This summer I finally retired the old 486 as my main computer and built a brand new one from scratch, with money from my job at the grocery store. Here's exactly what I bought, what I paid for it (in July 1999), and how I put it all together.

Why build your own? It's cheaper than buying one, you get exactly the parts you want instead of whatever was on sale, and you learn a TON. When something breaks later, you'll know how to fix it, because you put it together.

I bought most of the parts at the computer show at the fairgrounds and a few by mail order out of Computer Shopper. Prices change every week, so use mine as a rough guide.

Jump to: Parts List | Safety First | Putting It Together | Installing Windows | The Overclock

Read this part before you touch anything. I mean it.

• Unplug the computer from the wall before you open the case or put anything in. ATX power supplies keep a little power going to the motherboard even when the computer is "off."
• Ground yourself. Static electricity can kill a chip and you won't even feel the zap. Wear an anti-static wrist strap clipped to bare metal on the case (they're about five bucks at any electronics store), or at least touch the bare metal of the case every time before you pick up a part.
• Work on a table, not on carpet. No fuzzy sweaters, no socks on the rug. Leave parts in their silver anti-static bags until you're ready to put them in.
• Hold cards and memory by the edges. Don't touch the gold contacts or the chips.
• NEVER open the power supply. The capacitors inside can hold a dangerous charge even when it's unplugged. If the power supply dies, replace the whole thing.
• Don't force anything. If it doesn't fit, it's probably in backwards.

What you need: a #2 Phillips screwdriver, a wrist strap, a flashlight, a cup to keep the screws in, all the manuals, a Windows 98 Startup Disk (make one on another computer), a free Saturday, and pizza.

1. Get the case ready. Take off the side panels. On the back of the power supply there's a little red voltage switch. Make sure it's set to 115 (here in the US). If it's on 230, it won't work right.
2. Standoffs. Screw the little brass standoffs into the case wherever there's a hole in your motherboard. Only where there's a hole! An extra standoff under the board can short it out.
3. CPU and RAM first. It's way easier to put these on the motherboard before it goes in the case. Put the retention bracket on the Slot 1 connector, then push the Celeron straight down into the slot until it's all the way in. Plug the CPU fan into the fan header on the board. For the RAM, line up the notches on the DIMM with the slot and push straight down until the white clips snap up on both ends.
4. Motherboard in. Pop in the metal back plate that came with the board so the ports line up. Set the board on the standoffs and screw it down. Snug, not super tight.
5. Power. Plug the big 20-pin ATX power connector into the board. It only goes in one way.
6. Front panel wires. These are the tiny plugs for the power switch, reset switch, power light, hard drive light and speaker. Match them up using the motherboard manual. This is the most annoying step, so use the flashlight. The power switch is the one that really matters. If a light doesn't come on later, just flip its plug around.
7. Drives. Set the jumpers first: the hard drive is Master on the primary IDE cable, and the CD-ROM is Master on the secondary cable. The red stripe on a ribbon cable is pin 1 (usually the side next to the power plug on the drive). The floppy goes on the end of the floppy cable that has the twist in it, so it's your A: drive. Then plug in the power plugs (big 4-pin ones for the hard drive and CD-ROM, the little one for the floppy).
8. Cards. The video card goes in the AGP slot (the brown one closest to the CPU). The sound card and modem go in the white PCI slots. Push them in firmly and screw them down. My Voodoo3 needed a really good push. Then connect the thin audio cable from the back of the CD-ROM to the sound card so music CDs will play.
9. Check everything twice. Leave the sides off for now. Hook up the monitor, keyboard and mouse, plug it in, take a deep breath and push the power button.
10. First boot. You should see the BIOS screen. Press Del to get into Setup and make sure it sees your hard drive, your CD-ROM, 64MB of RAM and your CPU. If nothing happens at all, check the power switch wires. If it just beeps at you, look up the beep code in the manual. It's usually the RAM or the video card not seated all the way.

1. Boot from your Windows 98 Startup Disk and pick Start computer with CD-ROM support.
2. Type FDISK. When it asks about large disk support, say Y. That gives you FAT32, so the whole drive can be one big C: drive. Create a Primary DOS Partition and use all the space.
3. Restart (with the floppy still in) and type FORMAT C: and say Y. Go get a snack.
4. Switch to your CD-ROM drive. It'll probably be E:, not D:, because the Startup Disk makes a RAM drive that takes D:. Type SETUP. It takes about 45 minutes. Have the CD key from the certificate ready.
5. Install your drivers in this order, restarting after each one: the motherboard CD first, then the video card, then the sound card, then the modem.
6. Windows 98 SE already comes with DirectX 6.1, so games should work right away. Get online and run Windows Update.
7. Put the side panels back on, clean up your mess, and go play some Unreal. You built a computer!

OK, this is the part everybody e-mails me about.

Why it works
The Celeron 300A normally runs on a 66 MHz bus with a 4.5x multiplier. 66 x 4.5 = 300 MHz. Intel locks the multiplier, so you can't change the 4.5. But a BX board like the BH6 lets you change the bus speed, and if you set it to 100 MHz you get 100 x 4.5 = 450 MHz. Since 100 MHz is the normal bus speed for a Pentium II on a BX board, your AGP and PCI slots still run at their normal speeds. Only the CPU is pushed past what it says on the box.

The other reason it's so good: the 300A has 128K of cache built right onto the chip, running at full speed. The very first Celerons (the 266 and the plain 300, no A) had NO cache at all and were really slow. So make sure you get the A!

What I did
Night 1: Went into the BIOS, into SoftMenu, and changed the CPU from 300 (66 x 4.5) to 450 (100 x 4.5). Left the core voltage at the normal 2.0V. Saved, rebooted... and it booted! Windows came up! I was jumping around my room. Then about 20 minutes into Quake II it locked up solid. Not so fast.

Night 2: Bumped the core voltage up a notch to 2.1V. Put in the extra 80mm fan at the front of the case blowing in, and tied up the ribbon cables so they weren't blocking the air. Then I left Quake II running its demos over and over all night, and did a Thorough ScanDisk and a big defrag the next morning. Rock solid.

It's been running at 450 for two months now with no crashes (well, no crashes that weren't Windows' fault). For games it keeps up with a Pentium II 450, and the chip cost me $75.

If you want to try it

• You need a BX motherboard that lets you pick a 100 MHz bus, and PC100 memory. Old PC66 memory won't run at 100 MHz.
• Not every 300A will make it to 450. Most of them do, some don't. If yours won't, try a little more voltage (I wouldn't go past 2.2V), better cooling, or just set it back to 300. It's still a good chip.
• Make sure your CPU fan is actually spinning, and give the case some airflow.
• Overclocking voids your warranty.