And now for something completely different.
Any experienced and savvy person who builds PCs from components knows, or at least should know, one of the most important and basic principles of starting a new PC build: Always start by building a minimalistic setup in order to see that the system will POST. In other words, just take the motherboard and, on a table, add to it the essential components (CPU and RAM, a GPU only if the CPU doesn't have an integrated one, or if you also want to test that the GPU works, connect the PSU), and try turning it on to see that you get an image and you get to BIOS just fine. Then perhaps even connect the SSD or hard drive and install the OS to make sure that it works.
Only if everything works fine should you proceed to the actual PC building.
The reason for this is that if there's any problem with the setup (which isn't actually all that uncommon) you will be saving yourself a lot of work and trouble. There are many reasons why the setup might not work: Perhaps the motherboard doesn't support that particular CPU (at least not without a BIOS upgrade). Perhaps the motherboard or the CPU don't support the particular RAM you are using. Perhaps there's a bent pin on the CPU socket (or the CPU, if it's an AMD one), which is why it doesn't work. Perhaps some other component is broken. There are many reasons why it just might not work.
If this requires, for example, replacing your motherboard with another one of a different model or brand, for instance, it will save you a huge amount of work because you don't have to unbuild an entire PC you just built.
On YouTube there are lots of tech channels where, oftentimes, they build new fancy PCs. These "tech youtubers", if anybody, should know this wisdom by heart. In fact, quite often, if they make a "PC building tutorial" video, they will give this very advice (although some don't, which is very bad).
Yet, even though they give this advice to their viewers, they almost never follow it themselves! Which is just baffling. They just build the entire PC (which is often very complex because they usually go all the way, with very fancy watercooling etc.) up to the last screw and ziptie, with everything neatly and tidily cable-managed, all the fancy RGB hubs and everything neatly installed... before trying to turn it on for the first time.
I was prompted to write this because of a recent video by JayzTwoCents, where he builds a new PC with his daughter for her, and makes this exact mistake: They built the entire PC up to the last tidbit, all the cable management, all the zipties, everything... before trying to turn it on for the first time.
And what do you know... it didn't POST. In fact, he managed to completely brick the motherboard with a failed BIOS update and, surprise surprise, ended up having to replace the entire motherboard with a different one of a different model. He could have saved himself a lot of work if he just had followed his own advice and started with a minimal build in order to see that it POSTs.
The worst thing about this particular case (which he explained in the video and in a followup video) is that he knew in advance that that particular motherboard didn't support that particular CPU without a BIOS upgrade, meaning that if the motherboard had the original BIOS (which is very likely) it wouldn't work, and he would need to do a BIOS upgrade.
What's worse, he had experience in the past with that particular motherboard model botching the BIOS upgrade and being bricked.
In other words, there was a very real possibility that the setup wouldn't work and perhaps even couldn't be made to work. And he knew this in advance, from his own experience.
Yet, he still decided to not test the system with a minimal build, and instead built the entire PC before trying to turn it on for the first time. And that's exactly what happened.
Why?
I will never understand.
(The only tech youtuber I know of who actually does always make minimal setup tests when building new PCs is Dawid Does Tech Stuff. None of the others I have ever seen does it, and I cannot comprehend why. They don't do it even when they know in advance that the system might fail to boot.)
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