PC Builds Megathread

[steamrick]

Computer building time has so many variables...

If it's just a decent case with fans properly preconfigured, mobo, CPU, easy to install air cooler, RAM and PSU plus a m.2 drive with the OS already preconfigured on it and I only need to function check as far as being able to go into bios, see all hardware and enable XMP, half an hour is doable.

Now if it's a bit more complicated of a case with a GPU and RGB that needs to be tidily cable managed, I need to do a burn-in test with a test OS before installing the final drive, there's multiple drives and a AIO that needs to be mounted or even a custom water cooling loop that needs to be built and leak tested? Yeah, that's gonna take a couple hours. Or even days, if the custom water cooling is supposed to be extra fancy.

 

[Kitsune]

If the setting is a job interview, it was probably just mindgames. No right answer, only too slow or too fast.

Click to shrink...

My problem is that if this is "practice" for job interviews and she does not know what an actual IT interview will be like, kind of a bit of a waste at best and at worst make an interview an automatic fail. I am sure that there are tidbits in what she says but just hard for ME to figure out what is useful. I have spoken to people who work in IT and sounds like the "work" is not something that she is actually asking about.

One of the "corrections" she made, as an example is that I said you need to connect the 20 or 24 pin and 4 or 8 pin power connectors to the motherboard. The tech courses I have been listening to use the term 4 or 8 pin. She tells me "That is called a P4 connector" which I think she just read from a piece of paper decades old and she actually know nothing.

 

[steamrick]

She tells me "That is called a P4 connector" which I think she just read from a piece of paper decades old and she actually know nothing.

Click to shrink...

As far as I know, it's formally the EPS connector and can be 4-Pin, 4+4-Pin or 8-Pin.

In practice, labeling can vary wildly, including just 'CPU'.

edit: P4 Connector apparently stands for 'Pentium 4 connector' - or at least was added due to the additional power requirements for Pentium 4 - and it's the extra 4 pins on a 20+4 mainboard connector, not the standalone additional CPU power. Shows that the lady is clueless.

 

[Skyllian Blitz]

My problem is that if this is "practice" for job interviews and she does not know what an actual IT interview will be like, kind of a bit of a waste at best and at worst make an interview an automatic fail. I am sure that there are tidbits in what she says but just hard for ME to figure out what is useful. I have spoken to people who work in IT and sounds like the "work" is not something that she is actually asking about.

One of the "corrections" she made, as an example is that I said you need to connect the 20 or 24 pin and 4 or 8 pin power connectors to the motherboard. The tech courses I have been listening to use the term 4 or 8 pin. She tells me "That is called a P4 connector" which I think she just read from a piece of paper decades old and she actually know nothing.

Click to shrink...

Actual PC system building as a job is an unskilled position (no technical qualifications needed). Can't remember what the exact KPI was at my old job (was in pick packing) but it was something along the order of 8 systems in a day so about an hour per system including cable management with system testing running alongside the next build at the same time. Job interview was literally take a picture of your build then take off the back panel of your PC and take a picture of the cabling. This is a job where someone is only building PC's so is going to build up personal knowledge and acquire institutional knowledge and so be efficient. An IT professional doing system building as part of their overall duties (and sometimes only because you're the "tech" guy) is not going to be that fast.

I knew guys who could do 30 min builds but they were the OGs in the system building part of the company and definitely not system testing.

TL;DR: Mock interviewer full of shit.