How I Learned to Build a PC

After buying a pre-built PC in 2019 I decided to build the next one myself. It was designed to fit in a TV stand in my office at home and edit 4k video whilst being reasonably affordable. This video documents my learning process.

Build (~£1100 or $1,360):
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600XT
Cooler: Noctua NH-L9a-AM4
GPU: Palit GeForce RTX 2060 StormX
Motherboard: MSI B450I GAMING PLUS AC mini-ITX
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 450 GM, 80 Plus Gold
RAM: KLEVV BOLT X 32GB kit (16GB x2) DDR4-3600 MHz
Case: Fractal Design Node 202
Storage: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB PCIe NVMe M.2

Thumbnail, camera work, emotional support: @Kim_Norrie

[fency]

Since no one has mentioned it yet: The cooler you fitted comes with pre-applied thermal paste, not to mention the amount of thermal paste you put was perhaps 1.5x what you needed. Really cool video though, that's just my tip for the future :)

[potatomanW]

If anyone is thinking about building their own PC. I would highly recommend it. The amount of pride you feel when all of your hard work and research comes together is something else.

[Mushiwushii]

I absolutely enjoyed this video.
You've summarized pretty well in layman's terms what the PC components do. And being a PC enthusiast as a teen and building my first PC when I got a job, I 100% relate with what you said about feeling like you've already done it before because of the hours of deep diving just watching guides in general.

[CrosshairClips]

Great video. People like you help grow the PC community, eliminate e-waste, and showcase a new hobby, like pc building, that many other people are too scared or nervous to try.

I have been watching your channel for years now, and throughout the years you have made some absolute amazing content. I am a programmer, pc builder, Rubik’s cube solver, and rock climber. It’s nice to see that every time I decide to try a new hobby, you normally try it soon after. I love that you share a majority of my hobbies, and are a creative and inspiring person.

Keep it up Mike. I’ll keep watching for years to come.

[Mr_Giraffe]

Pretty hardcore to start out with an ITX build (tiny desktop). Well done!

[rescyn]

I'm sure you'll have no end of suggestions but some to consider... nip in the BIOS and set your RAM speed correctly (XMP/DOCP - assuming you got something like 3600mhz for Ryzen), secure boot is probabaly turned on these days by default, and also check there's not a BIOS update available. Oh, and spend 30 mins going through windows setting turning off every single 'share/report/Cortana' option you can find ;)

[west]

As someone who built his own pc and took a lot of time to research about PC this was such a fun video to watch. I love the PC community and when I was a newbie I got helped so much on forums like LTT. Now I help people on reddit when I have the time

[toastermon]

After just spending a weekend upgrading my PC and doing a full custom watercooling setup for the first time, I feel the anxiety you have before turning it on for the first time and especially the shock when there's an issue!
I've loved tinkering around with PCs and this interest actually landed me in my current career so it's so nice to see basically a love letter for one of my favorite hobbies.

[rim]

in 9/10 cases, stock cpu coolers (ones that come with the cpu you got) tend to have thermal paste already applied (unless something changed in past 7 years since i last built my pc), so adding more at 8:40 probably wasn't strictly needed . Shouldn't be a future issue, but keep an eye out on the temperatures you are getting, if something looks concerning in 1-3 years, that would be my first guess as to why. Different thermal compounds mixed together under a fair amount of heat might behave unexpectedly (and its generally a fair shout to replace it every now and then).

Edit: never mind me, you replaced it later due to height restrictions. Good job, these small factor builds tend to be the biggest pain to build

[jacobwells]

For the power and reset switches, it actually doesn't matter which way around you wire the connector as long as you are on the correct pins, because all they are doing is closing a circuit when the switch is pressed. In fact if you find yourself tinkering with parts outside of a case (which is sometimes handy for troubleshooting), you can even short the two pins with the tip of a screwdriver to power on/off. The LED's connectors you do need to get right, since the D is for diode and they are sticklers for current flowing in the correct direction.

[jackfolsom]

When you installed the ram, one side of the second stick didn't click in and the stick visually looked crooked. This means that it isn't fully seated and won't work correctly. Also, when you were going through the UEFI at 12:52 you can it says you only have 16gb of physical memory instead of the 32gb you installed. So just push that one side of the ram stick in a little further and you'll double your memory capacity.

[chucklesdeclown]

actually a beefy gpu helps editing too but you've pretty much got all the details right and the fact that you trobleshooted the problem of the pc not booting yourself and you started with the most simplest problem first is honestly the cherry on top. great video.

[minikretz]

No shame in having a prebuilt for your first PC, but welcome to the family! Glad you had fun!

[UncleDon]

A friend convinced me to build a PC, so I had him help make a build list. I bought the parts and he walked me through connecting everything. It's what I am still using today- 5 years later. The amount of pride is amazing when you look at your build. I would recommend it to anyone because you can make it look however you want, and it definitely looks more complicated than it is. Everything snaps into place, and the wires are easier to figure out than you think.

[NS-ihzt]

Someone else has mentioned the PSU appears to be upside down, another thing I've noticed is that the cables 20 / 24pin into the PSU isn't plugged all the way in. Probably won't be a big issue but if you do fix your upside down PSU, be sure to reseat the cables into your PSU and push them all the way in - at best, they could come loose if you move it, save trouble shooting it later, at worst, it could be a (probably very minor) fire hazard.

Otherwise, love it and love that you've shown that it's really not that difficult to build your own PC, definitely a very helpful skill to have for quite a few people in the world.

[hellacious_]

This was a great video Mike. I've been an avid pc builder and gamer for years and no matter how many times I build a pc I still feel that sense of satisfaction. I'm glad your experience went well. Enjoy your pc and welcome to the community!

[delusionalmerg]

fun fact I learned and built my first pc with nothing but the manual of the motherboard and a few sweaty moments

[zakieldiju]

i used to be scared of opening up my laptop even when it was totally overheated due to dust build up inside. But once, i just dare myself up and dive into it. Opened it up for the first time, and oh boy, it was so dirty. I cleaned it up with helps of tutorial videos. Closed it up, and was so happy about it that i could handle my laptop's problem myself, and was not afraid anymore to solve my own laptop's problem from cleaning to upgrading. That leads to experiment and explore even further on how to improve my laptop's performance. Skip to 3 years later, now i run a side business of hardware and software PC/laptop repair, all because of that sudden encouragement i had :)

[MrIrondog]

Well done Mike! You built your first PC! Pretty much everything was spot on. My biggest advice when building any PC is always consult the Motherboard manual before the builds, and few things can't be installed where they shouldnt be, so its hard to go wrong. Dont worry about the front I/O, thats always a problem when you're making a PC for the first time. Also the thermal paste, as long as its about the size of a pea, usually you're fine, even if its a little more than that, it doesnt harm anything.
Also, never throw your old hardware away, either recycle or do something new with it. The amount of old kit that can be plugged into a TV as a media box, security cam, turned into a NAS or even a router is unbelieveable. At one stage I even used an old laptop to record video footage of birds on a feeder outside a flat window via movement.
I also like to think as motherboard as the skull, GFX as the eyes, soundcard as the ears (thats usually built on motherboards these days) RAM & HDD as short and long term memory and the thing that brings it all together is the brain to process the information - The CPU. Case is generally the skin as well.

Glad you had no problems with windows, as sometimes installing that with a legit key can be a nightmare. Looks like you were alright on that one though. Good Job!

[JeseeWalker]

This video made me smile so much at the end. I've always dreamed of building my own PC and I'm getting closer to doing that because of you. Thanks for all your amazing content.