Build Your Own Custom Computer!

Ask yourself what you want your computer to be able to do efficiently. Do you want a computer for web browsing, spreadsheets, word processing, gaming, and/or video processing? Let's go over the necessary components we will need to build our computer.

The CPU is the most powerful component in your computer and it will ultimately determine how quickly you can run applications.

If you need to look for value in your build, I would reccomend cutting corners on the RAM and motherboard. You can often find the best deals by looking for CPU/motherboard/RAM combos.

Choosing a computer case is somewhat of a tasters choice. Towers typically come in small, medium, and large size with larger ones being able to house more components. We will also take a look at how to select a graphics card. The Core i3 processor we chose has integrated graphics, so having a dedicated card is completely optional.

In this lecture I will show you how to use a power calculator to choose your power supply (PSU), and why you should always install a solid state drive as your primary disk drive.

An operating system allows you to communicate with your hardware. A few options are Windows, Linux, and iOS.

Let's take a look inside our old machine and see if we can reuse any of the old components.

Rebates are a normal part of the computer world. Let's finish up the "administrative" side of building a computer.

Let's take a quick look at the computer case we will be using.

Let's take a quick look at the memory we will be using in our computer.

Let's take a quick look at the hard drive we will be using in our computer.

Let's take a quick look at the processor (CPU) we will be using in our computer.

Let's take a quick look at the PSU we will be using with this build.

Let's take a quick look at the motherboard we will be using as a part of our system.

Let's finish this section by taking a look at out our dedicated graphics card. Since the CPU already comes with integrated graphics built in, a dedicated video card is completely optional.

I like to install the power supply first to avoid hitting the motherboard with both the unit and the cords.

Next, let's install our motherboard.

Once the motherboard is in place we can install the CPU.

In this lecture, I will show you how to properly install a dedicated graphics card (GPU). I would recommend waiting to put in the video card last, because you may find it hard to manuver around when connecting wires to the motherboard.

In this lecture, we will install our old hard & new hard drive in to our built-in enclosure.

Let's quickly install our 8GB stick of RAM.

In this lecture, we will plug in the neccesary cords to power the components in our new computer, and attach the proper data transfer cables.

Now that we have all of the proper cords attached to our motherboard, we can re-install our graphics card.

If you are building your own computer as you follow along with this course, congradulations on completeing the hardware portion!

If you do not have CD/DVD drive installed in your system, you will need to install Windows through a USB flash drive.

Complete walkthrough of the Windows 7 installation.

Windows failed to identify and install the proper Ethernet driver for our computer, no problem!

I will show your how to find the necessary drivers on the internet so we can download them, put them on a USB drive, and tranfer them to our new computer.

In this lecture, we will finish installing our Ethernet driver and locate & install the correct driver for our graphics card.

You can run a system rating test using the Windows experience index to get a standardize score for your components. I like to run this to make sure my system is performing properly.

These are some free alternatives to Windows programs I like using, including a free office alternative.

When you change internet browsers or media players you may need to update which one Windows chooses to use.

We will go over what Windows automaticall does when you insert a flash drive, CD, DVD, or some other media.

The toolbar gives you easy access to the programs and utilities that are running on your computer.

Let's replace our wallpaper with a slide show and change our theme color.

We will begin by downloading and installing Ubuntu Linux 16.04.1 LTS in Virtual Box. Start with a virtual machine to determine which Linux distro you like best.

We will need to create a live usb to install Linux since we do not have a disc drive. First we need to reformat our flash drive from NTFS to FAT32.

Disable fast start before proceeding with the Linux installation.

In this lecture we will change the boot priority in the BIOS, and install Linux as a dual boot alongside our primary operating system. If you don't see an option to boot back into Windows in the GRUB boot manager go into Terminal and enter "sudo update-grub" 

If you are done using Linux and want to free up hard drive space, you can delete the Ubuntu partitions using the disc management tool in Windows.

If you having trouble booting back in to Windows after installing Ubuntu, the video will help you to repair the GRUB bootloader.  After installing Ubuntu Linux, type the following commands in to the terminal to updated GRUB and to see the option to boot in to Windows:

sudo update-grub

After deleting the Linux partitions from your hard drive, do a live boot in to Linux (Try Ubuntu without installing) and type the following command in to the terminal to boot back in to Windows:

sudo apt-get install lilo 

Hit enter then:

sudo lilo -M /dev/sda mbr

I just purchased a pre-owned Lenovo Y40 laptop off of Craiglist, and the first thing we want to do is revert back to factory settings. From there we can automatically update from Windows 8 to 10.

Let's remove all of the unnecessary pre-installed software from our computer. There are quite a few programs on this computer that I will never use, so I am going to remove them.

I will show you how to disable programs from automatically booting up with Windows. This will make restarting the computer faster and prevent software we don't use on a daily basis from starting up.

Removing malware from computer isn't difficult when you have the proper software. Don't pay your local computer guy $100 to fix your computer!

I hope this video helps you to remove the pesky folders that you are unable to delete through the Windows GUI. I will show you how to remove these folders using the Windows command prompt (CMD). This should work on Windows 7/8/10.

Open up CMD (command prompt) and type in:

cd /d C:\Users\(your user name)\Desktop

Hit Enter then:

dir /x

Hit enter then find the system nickname for the folder you wish to delete, then:

rmdir /q /s (folder nickname)