutely, I just upgraded my PC in July but completely botched it.

I got a Ryzen 5 3600 and a MSI B450 MOBO with it, I knew I'd need to flash the BIOS before I could use the CPU so I tried that with the FLASH USB stick - wouldn't work. Got Amazon Prime Now to deliver the Ryzen 3 1300 or something just to get it working so I could update the BIOS properly and I just couldn't get it to work.

In the end I returned the MOBO and Ryzen 3 1300 and just got a X570 MOBO delivered the next day where it'd work out the box like a charm.

That's put me right off building PCs for a while.
I had the same issue with my MSI X370 and the 3600X
 
I have brief moments of anxiety as a value conscious tinkerer. Like when installing/changing a CPU with a "LGA" or Land-Grid-Array contact arrangement("LGA"-775, -1156, -1155, -1150, -1151, -2011...etc.). The shiny gold contacts on Intel processors are called "Lands". The numbers are indicative of "how many", and represent the last 15 or so years of Intel compatible mainstream stuff.
I once(2013) accidentally dropped a CPU(i5-3330) into the socket(LGA-1155) as I was installing it. And bent some of the delicate spring contacts.:scream: This ruins the entire motherboard!:scream: This was a $110 "oops" at the time.
Now I have an old Z-77 board I got used for under $50 in 2016. I dropped the board from chest level onto concrete floor when I first got it with no ill effects. It has hosted many a CPU since then(i3-2120, i5-3330, i5-2500, Xeon E3-1220, i5-2500K@4.4ghz, Xeon E3-1240v2). All these swaps were accompanied by brief moments of anxiety.:cold_sweat:
 
It all started with upgrading my faithful, 9 yr old GTX960 to play witcher 3 at decent settings. Ordered a £295 XFX RX5700 with the idea of upgrading the bios to rx5700xt specs. Bloody thing was too big to fit in my Coolermaster scout case without resorting to an angle grinder. New case. £100 LianLi Lancool 2 (I WANT the rgb. lol) The XFX 5700 turned out to be DOA...no others in stock at that price. Spent an extra £10 on MSI RX5700 evoke. Yeah! All working, but NOT the rgb. New motherboard, memory and chip. Ryzen 3600, MSI Tomahawk max. 16gb Corsair 3600 LPX, to replace the ageing Intel i5 750, Asus P755D, the 8gb of ddr3...ANOTHER £350.
Still no RGB lights on the case. Turns out the case has 5v aRGB 3-pin connectors...motherboard has only 12v 4pin RGB.
Another £5 for a chinese aRGB controller.
FINALLY! rgb working like a dream..Have it all running beautifully. After 2 days, pulled the plug from the damned RGB as it was too distracting.
So. Was it stressful? YUP. I am £800-odd poorer, but at least I can keep the grand-kids amused when I connect the fancy RGB, and let them play Farmville!
Plus's? New rig was a dream to put together, with zero problems since. (once I educated myself on the different RGB conventions)
Impressed with AMD's new hardware and software. Virtually silent, even with the stock cooler that came with the CPU.
Minus's? My 2020 holiday money is spent...but it looks like foreign holidays are on hold for a long time anyway, because of Covid19.
 
I have faith that it will work. But ya I'm so excited to get everything together and get it running. I am scared to death that after 2k+ worth of parts, somethings not going to fit right. So far I have never had to correct a build and wait. However I have come very close.
 
You should have a little bit of anxiety.

Not so much that you don't build a new rig at all, but enough to keep you careful while putting it together. No matter how many times you put a PC together, there are always ways it can go wrong.
 
Anxiety not really. I do get quite cranky when things don't work like driver installers barf or hardware doesn't like being in certain ports for non-obvious reasons.
I've built and repaired probably over a hundred machines now inc Enterprise Dell stuff so it's not really daunting after you do stuff enough times.
I would have anxiety about modern laptops I guess because they have lots of the little ribbon cables and I've just not done a lot with that scale/perceived fragility.
 
I don't get anxious when I build. I did my first build in 1988, I've done so many since that it's just routine to me now. It's actually easier now than it was then because you had to set those stupid jumper switches on the motherboard just right or it wouldn't post.

I can definitely understand why someone who is new to building or someone who has had some bad experiences with it could get anxiety though.
 
My first build when I like 14, but after 30 something computer builds it doesnt bother me, its only natural if your starting out
 
Yes, until a few years back I wouldn't even attempt to change ram sticks, I would just take the PC to a pc parts store for everything hardware related. But was interested in OC - had to OC since my main rig was an i5-750 for 10 years. So I learned how to replace the CPU cooler, then how to replace the PSU and when my PC gave up at some point (prob the motherboard), on a Saturday, the only chance of getting a working one fast was either a pre built - no thnx, these are really expensive here (in Greece), never got one, always ordered specific parts and had the build done, OR grabbing what parts I could find for a good price at that Saturday morning and building it myself.

I wanted to buy an i7-9700k z370 since I was pleased with my i5-750 going strong for all those years but the cost (for immediately available to pick up) compared to the Ryzen 7 2700 b450 plus cooler was about 730 vs 330 eur, so I picked the Ryzen option.

It took me 1 hour to figure out how to place the AM4 cooler for the Ryzen 2700, it would go up from the opposite direction every time I tried to press it in - I had a (recent) aftermarket cooler but had misplaced the screws for other slots, so had to go with the boxed one until I could find AM4 screws. Then after lots of work, the PC wouldn't turn on, had eventually to call for help, turned out the I hadn't properly connected the power buttons to the motherboard, although everything seemed according to spec.
Hope to be able to do my next build solo without asking for help at any stage?
 
I get mad anxiety, sometimes I'm just getting the processor into the bay, and bend about 40 (half of the total) pins, then I just breath a sigh of relief and remember it's ok if PCIE doesn't use all bands half is more than enough.

(please guys do not do this this is a joke)
 
Back