I remember we got our first computer in 96/7, I think. Didn't know a thing about them. I guess our first few were junk because I spent countless hours on the phone with their tech support. I finally said "fuck it, if these morons can do this surly I can". That and I read an article were the author encouraged his readers to not be intimidated to take the cover of and dive in. He compared it to a car, lift the hood and it's just a bunch of parts. So I've built numerous systems over the years for myself, friends, and family and I can remember sending one MB back that was DOA. Besides that no issues. The computer before the one I have now was probably 9-10 years old (and slower than fuck) before it went belly up.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't know shit compared to Kennith, but with Google you don't really have to. Whatever problem you may run into someone's had it before and someone else has answered it. Same with phones. Example, I bought a OnePlus 5 off of Ebay. Discovered it wouldn't lock on to gps. Did a search and found a forum where this guy posted a fix. It seems the phone had a little gold connection between the antenna and the MB. On some phones this was missing. A tightly folded up piece of aluminum foil later and gps nirvana.
Usually the junk stuff is either related to poor quality power supplies and proprietary components not letting the thing breathe from a performance perspective, bloatware installed from the factory, or countless software conflicts resulting from the same. You don't need the stuff I just bought, but they build like Vizio... Whatever is cheapest from factory surplus or trade shows. They tend to use crappy RAM, as well, and that's a big mistake.
You run into more bad motherboards the higher up you go on the performance/feature spectrum, and more now than in the past, despite how silly that sounds. The more they have to do, the more their level of expertise and attention becomes critical; and then there's that burn in, which many don't survive. If they don't, that's your part that's going to pop a few months or years down the road, or even just cause annoying issues that can't be easily diagnosed by most.
It can be tough to find help sometimes nowadays, because so many people ask incredibly obvious questions that use similar keywords to whatever you're trying to find out. Even then, it can be a case of "Ford vs Chevy", or poor quality/out of date advice. It really depends on how hardware/software specific the question is, and newer stuff isn't as well sorted.
Most of the time you'll be absolutely fine, though.
One thing I'll talk through a bit is the burn in; which is part of how nicer boutiques and even some larger system integrators ensure quality. The objective is
literally to try and break stuff and find limits (getting a feel for how those different parts work together), by applying an accelerated wear test before and during setup. Good parts can and do last for thirty to forty years (or more), and shaving a few off to ensure reliability is no issue.
In there, it's a bit like a carburetor on a custom engine. Every computer, once assembled, prefers many different settings in different ways than others. You find 5% here, 1% there, a degree down somewhere else, a hot spot to cure, conflicts to eliminate, voltages that relax things a bit... It's kind of a holistic assembly and setup process; and aside from just overall build quality,
that's really what you're paying for if you call me or, say, Falcon Northwest.
Well, that and the great warranty and service, and a system tailored precisely for your use case. You get a long-lasting system that is faster and more relaxed.
As noted in my last post, however, that's not what people are going to do, and that's fine. You don't need every last hidden megahertz, and that last five degrees doesn't really matter in daily use for the vast majority of people.
Here's a build that's still functional today, that just happens to be right beside me at the moment. Most of the parts are beginning to approach twenty years old now, some have reached that point. It still works just fine:
Again, it's one of mine, so it's less tidy than it could be. I may actually get in there and finish it up at some point, because I'm clearly not going to upgrade it again, as it's maxed out for the platform.
Here's a finished front panel for one of the few gaming rigs I've built for someone else. Yes, I do custom case badges when appropriate. This one is sterling silver, and no, that's not my couch. The orange peel is only visible under very harsh light in photography. We later perfected the finish to be smooth as glass in any light; camera or not:
...and all the parts of that case cut, bent, welded, sanded, blasted, etched, and waiting for an oven to heat up for three stages of custom-blended powder:
It took a long time, but we finally nailed what I wanted out of it, which is a finish that only sparkles to full effect in candle light. There was more than one point at which we didn't think it was actually possible, but it worked in the end. Park that bugger by a candle, and it looks like a night sky full of bright, glittering red stars. The end user is into polytheistic lifestyle stuff, so I thought it would be a nice touch.
Didn't tell him, actually, and I got a call later going on about how awesome it was when it started to sparkle.
Obviously all that is not needed, and you can see how the cables actually tuck under the E-ATX motherboard there to remain almost invisible yet still accessible within reason. It's just fun to look at this sort of thing sometimes. I don't really take many pictures of anything I do because I spend so much time photographing other shit that I just don't feel like it.
These two were taken by the end user and the powder shop. I was there at the time, but too busy fucking with the final blend to bother taking a picture.
Cheers,
Kennith