Alright, I am a 13 year old teenager. My family is a huge nut for technology, which includes my brother, who graduated Purdue with a 3.3GPA in Computer Science - for those who are knowledgeable enough, Purdue is one of the top computer and engineering schools in the country. Lately, my family has been severely pushing me to learn C++, and start building my own computer.

Now, I'm most definitely not an expert with computers, but I am at least a little bit knowledgeable. I have faced several problems, including deleted Windows files which made the OS unoperative, Network problems, and OS installation problems. All of which, after a whole week of my summer vacation, I figured out. I even had to dig into my bro's custom built computer in order to fix a couple of problems including 1 fan not working, RAM causing my computer to crash (Had to set frequency to compatible range in Bios), and 1 hard drive not being read. All 3 of which I fixed ;).

Anyways, onwards to the point (as I doubt you care), lately I've been more and more interested. Before I get REALLY involved with computing, I was looking for any tips that some of the wiser computer techs could teach me about. Something not TOO basic, but not TOO difficult. My brother and parents only know so much, and people always do say, "Knowledge is important"

So, I appreciate any support people would give me. I was also wondering if you would suggest for me to start building a computer, or wait till' I'm a bit older? It doesn't seem THAT difficult, just seems like a lot of reading.

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Could anyone give me perhaps a description of some of the cables used to build a computer? I see several wires, but unless I figure out which is which, and what each one is called, I doubt I'll get far. Also, what "exactly" is overclocking? Is overclocking done by editing bios, or is it a hardware thing?

Yeah don't let idiots sucker you into downloading crap listen to people who know what they are talking about when it comes to tech stuff .

Google is your friend!

Here is a link to what I came up with by googling this phrase "building windows computer tutorials" (without the quotation marks)


http://www.google.com/search?q=building+wi...lient=firefox-a


Those four simple words produced enough learning material regarding the building of a Windows box to keep you busy for the rest of your life!

People here will try to help you even more than you can imagine if you attempt to keep the negativity out of your Threads/Posts; (Anyways, onwards to the point (as I doubt you care),


Your age has nothing to do with your desire to build your own computer; Go for it! You have the rest of your life to pursue this if indeed you are truly only thirteen!


Try Googling "overclocking" using various phrases to do so and see what you come up with and most of all; Have a great day!


ranger72

my suggestion - find a manual!
if you have a name brand, you can most likely download some sort of manual for your product on their website
if you have a homebuilt machine, more often than not, the model number will be easily recognizable on the top of the board as you stare down on the open computer case.

I learned with the manuals for the boards i was buying 12 years ago - before ribbon cables were dummy proof - and atx power supplies didn't exist!
as far as overclocking goes - if you can find the manual - there is usually info on that in there - back in the day we used jumper pins on the motherboard for setting the clock speed - now-a-days it's all done in the BIOS - before overclocking too much, make sure your processor fan is heavy duty and can handle the extra heat put out by overclocking!