Great moments in computer games They are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.
I did not expect the almost painful combination of horror and excitement I felt when it came time to press the power button on my newly built computer. This was my first time building one from scratch, and I went completely with everything – the only parts left from my old gaming facility were some SSDs that were too new to replace. I even got an M.2 SSD for my boot drive, which means I need to reinstall Windows as well.
I have enjoyed tinkering with the guts of PCs for years. From the first time I installed a CD drive, to replacing old hard disks and messing with the tiny jumpers that somehow determined their order in the boot sequence. I changed cases a few years ago, but only recently tried to build a computer from scratch.
My loyal GTX 970 has seen me a lot and it probably owes its lifespan to the fact that I played mostly in World of Warcraft. I was definitely thinking of upgrading a few times over the years, but it felt hard to justify as I spent most of my time in the relatively undemanding area. What motivated me to build a new computer was when it started to seriously run into the number of Chrome tabs that were constantly open for work.
I chose a large case, not only because it looks cool, but because I have more space to work on. Honestly, it’s probably a bit excessive for what is housing but I’d rather do that than do things even harder for myself with limited space. Everything went according to plan, though there was a moment when I wanted to throw the whole thing out the window: when I could not connect the tiny chassis cables to the right place on the motherboard.
Other than that, it was a surprisingly smooth voyage – certainly not the absolute holiday I swore I imagined. So when the last cable is plugged in and everything is checked twice, it’s time for fame or a horribly expensive mistake. I pressed the power button, straining as if for some kind of explosion. Fans started to shake, the RGB came in, but there was no Windows installation screen.
I tried the finger drive on the other USB port and tried again. Still nothing. As I became more and more frantic and began to wonder – not for the first time – why the hell I thought I could do this, I noticed something on the table next to my keyboard: the USB stick. Yes, it was then that I realized I was trying to boot my new computer with a Bluetooth adapter. For my protection, this is a shape and size similar to a thumb drive.
After correcting my mistake, I installed Windows without any glitches and I do not think anything could have hurt the pride I felt for days afterwards. Like playing a soul game, the sense of accomplishment far outweighs the frustration (or vague horror) it takes to achieve. The only small hiccup was a user error and not something hardware related TechnicallyMy first computer build ever worked on the first try.