Building Your Own Computer (DIY) Guide

The Finished Product

With the case nearly finished all you need to do now is install the case door and place on the case stickers that came with our Mainstream Intel System hardware. You should get Antec, Intel, and ASUS case stickers. If you leave one of these stickers off the system will run slow and never work correctly! Make sure you get down eye level with the case as seen below and center the Intel sticker just perfectly. LOL

With the racing stickers installed your computer build is finally complete… or is it?

We strongly suggest grabbing a pint of your favorite brew and getting to know your new computer. The early days are the most important as imprinting will take place. This is officially the first encounter between the computer and its new owner. By carefully nurturing your computer from the start you will have successfully started a bond that should last well into the next upgrade. In the mean time remove the old machine and either donate it, give it to family/friends, or recycle it. Whatever you do please do not throw it in the trash. It is illegal to throw old computers away because they contain many things harmful to the envronment like lead for example.

With the system completed you can fire it up for the first time and load the optimal defaults by entering the bios (hit the delete key when powering on) and insert your operating system disc of choice. Save the settings you changed in the BIOS and start the OS install. If you need help installing Windows XP Professional check out this thread in our forums: How To: Windows XP Pro Operating System Installation Guide.

We at LR firmly believe that you are never too young or too old to start building computers and hope that this DIY guide will serve as a great reference in helping others build their first computer. If you find you have further questions after reading this guide, please post your feedback on the forum link below, and our staff or friendly forum members will do our best to help you out. Enjoy!