CES 2008 – Build Your Own PC for Charity Race
The Tiger Direct Build Your Own PC for Charity Race pits 30 of the world’s top technology media outlets in a race to see who is the fastest PC builder. While the event is for fun and all the PCs goes to charity, all the racers take this event very seriously. We’re racing for pride and bragging rights!
The event last for four hours but the race itself last only 30 minutes (the first 3.5 hours is all drinking, eating and partying). Most of the PC components are already installed. You just need to add the DVD drive, floppy drive, hard drive, video card, sound card, wireless card and the cables. The first one to put everything together and log into the network wins.
The prize for winning the race is $10,000 for first, $2,500 for second and $1,000 for third. The money doesn’t go to the racer. It is donated, along with the PC, to the charity of the winner’s choice. My PC will be donated to the BC Women’s Hospital. I’m sure all the doctors and nurses will be fighting over that 28″ monitor. The total value of each PC is $3,500. Tiger Direct has raised over $1 million for various charities since starting this event 11 years ago.
The above times are the unofficial results. Stephen Fung finished his PC ahead of everyone else. However, upon inspection it was discovered that he forgot to plug in the power to his DVD drive. That mistake moved him to second place and moved Will Smith of Maximum PC magazine to first place. Third place forgot to plug in the power to his floppy drive. That moved me to 3rd place. However, upon inspection of my PC, they discovered that I also forgot to hook power to my floppy drive, so I stay at 4th place.
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- Racing For The Kids At The 2008 Tiger Direct Charity PC Race | Stephen Fung DOT NET - January 14, 2008 at 1:56 am
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Do people still use floppy drives? lol Nice job guys on building the PCs. Too bad Stephen can’t gloat about being First Place eh
This is definitely a competition where everybody wins
Some very impressive results, congratulations to all of the people who have taken part, a very nice gesture,
Alan Johnson
That was the same question I asked. I haven’t built a PC with a floppy in forever! I can be excused for not hooking up the power. However, how Stephen can forget to hook power to the DVD drive is beyond me!
That’s exactly what I was thinking when I read that. I haven’t used a floppy in a VERY long time! Next year they should use a different drive in place of it.
Despite the smack talk that you gave me, I still beat you…even with a penalty
You guys should have had a side bet, right Stephen.
When I first saw a laptop without a floppy drive I freaked! To me, it would be very pointless to even have a laptop if that were the case. Yea, I didn’t know about usb drives back then lol.
So you were trying to say you could win first place in the event if you knew.
I actually didn’t forget, but that’s OK. My charity got a bunch of money and some new hardware
Will Smith…lol… nice.
Do they check to make sure the PCs are put together neatly inside? I wouldn’t want something with wires going every which direction and looking all sloppy.
I recon I could do it faster…
Stephen must be quite quick to have such a lead over everyone else – I bet this was fun. Most of CES looks fun.
I am actually certain I could have broken 8 minutes, but I had too much coffee beforehand and started to have the caffeine jitters. I dropped my screws on the floor twice and lost one in the case and had to shake it out.
I would have really enjoyed a full build from beginning to end. Unfortunately, some of the people would have taken longer than the length of the event to finish. The last guy took over 40 minutes.
You were pretty fast.
Congrats! What a great event to be a part of. It was fun watching the video. How distracting was that music when you were building your PC?
Very cool idea…now, if only I could build ma’ own pc….
http://www.wannasmile.com
Maybe you could get one of those 28″ monitors as a giveaway on the blog here. Now that would be cool!
Is that really a 28 inch monitor, it doesn’t look like, looks more like a normal 19 inch monitor.
Wow those are fast times. I remember my friend told me people at factories build 8 machines PER DAY
These guys had most of the work done for them already.
You got good speed! Third isn’t bad, better luck next time.
We should make Stephen cough up the $2500 winnings and donate it to charity though!
The prize money, along with the PC, is donated to charity.
Its all donated to charity
John should match my $2500 and give it to the same charity
Cool contest but kinda odd for a “Build Your Own PC” that half of the components are already installed
ooh! Will smith came second!
Yeah, I agree, half the components already installed?
I think next year they should include the placing of the motherboard and setting jumpers and stuff to the task list. That should bump me to about 15 mins.
Sometimes you gotta slow down to speed up.
That looks fun! Congratulations on 4th place John.
Remember to plug the power into the floppy drive next time!
Will Smith huh…great name for that guy
And congrats to all the winners
-Mike
John :
http://www.stephenfung.net/ (.net)
not .com
Cut him some slack, he is probably drunk at CES.
This is true
And Stephen is too drunk to notice too.
BTW…Us Asians already look bad with mustaches, but adding a beard? Mr. Fung needs to start shaving
-Mike
Asians can’t grow bears….but I can
err…beards…
And I was right above about Stephen being drunk
Forgetting to power up a floppy drive is a good thing in my book. Does anyone even use them anymore? lol. Great stuff John.
Remind me never to have you guys work on a PC for me
What a really cool concept
It sure looks like a lot of fun too!
Congrats, still a fast speed!
Its the sort of thing that’s a win-win for everyone.
looked like a lot of fun, and for a good cause.
You built a PC in 11:32? I doubt if I could open mine that fast. Big deal if you forgot to plug something in, somebody would have figured it out.
Well done! It would have take me at least 15 hours and it would be made of Legos!
Cheers,
Recruitnik
http://recruitnik.net
Me and a former co-worker had a major school order that required 80 or so pc’s to have there hard drives swapped. Standin at the table..it eventually turned into a race. It was a lot of fun.
Lesliemedia.com
John, do you have any 468×60 banner ads?
Free ads (with nofollow) to the first 97 people that contact me. 468×60 banner ad only at this time.
Why is it free? Low impression site, heeh.
The other 3 are reserved for John, Shoe, and Aaron.
No fancy gimmicks, just documenting the process for a later post
Can I get one?
I noticed someone questioning floppy drive usefulness. They’re extremely helpful for creating a boot disk when installing Ubuntu Linux.
Beyond pointing out this obvious use I can not image they’re employed beyond booting; their days are numbered.
Useful for Linux, but Microsoft has rendered them obsolete.
A floppy? Just remembering where the heck that old piece of hardware goes would add seconds to your time
Great event and for a great cause
So you didn’t get anything for 4th place? Bummer…
That was freaking close and shows how competitive you are. Well done! The doctors will be so happy to get a new computer.
A free new pc, everyone is happy.
Looks like that must have been fun.
Good work Chow..
Hope I can join it..
Eh.. I can’t assemble my PC so I can’t join it.. Huhuhuh
Here’s over 200 pictures of the event. I think I got carried away with the cheerleaders
http://www.futurelooks.com/photopost/showgallery.php/cat/676
That is the only reason I am viewing them!
Looks like a fun event! Hope I could go to US to attend CES sometime
John
When you forgot to plug in your floppy, did you forget to stack all of the punch cards properly?
lol, nice work. How about a DQ for failing to install everything correctly?
I guess i would finished last if i was in that contest. Congrats to John. DIdnt know he’s not only good at blogging but also can fix a computer that fast!
Nice competition but i somehow feel that 10 minutes is`t a little much time to ad a few addon cards and a HDD + DVD.
Nice competition but i somehow feel that 10 minutes it`s a little much time to ad a few addon cards and a HDD + DVD.
You wouldn’t think that if you were drinking for the first 3.5 hours!
Definitely sounds like good fun.
Haha, did anyone do anything wrong whilst building the PC because of a little bit to much alcohol?
John you were so close to get number one. Nice pc you have.
The money goes to one charity or a few more others.
I am wondering Had Stephen not forgotten to plug in the DVD drive , would you be still on 4th position
John?
Congrats on the quick building skillz!!!