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Question from Adrien: I have a three year old custom-built desktop computer that’s in need of some upgrades.
I plan to replace the motherboard in a year or so but right now I can only afford to add an SSD and (hopefully) max out the RAM.
I know which SSD I need to buy but I’m not sure how much RAM I can add.
Can you tell me how much RAM can be installed on a 3 year old Gigabyte motherboard? [Read more…]
Question from Michael: Hi Rick. I hope you can help me fix a problem I’m having with a brand new PC I just finished building.
After I got everything put together I installed Windows 10 on it and made a few settings changes.
Everything seemed fine and the system booted up normally a total of three times.
But the next time I turned it on the screen stayed blank and the motherboard’s LED error code display stayed on.
I’ve tried turning it off and back on several times but it just won’t boot up.
Any thoughts on what could be causing this? I don’t think it’s a software problem because I haven’t even installed any programs on it yet.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
There was a time when I built PCs from scratch and sold them at a profit, and I was able to generate a pretty decent side income from it. In total, I built and sold right at 200 computers before I moved on to other interests.
Today, computers are mass-produced commodities, and that makes it pretty hard to purchase all the individual parts required to build a PC at prices low enough to make a profit when selling the assembled unit.
After all, it’s hard for the little guy to compete with the big guys these days due to economy of scale.
That being said, there are still some benefits to be derived from building your own computer instead of purchasing one at retail. Here are a few of the reasons why some folks still build their own PCs: [Read more…]