I’ve been building PCs for 20 years — trust me, buy a gaming laptop instead

[bobmlord]

Inaccessible boot device typically means a mismatch between how your OS was initially configured to boot and how it's trying to boot now usually due to a BIOS update or settings change. Try toggling secure boot on or off or changing the drive settings between AHCI or raid mode (whatever is on change it to the opposite)

Also I would like to apologize for the aggressive community comments passive or the other kind. The strength of PC gaming is the flexibility not because you can buy top end desktop components and hobble them together and told youre ignorant when it doesnt work. Sad to shame someone just because they prefer a laptop

 

[clubsand]

I'm agree with some of your point, building PC today is not as easy as the old days where everything almost really plug and play, today's there are so many factors that easily not compatible each other. For example you cannot just plug in NVME to any motherboard that have M2 slot. It's not that enjoyable anymore to build PC. I have to read many many article about the parts, there are so many catchs. I once spent almost two days to troubleshoot why the new built PC is not even boot up. Juggling to swap almost every part of it.
On the other hand gaming laptop is not comfortable at all, it's bulky, heavy, hot,and not repairable.

You literally only need to do basic research, and you will be fine. I'd argue that it is much easier to build a PC today because of how much available information and helpful YouTube videos are on the Internet.

 

[DerailedTringe]

Dave, if by any chance you happen to be this person holding the CPU in the article's thumbnail then I am afraid to say then it is with deep regret that I must inform you that your credibility is gravely lacking, rendering your audacious assertion woefully inadequate.

 

[Rofii]

Why are their SIX screwdrivers in the pic? It looks like an infomercial trying to make a simple task seem overly hard to convince you to buy something else.

Those links to gaming laptops wouldn't happen to be affiliate links would they?

 

[drygravytrain]

Very terrible article. I laughed at your 'frustrated photo'...it shows a keyboard, what looks to be the box for the cpu, and a bunch of screw drivers in which you probably only need one of... After 20 years you've learned you are bad at something, and shouldn't be building PCs that would be a better article even if a little self deprecating

 

[corpkid]

I am 100% in agreement with this. I'm a road warrior, so obviously this is a no-brainer for me. I used to have a desktop I'd play when I was home, but I got rid of that as the modern gaming laptops do everything I need (including on my 32" external 4k monitor).

 

[fujkiller]

What a drama unfolded there!

It's like:

" Guys! I just broke my nail while trying to exchange an tire on my bike!

I can't drive it anymore! What a pain in the <Mod Edit>

I honestly suggest you: use public transport instead!

Trust me, I am a twenty years bike owner!"

Oh, really!!!???

Your own error/fault/bad experience - whatever it was - became a reasonable explanation for an pathetic unasked advice for everyone regarding that DIY area?

Are you serious? Or this is just another clickbait provoking article?

I have experience of not only assembling PC's but also of repairing it.

Starting from Soviet made 8088 clones, til 80286/386/486/Pentium/Pentium II/III/IV - all the way till my current setup Ryzen 2600K/RTX3080. It had 3 SATA SSDs, 3 SATA HDDs, 3 SAS HDDs - don't ask why - you can imagine a way trough particular cases like SAS controller incompatibility with SAS drives, starting issues, etc.

Sometimes, during all those 26 PC related years I feel frustrated, especially when you trying to repair all that stuff or just made it barely usable, sometimes there is no information (before Internet became widespread norm) to help you, sometimes it just too rare/exotic stuff like Soviet clones or IBM PS/2 systems.

But never, never even in the moments of deep frustration I made suggestions or advices to anyone like "don't trying with that stuff, go and buy new one!"

It's just YOUR EXPERIENCE.

Take break, let yourself relief.

Then, collect more information, get needed tools, get experience or just let someone with more experiencedl than you help you out and finish your desperate project.

Maybe that DIY field just not fit you.

But never let anyone be advised by your desperation.

No matter how deep that desperation was.

 

[DerailedTringe]

DO NOT TRUST THIS GUY. Don't be a moron when building your PC, and you won't have these issues. I've been building for 12 years and would never recommend a laptop over building a PC except for portability.

Not only that, but gaming laptops also have a shorter lifespan compared to their PC counterparts due to a variety of reasons, such as the form factor affecting heat and putting stress on the hardware. Additionally, components are often difficult to replace since they are either integrated into the motherboard or part of a system-on-a-chip (SoC), necessitating expertise in board repair and access to the schematics required for conducting the appropriate repairs.

I am more convinced that this guy is just advertising laptops in a disguise of why PC repair is bad.

 

[SkebbZ]

Inaccessible boot device typically happens when you have windows installed with for example raid mode or Intel RST in Bios storage settings, and then change to AHCI (or vice versa).

Did you recently change this setting or clone a drive to M2? Or perhaps update Bios, change motherboard?

Changing it back should let you boot.
Is this was the issue, then you would have to do some registry hacks or reinstall windows to fix.

 

[Technigeneric]

, I sadly couldn’t get the world’s fastest gaming processor to boot. It s not the fastest gaming cpu that is common knowledge.

If there's one thing the writer has made clear, it's that he certainly lacks common knowledge regarding building pcs.

 

[CyberHunk]

I've been building PCs since the late 90's and no you should not buy a gaming laptop instead. Sure components can fail occasionally but it sounds like you've just been unlucky. The only thing I've ever had fail catastrophically was a HDD about 10 years ago. Gaming laptops are a good fit for some people but I wouldn't just flat out recommend them over a desktop PC just because you've had problems.

 

[NuShrike]

I switched to gaming laptops from self-building long ago for entirely different reasons.

The biggest reasons were, so I didn't have to build them anymore, and I can TAKE it with me as I already take a laptop with me anyways. Took a while for gaming-laptops to get there though -- first was for me was Alienware 13r3. The Sony VAIOs fans' before that kept breaking down awfully. But eventually, job pay made it affordable to avoid spending time building a PC.

HOWEVER, just because you couldn't rebuild your boot drive to boot again, or just fresh install a new OS install and MIGRATE your old data to the different drive is not even a reason to entirely switch to a gaming laptop. You didn't lose your data, just the boot sector, right?

In fact, I had the exact same experience on a LAPTOP, where the black magic between UEFI or legacy, GPT or MBR still exists! It took multiple imaging sessions to find a mix between fresh OS install boot-partition and original OS system-partition that worked. No OS boot-repair utils between Linux and Windows otherwise fixed it. Laptops have no magic that makes this disappear.

If you really couldn't do any of that, then you should turn in your 20+ years of experience, because that's all normal skillset for building a PC.

Instead, this article sounds more like gaming laptop pump.

Meanwhile, negatives with a gaming laptop:
* on a 1.5 year old gaming laptop: change out the battery because Razer batteries are horrible expanding bricks. Memory and SSDs (two) upgraded. But because SSDs are colocated next to the battery, easily gets heat throttled and heat adds to battery bloat. Can't use XMP memory because no bios support in most laptops.

* 5 year old gaming laptop: change out the heatsink and fan assembly because it's one piece and the fans failed. No easy way to disassemble/replace just the fans. Change out the battery because it bloated while the fans stop working.

 

[teter123]

Ignoring all the obvious tech issues with laptops other people brought up, how does the author think that it's more comfortable to use a laptop on a couch then a real keyboard and mouse and bigger screens (plural) at a desk?

Buy a better chair maybe? Read up on ergonomics. Using a laptop on a couch is ergonomically terrible.

 

[barrupa]

Plain skill issue, besides laptops are prone to most if not all of the same issues and when things go south there is not much to do besides replacing the whole unit. If gaming PCs are stupid by the writer's metrics, gaming laptops are even stupider.

 

[cptn_gali86]

bro just get a usb adapter for your ssd and then you can back that up it's unlikely you killed the drive. if you can reinstall windows on it you can recover data. Also anytime you're going to fiddle with hardware always backup. I've worked in it for over a decade and just finally built my own pc. storage is so cheap now get a 2 TB nvme or a 4tb 860 use it to capture your entire pc and then get like Google cloud and backup your backups there. you can also just do daily differentials so you're not making dozens of 80+gb files. set and forget. there's tons of great backup software that will make images and if you mess up anything you can just restore once you fix the hardware part.

 

[cptn_gali86]

This is the most ridiculous article and suggesting a gaming laptop as the best course of action is absurd.

Gaming laptops are not better than desktops. They cost more, performance isn't as good, and if it has problems then good luck fixing it. Drivers are from the manufacturer and they only update for maybe a year then it's brushed aside for the next model (except GPU drivers, you can use direct amd and Nvidia for that). If you can't even build gaming desktops successfully then you're not going to have any luck with a laptop when it stops working.

The laptops are for those who move around and travel, otherwise a pre-built desktop would be the better option for you and the average gamer.

I've been building gaming rigs for over 20 years and never once ran into any issues. The problems you describe aren't the components, or pc in general but rather a YOU problem. Stop spreading misinformation because you are unable to successfully build and maintain a gaming pc. It's not everyone's strength and that's fine, but this article is ridiculous to suggest a gaming laptop as the be all end all option for gamers.

amen. this is a him issue. I think t-swift has lyrics that fit well. "It's me, Hi, I'm the problem it's me"

 

[Stryder56]

You should have just called the article "I've been building computers for 20 years and still have no idea what I am doing."
Suggesting that people buy expensive gaming laptops that underperform and crap out constantly, just because you still have no idea what your are doing after, supposedly, 20 years of building computers? Shameful.

At the very least, you should have checked MB and CPU compatability before you started building. And how the hell do you knock an NVME loose while working on your rig? And how are you not sure if that is what happened? And how has it been 3 days?

Seriously dude, if you can't figure out how to get a desktop to boot after 20 years of building your own computers, you have no business building computers in the first place, and certainly have no business writing articles about it.

At least the conclusion of your article makes a very good point; you should stick with laptops, pre-builts, and consoles. Give Apple products a try, as well. They are great for people who don't know anything about computers.

 

[buckneri]

I'm sorry, what?

I've been using Tom's Guide since it started and have been building computers since the days of the cyrix processor... How are you that bad and a staff member of this site??!?

Every single gaming system I have built, I built and then used until I decided that I needed to upgrade and then I built another. The only hardware failure I've ever experienced was a recent nvme drive that just stopped working, and a keyboard that got so much use the keys stopped working.

I even pulled out some old parts to assemble a retro gaming rig recently with a street fighter branded video card...

Maybe that's because I've always built my computers a few steps below "best", knowing that you're computer isn't the best if it's not working.

 

[darkbreeze]

I'm sorry, but recommending people who are even moderately serious gamers to go all in on gaming on a laptop is maybe some of the worst advice I've ever heard from TH or TG bar none. Considering the extremely high numbers of visitors we get who've done nothing out of the ordinary yet have a "gaming laptop" that has failed because the cooling systems in even the best of them cannot hold up to extended gaming sessions without suffering some kind of thermal fatigue to the CPU or graphics card, it seems like really poor advice.

Besides which, there are exactly ZERO gaming laptops with the capabilities of any high mid to upper tier desktop gaming system. I hate to say it but it seems irresponsible to even make such a recommendation when we, who actually build and work on these systems, almost always try to steer anybody with serious intentions for even moderately heavy gaming, away from laptops if possible.

Feels like a lack of experience and knowledge on this one.

 

[Hypnopaedia13]

I know EXACTLY what is going on because I ran into the exact same thing.

Tried EVERY piece of advice on the internet, no help. Spent 3 days working on it.

Then I cleared my CMOS and tried the most basic, pointless thing I could think of. I turned off Rapid Storage.

Windows immediately booted up. No more issues.


I do think the supposition of this article is completely wrong though.