Atm, im sure to study computer science in college
But since it'll be awhile before that happens, i would love to self teach myself about PC's.
I want to be the type of person who knows enough about PC's that could help others get started with their builds.
I dont know much about the PC parts or anything but i put together a pretty good part list myself.
Anyone have any ideas on where i could start looking so that i could further improve my knowledge with PC building/programing? Thanks (:
The best way to learn something is to do it yourself. Thats how I learned most of what I know and I'm sure lots of others here learned the same way. And for when your stumped there is a large community to help you along your journey to Tek enlightenment.
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Yeah, I agree with @offroadslayer88, I know quite a bit of stuff, considering I have had no training. At all. And I learnt by just doing it. So get out der do some crap! But seriously, maybe run a VM of Windows or Linux in VM Player or something and just ruin it, then try to fix it. Since it is a VM, it will not affect your own PC. Another option is to go and buy someone's almost dead old vista PC and play around with it. Maybe run networking, servers, etc. Im sure someone like @Wendell started at the same situation as you. And by now he is the god he is!
Watch The Tek, watch Linus. Try to put together a pc config on partpicker and understand why something is compatible/not compatible, starting point being the motherboard see what fits(newest chipsets being x99 Intel and fx990 amd, work backwards in time, eg. x87 fx890). Try get the most power for the least money(READ ALL THE SPECS, Intel takes ddr3 1600mhz AMD takes ddr3 1866 mhz, money saving info there), post a build ask for recommendations and try to understand why someone recommends something else(read a lot of hardware reviews, toms hardware is good). Read a lot of geforce vs radeon(geforce has physx radeon has eyefinity) and Intel vs amd threads(Intel has more power, amd better price). Finally order it all, build it yourself(carefully) Logan has a how to build a pc video. Install Windows yourself. Play some games on max :P
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And if you do build a PC like @vrtnipatuljak said, if it breaks, don't panic, (of course don't TRY to break a PC you are building for yourself!) as breaking a PC and debugging it, figuring out why it does that and fixing it makes you learn alot. I have learned a very large portion of what I know from fixing problems.
Yeah, break the software not the hardware, hardware cannot be repaired only replaced these days :D
Thanks everyonr (: im saving up for my build atm and im very excited to put it together myself! :D
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Good luck, mate!
Post some pics / build list and whatnot when you have :)
Trust me when I say, there's no feeling like it! 'Other than a bit of hows your father?'
Honestly, once you have built your first system, you'll feel a strong sense of pride!!! :O)
It wouldn't hurt to get familiar with using a 'multimeter', and be competent is using 'Ohm's Law' calculations, too.
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You can read online courses (https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/ for instance)
Watch youtube videos that explain what you are interested in (TekHardware, Newegg, LinusTechTips, .. among many others for hardware)
Read hardware reviews
If you have an old PC lying around, wipe the drives and put linux on it, try to maintain it, try to do as many things as possible with the command line, that's really imo how you "unveil the magic" of how and why it works. Maybe break stuff and try to fix it. Don't panic if you do things wrong the first time.
And just have fun :)
The book "Build It. Fix It. Own it. - A Beginner's Guide To Building And Upgrading A PC" by Paul McFedries is a good place to start. It's from 2008, so a lot of the pricing and hardware detailed is very much out of date. However, the breakdowns of the different technologies such as SATA, PATA, 802.11, DRAM, PCI-E and so on are still very accurate. There is also an entire section dedicated to explaining different nuances to building a PC and what your basic procedure should be.
Definitely a great book to have for starting fresh.
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If you know Barnacules Nerdgasm and have an interest in programming, you can watch his Codegasm videos.
Like what everyone said, explore things, you learn more with curiosity.
Welcome to the wonderful world of everything-PC.
Do you have any certs? A good way to learn is go through the programs.
What are you more interested in? Coding or Hardware?
For software and networking, virtual machines are AMAZING. If you have a spare PC, set up something like Proxmox, and pfSense as your router, plus a cheap managed switch, and you can learn ridiculous amounts of things about networking. If you only have one PC (even a cheap laptop) you can toss Linux on it, and run VirtualBox and test various distros. You can also use things like GNS3 to learn networking on a single PC.
When you run into a problem, don't just google the solution and blindly paste commands, read about them, learn what they do. Get to the point where you can come up with solutions to your own problems.
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Some great advice right here^
Trial and error like this is a great way to go, and it's also similar to the way I learned.
PC's: Read motherboard manuals, overclocking guides etc & buy some old gear you can tear down. Read reviews from sites like anandtech, guru3dd & a few others.
Watch computer architecture videos, understand all the components of a CPU, how memory works.
Learn how to effectively use a search engine.
Programming - go to the code acedemy website (or equivalent), or grab a book.
Google is your friend.
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