My Journey - Building Computers in India

By ioplus3 

My Life before a Personal Computer

I did not have a passion for computers at a young age and I would blame the schools in India for it. There was not much of exposure in my schooling. I had weakly computer classes in 4^th to 6^th standard but that was it. In India we have very slow and old computers at school, thus they never helped to raise any interest in me.

In High School, I had “C” language and my computer teacher was very good at it. I found my interest in coding there.

After High-school exams, I took an MS office computer course but left it between as I started my Diploma in Electronics. Here I had subjects like Microprocessor & Maintenance of Computer Systems which raised my interest in internal workings of a computer.

October 2008

I got my first computer at the age of 18. My High school computer teacher wrote me a Desktop configuration that I got it built from a recommended shop. My Uncle (Father’s younger brother) paid for it as we had a financial crisis. I named it “Black Beauty”. Not the brightest kid in the room but it got my work done. 

Black Beauty (2008)

CPU	Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140 (2 Cores, 1.6 GHz),
MotherBoard	Intel - DG41TY Micro ATX LGA775 Motherboard
RAM	Hynix DDR2 1.5GB 666Mhz RAM
Storage	256 GB Seagate, CD Drive
Graphics	Integrated
Monitor	LG 700E CRT 16” Monitor
Cabinet + SMPS	Rs 700 Techcom Cabinet + Rs 400 Zebronics Power Supply.
Keyboard + Mouse	TVS Gold Keyboard & Standard Logitech Mouse
All-in-One Printer	HP Deskjet F2120
Cost	Rs 30K Approx

I started buying one computer magazine monthly like CHIP, DIGIT, etc. Soon I started fixing the computers of my friends and neighbors. I used to get free around 9 pm and then I would spend around 6 hours on the PC. I would watch a movie, listen to some songs, experiment with customizing software and study Windows interface, control panel, C drive and it’s internal hidden settings. I played a couple of Low-end games on it too which don’t require a dedicated graphics card. 

Gaining knowledge later, I realized that I could have gotten a better performing PC after spending 2-3k rupees more. Well, I was stuck with “not that bad PC” for a few years at least until I started earning & have money to buy my own PC.

July 2009

It was a year of recession and job cuts. Lucky some of us got campus placed & I started working in a solar company after college. I left “Black Beauty” home for my younger sister and cousins. In the office, we had around 20 computers and I started maintaining & fixing them.

January 2011

I read around five “For Dummies Books” related to Windows & PC building. With half of my salary, I started buying parts each month for a powerful mid-range PC, which I completed in 6 months. I planned it carefully to last for at least 6 years. I left a lot of room for upgrades when I assembled it & over the years it got a lot of it. It was a great PC named “Black Monster”.
I wanted some stuff that I had never seen before physically. I got a Cabinet with Acrylic Cutout to see the internal parts, an Ergonomic keyboard which had Split keys layout & a wireless mouse with Blue Laser. It was an Eye candy for the people who saw it. 

Black Monster (2011) 

CPU	AMD Phenom II X6 1075T (6 cores, 3.5 GHz)
MotherBoard	Asus M4A88TD M EVO USB3 Motherboard
RAM	4GB DDR3 Corsair XMS3 1600Mhz,
Storage	1TB HDD WD Green, CD Drive
Graphics	Integrated
Monitor	Samsung SyncMaster 20” Monitor
Cabinet + SMPS	Cooler Master Elite 310 Cabinet & CM eXtreme Power Plus 460W SMPS
Keyboard + Mouse	Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 Keyboard & MS Explorer Mini Mouse
Cost	Rs 60K Approx

I switched my job to another Solar company in August 2011 and they sent me home to “work from home” in July 2012.

July 2012 - June 2013

Once home, I planned to open a nice Cybercafé at my father’s empty shop. I aimed at removing the problems that everyday café user face. Thus, I built an AMD APU based budget PC & brought a couple of second-hand powerful PCs from my company.

I got an entry level dedicated graphics card for Black Monster which lifted my gaming standard by a huge margin. I was a gamer now.

July 2013 – Nov 2013

I brought my first laptop & I named it “Raven”. I designed a skin for it, got it printed and pasted it at the back of the lid. I didn’t get it covered with Plastic lamination as it makes a laptop more dirty over the time instead of keeping it clean. It was a great laptop for Price to performance ratio.

I pampered my Desktop with a couple of LED fans, a CPU cooler with Blue LEDs, A Gaming keyboard with RGB & small LCD display to show the status of PC and a good Gaming Mouse.

Raven (2013)

Model	Lenovo Essential G505s (59-380146), Skin Designed by Me
CPU	AMD APU A10 5750M (4 Cores, 2.5 GHz - 3.5 GHz)
RAM	8 GB DDR3
Storage	1TB HDD, CD Drive
Graphics	512 MB AMD Radeon HD 8650G and 2 GB ATI Sunpro HD 8570 Graphics
Cooler	Cooler Master R9-NBS-ESLK-GP ErgoStand Lite Notebook Cooler
Cost	Rs 40K Approx

Logitech G510 Gaming Keyboard & Logitech G300s mouse. 

I got married in late 2013 and got a great wife, who is always supportive of my passion and love for computers.

January 2015 - October 2015

The opening of café got delayed due to family troubles, etc. but in early 2015 we finally did it. I had 6 PCs of my own in total. Sadly, but I had to close down the café in late 2015, as we moved out of my father’s home. I distributed my PCs among family members but kept Black Monster & Raven with myself.

July 2016

Black Monster upgrades over the time reached its maximum monstrosity. I got a High-Performance Solid-state drive and increased RAM to 16GB to improve it’s speed. These were the final upgrades as now there was no room left. It’s still working in my current office after 8 years.

Black Monster v2 (2012-2016)

CPU	AMD Phenom II X6 1075T (6 cores, 6 Threads, 3.5 Ghz)
MotherBoard	Asus M4A88TD M EVO USB3 Motherboard
RAM	16GB DDR3 Corsair XMS3 1600Mhz,
Storage	480GB SSD Sandisk Extreme Pro + 2TB HDD WD Blue + 4TB WD My Book
Graphics	HIS AMD Radeon HD 6670, 1GB GDDR5
Monitor	Samsung SyncMaster S24B300H 24”
Cabinet + SMPS + Cooler	Cooler Master Elite 310 Cabinet & CM eXtreme Power Plus 460W SMPS & CM Hyper 103
Keyboard + Mouse	Logitech G510 keyboard & G300 Mouse
All-in-One Printer	HP LaserJet M1136 MFP
Cost	Rs 100K Approx

September 2016

I built “HeartBreaker” for the office which I used for a few months. It had an expensive Core i5, a LED lit yellow line on Motherboard & a Mid-level Graphics card.

HeartBreaker (2016)

CPU	Intel Core i5 6500 (4 cores, 4 Threads, 3.2 GHz -3.5 GHz)
MotherBoard	Asus B150M-Plus Motherboard
RAM	8GB Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4 2133 MHz
Storage	250 GB Samsung Evo 860 + 1TB WD Blue
Graphics	ZOTAC NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti, 2GB GDDR5
Monitor	Dell S2216H 21” Monitor
Cabinet + SMPS + Cooler	Cooler Master K380 Cabinet,  CM B500 SMPS & CM Hyper 103 Cooler
Keyboard + Mouse	Standard Dell Keyboard & mouse
Cost	Rs 66K Approx

January 2017- December 2018

In early 2017, I built my current PC “HulkBuster”. I have put more upgrades to it since then. It has a lot of RGB lighting, Liquid Cooler for CPU, a High-end Graphics Card, Dual monitors, Massive storage & a Keyboard with Cherry MX keys. It is very Stylish too. I replaced my Laptop “Raven” with “Bleeding edge”.

I shifted to the city where my office is and thus spend a few hours at the office.

HulkBuster (2017-2018)

CPU	Intel Core i7-7700K (4 cores, 8 Threads, 4.2 GHz - 4.5 GHz)
MotherBoard	Asus STRIX-Z270F-GAMING Motherboard
RAM	G.SKILL Trident Z RGB Series DDR4 (16 GB, 3200Mhz) RAM
Storage	480GB SSD Sandisk Extreme Pro + 2TB HDD WD Blue + 4TB HDD WD Blue + 4TB External WD My Book (10.5 TB Total)
Graphics	ASUS GeForce GTX1060-6GB GDDR5
Monitor	Dual - LG 24MP88HV-S 24” Monitors
Cabinet + SMPS + Cooler	Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-ALPHA Cabinet, Corsair  CX500M SMPS & Corsair Hydro Series H45 Cooler
Keyboard + Mouse	Asus Strix Flare Keyboard & Logitech G402 Mouse
All-in-One Printer	HP LaserJet M1136 MFP
Cost	Rs 200K Approx

Bleeding Edge (2018)

Model	Asus TUF FX504GE-E4366T
CPU	Intel Core i5 8300H (4 Cores, 8 Threads, 2.3 GHz -4.0 GHz)
RAM	8 GB DDR4
Storage	128 GB SSD + 1TB HDD
Graphics	NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1050Ti 4GB DDR5
Cost	Rs 75K Approx

My Experience 

I have built around 20 new PCs for others and fixed over 200 of faulty computers for others. I have also written a lot of desktop configurations for people and gave advice for Laptops, software, and other hardware. I even look after my boss’s PC who is in the USA via Remote Desktop Control. A lot of my choices that I buy or suggest during a year have been selected for best hardware awards given by Magazines at the end of the year.

I have done all this installing & troubleshooting for free since the starting of my journey. Whenever somebody asks me why I don’t charge for my services I reply that I gain knowledge & experience in return while fixing their problems. That is more valuable than the fee I may charge.

I believe that “Knowledge is something that increases more when you share.” With this in my heart, I am writing these blogs that would help an average guy to understand the different components of the computer and help him build a computer which is worth every penny he has spent.