Great PC Gaming Moments: Build a New PC and Get It Running on the First Try
The best moments of PC gaming A small celebration of some of our favorite gaming memories.
I didn’t expect to feel an almost painful mix of fear and excitement when I press the power button on my newly built PC. This is the first time I’ve built one from scratch, and I’m all for it – the only bits left in my old gaming rig are a couple of SSDs that are too new to replace. I even have an M.2 SSD for my boot drive, which means having to reinstall Windows as well.
For years, I’ve enjoyed playing around with the internals of my PC. From the first time I installed the CD drive, to replacing the old hard drive and fiddling with tiny jumpers that somehow magically determined its order in the boot sequence. I changed the case a few years ago, but only recently have I tried to build a PC from scratch.
My trusty GTX 970 has seen me a lot, and its longevity is probably down to the fact that I mostly play World of Warcraft. I’ve certainly considered upgrading several times over the years, but I find it hard to justify myself when I’ve spent most of my time in relatively undemanding Azeroth. What motivated me to build a new PC was when it started to struggle with the number of Chrome tabs I had open frequently.
I opted for a large case not only because it looks cool, but I have more room to work. In fact, it’s probably a bit over the top with the casing, but I’d rather do that than make things more space-constrained and hard on myself. Everything went according to plan, although there was a time when I wanted to throw the whole thing out the window: when I couldn’t get the little case cable to the right place on the motherboard.
Other than that, it sailed surprisingly smoothly—certainly not the absolute sworn feast I imagined. So after connecting the last cable and double-checking everything, it’s either glory or an extremely expensive mistake. I pressed the power button as if I was going to endure some kind of explosion. The fans started whirring, the RGB turned on, but there was no Windows install screen.
I tried the thumb drive in another usb port and tried again. Still not. As I got more and more crazy and started to wonder — not the first time — why I thought I could do this, I found something on the table next to the keyboard: a USB stick. Yep, that’s when I realized I’ve been trying to boot my new PC with a bluetooth adapter. In my defense, it’s similar in shape and size to a thumb drive.
After correcting my mistake, I installed Windows without a hitch, and I don’t think there’s anything to diminish my pride a few days later. Like playing a game of Souls, the sense of accomplishment far outweighs the frustration (or vague fear) it takes to get done.A slight glitch is user error, not hardware related, so technicallymy first PC version worked on the first try.