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5 PC Building Mistakes I Made That You Don’t Have To
Building a custom PC is fun. But, there are definitely some pitfalls that you could encounter when assembling your first PC. Having built numerous systems over the past decade, I’ve learned a lot of the mistakes that can be made, and now I want to tell you about them so you don’t make the same ones I did.
Forgetting to Plug the EPS Connector In
The year was 2016, and I was still fairly new to building custom PCs. Even though I hadn’t built many desktops, I was still known as the “tech guy” among my friends, as I reviewed phones, cameras, networking equipment, and all kinds of other stuff at the time. Yet, custom PCs were something I hadn’t played around with much.
However, one of my friends asked me to come over and help him build a PC. Since I had built one a few years ago at the company I used to work for, I decided to give it a shot. I went over after work, and we were up until the wee hours of the morning assembling everything. We took our time as to not miss a single step, and after we assembled the whole computer it was finally time to hit the power button. Nothing. The system didn’t even try to turn on—there was no sign of life.
We took the entire system apart again, and reassembled it again, and we got the same result again. It wasn’t until around 2AM when we finally realized what was wrong: we forgot to plug in the EPS connector. The EPS connector (or the CPU power connector if you’re not familiar with the term EPS) is a necessary part of any PC build. The processor doesn’t get power if the EPS connector is unplugged. Had I watched even one YouTube video on PC building I would have seen the EPS connector and realized we missed that.
We spent the better part of three hours troubleshooting the build for it to be as simple as a single missing cable. Don’t be 20 year old me and check to make sure your EPS connector is plugged in.
Not Making Sure My RAM Was on a Qualified Vendor List
If you’ve never heard of a QVL, or a qualified vendor list, then you’re not alone. Manufacturers don’t do enough to publish these far and wide, I think. However, that doesn’t make them any less important.
A QVL is your motherboard manufacturer’s way of saying “This RAM will work with your system!” If RAM isn’t on a QVL, that doesn’t mean it won’t work with your motherboard, but it just doesn’t guarantee compatibility.
I’ve had decent luck using random RAM on motherboards without checking the QVL before. However, there have been a few times when I tried to boot a system, and it just wouldn’t start—it was the RAM. The RAM I was using wasn’t on the QVL, and it didn’t match whatever the motherboard was looking for I guess. It was the right DDR revision, but the system just rejected it.
So, if you want to guarantee a good build from the start, make sure to buy RAM on your motherboard’s qualified vendor list.
Buying a M.2 SATA SSD Instead of a M.2 NVMe SSD
When it comes to M.2 storage, there are two standards to choose from: M.2 SATA and M.2 NVMe. M.2 SATA uses a M.2 connector, but the actual drive is very different from an M.2 NVMe connector.
With a M.2 SATA card, you’re limited to SATA6 speeds, which is about 500Mb/s. However, With M.2 NVMe, you’re able to get PCIe speeds, which can be insanely fast. I’ve tested M.2 NVMe drives that have read and write speeds nearing 15GB/s. Yes, 15 gigabytes per second.
The problem is, the two drives aren’t cross-compatible. You can’t use a M.2 SATA drive in a M.2 NVMe slot, and vice versa. So, before purchasing storage, just make sure what standard your board uses. The majority of modern systems use M.2 NVMe drives, but there are still a few M.2 SATA slots hanging around to watch out for.
Forgetting to Plug In My Front Panel Connectors
Can you really be a PC builder if you’ve never forgotten to plug your front panel connectors in at least once? I’ve done it many times, but I’ve also built dozens, if not hundreds of computers in my lifetime.
The front panel connectors are how your case’s power and reset buttons control your motherboard. If they’re not plugged in, then the buttons simply won’t work. The problem is, motherboard manufacturers have yet to get together and make a universal standard for the pin layouts. Most motherboard manufacturers are similar, but it’s not always easy to find ones that are identical.
For this reason, I always leave the front panel connectors for last when building a system. I’ll then break out the motherboard’s instruction booklet (or grab the adapter, if the manufacturer was kind enough to include one), and figure out where things go.
However, there have been several times when I’ve simply assembled a computer, put the side panels on, and went to power up the system—only to realize that I never plugged the front panel connectors in.
Make sure your front panel connectors are plugged in before booting your system. It’ll save you a headache of trying to figure out why the computer isn’t posting.
Trying to Overclock Before I Even Fully Tested the System
While I don’t overclock anymore, I used to be big into the overclocking scene. I have worked with custom liquid cooled systems where we were trying to break overclocking records, and I’ve worked with little air coolers trying to get just a tad bit of extra performance out of it.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve built a desktop, entered the BIOS, and immediately applied an overclock before even installing Windows. I know, I know—I should have learned better by now. But I have made this mistake more times than I can count.
It’s not always a full system overclock, either. Sometimes it’s just me enabling XMP to overclock the RAM. But, without properly testing the system first, I don’t even know if everything else is stable, and it’s a gamble that never pans out well for me.
So, don’t be like me and make sure to install your operating system and use the computer for a bit before trying to overclock. You’ll thank me later.
If you’ve never built a computer before, it’s honestly not that hard. These days systems are very plug-and-play. I can go from a pile of boxes to an assembled desktop in a matter of 20 to 30 minutes now, and that’s not just because I’ve done it so much. Components really only slot into one place and they typically only slot in one way, making assembly pretty straight-forward.
If you don’t know where to start, here’s everything you need to know to build a gaming PC in 2025. You likely don’t need that i9 processor, and an RTX 5090 is probably overkill for your setup. In the guide, I go over everything you need to buy, and why I recommend each product.