Ahh the joys of doing it yourself.

What operating system did you get? Vista home 64bit?

I've been building my own puter since 2004. I built it back in 2004 and I think I even have the same case. Eventually something breaks or is outdated so I upgrade stuff, after about 2-3 years nothing is originaly and everything is new.

It's fun when you get the hang of it. But lord is it a pain in the ass when stuff goes bonkers and you can't figure it out. Some of those common problems I've had (and seen others have when building PC's)

1) Computer constantly restarting. Usually ends up being an issue with the heat

2) Incompatible ram. Even though the specs match, one I had to do a ton of research to find out that tons of people had problems with OCZ Reaper ram and my brand of motherboard. If the ram doesn't work you'll often get constant rebooting (see above) only you won't even be able to boot up the operating system

3) Computer just hangs when booting up (Stuck at windows splash screen). Probably means your hard drive = FAIL. Best bet is to get a new on, install operating system on new one and then later on put your old one back in and get the files off of it (if you can)

---------- Post added at 04:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:14 PM ----------

BTW: Best place to get computer parts (if you're on the east coast) is NEWEGG.COM

The have good deals, LOTS of random sale items, don't give you hassle when returning, and they ship fast.

Well at least they used to ship fast. They ship out of NJ (near NYC) I think. I live in Maryland near DC. I used to constantly order stuff and if I got it in before 1pm, I'd always get it next day (even when using UPS ground).

However the last two times I bought from NEWEGG it took forever for some reason. I hope these are exceptional cases and not the new norm for them