Hit my 50th custom build today and I still can't believe the first one even turned on

I pulled out my old photos from build number 1 tonight - a Frankenstein mess of cables and a CPU cooler mounted backwards. That thing somehow ran for 2 years before I knew what I was doing. 50 builds later and I finally understand why people stress about airflow direction. Has anyone else gone back and looked at their early work?

3 comments

3 Comments

tylerw721mo ago

Used to scoff at cable management, now I can't even look at my old spaghetti builds without cringing.

tarab541mo ago

Go look at old photos of your first garden or the first time you tried to cook a complex meal, it's the same feeling of "how did that even work?" We all start out making things work by sheer luck or stubbornness, then slowly figure out the little details that actually matter. It's pretty cool to see how much you can improve just by paying attention and not giving up.

mila_mitchell27d ago

Oh man tarab54, you hit the nail on the head. I dug up a photo of my first attempt at wiring a custom keyboard and it looked like a rat's nest made of dreams and bad decisions. @tylerw72 your cable management comment made me snort, because my old builds were basically just me shoving everything in and hoping the case panel would still close. It's wild looking back to see how far you come when you just keep at it and care about the little things. The before and after is like two different people.