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our Interns step forward with their enterprising creativity.
We are showcasing their ingenious, offbeat, and whimsical contributions.
Trey Becker, writer & handy with social media, has crossed off a biggy on his bucket list.
Here is his story, A journey Between a Nightmare and a Dream.
I have always wanted to build a PC as a bit of a side project, but it was always one of those things I put on the backburner. I thought of it the way most people think of working out or quitting their job where they tell themselves, "I want to do it, but right now isn't the right time" or "if only I had the time and confidence to pull it off." Then the big lousy pandemic hit America, and I found myself with way more time than I ever had in my life to do anything I wanted with it. I utilized it a little near the start but quickly fell into those old lazy patterns where I just didn't do anything. I realized I was falling back into that same routine after a few months, and I decided to actually dedicate my time to something.
Building a PC was what I was drawn to the most, so I just went for it full force.
My friend's dad is an engineer and had built PCs before for his son and himself, so I used him as a resource. We got together, went to pcpartpicker.com, picked out a model to use, and he helped me figure out which parts in the model to keep and which ones to replace. I had no real clue which parts I should go for, so he taught me about the intricacies of the pc and its components as we picked them out.
I watched various pc building videos from different tech channels like Linus tech tips, JayzTwoCents, and Bitwit to prepare myself for the build. I also searched for people attempting their first builds to see the most often made mistakes to avoid them. These strategies worked to an extent, but I still made plenty of mistakes on my own when the building commenced.
Pay attention to the little, seemingly insignificant things. Things like the way you hold your CPU or how you screw in your CPU fan may be detrimental if done incorrectly and could cost a significant amount of time and money. On my first attempt, I held the CPU by the pins instead of the side and bent them, completely ruining that CPU. I didn't find this out until it was too late to get an RMA, so I lost about 200 dollars buying a brand-new replacement and two weeks of my life waiting for that CPU to arrive.
The first thing I did on my PC was bought GTA 5 to see what it was like to mess around with mods. I had grown up seeing other people play their games with modifications and additional scripts to add features and other fun things to do, and I would always get jealous of them, so I consider that as a sort of retribution. After that, I started playing through games exclusive to PC or Xbox that I could not play before on my PlayStation, like Dead Rising 3, TABS, Black Mesa, and a few others. Currently, I am playing Hitman 3 and am just focusing on making my PC my central spot for playing video games and where I'll hopefully play all of my future games.
Part Utilized.
Motherboard- ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AM, CPU- Ryzen 5 3600, Power Supply- EVGA 550 B5, 80 Plus BRONZE 550W, SSD- 860 EVO SATA 2.5" SSD 1TB, RAM- Crucial Ballistix 3600 MHz DDR4 DRAM Desktop Gaming Memory Kit 16GB (8GBx2) CL16 BL2K8G36C16U4R (RED), GPU- MSI Radeon RX 5700 XT MECH OC, Case- Corsair 275R Airflow Tempered Glass Mid-Tower Gaming Case Black.
Hopefully, a lot of actually utilizing my PC for stuff beyond just video games. Don't get me wrong, games will always be its primary purpose, but I'd like to use it to its fullest abilities for things like learning how to edit videos and photos, make and mix music, and potentially stream. Often, I forget that I now have a tool capable of doing many things, and I'd like to try taking advantage of that to build my skill set and make things that people enjoy.
Let us be honest; there is still a bit of drama when we play.
Sit Down. Grab a Drink. Join the Game
Trey
