Three days of pain: how I built a gaming PC

For an enthusiastic computer nerd, it should have been a fun, fulfilling, money-saving distraction during lockdown. Then the error messages started

It's just like building Lego, they said. Enjoy the process, they said. You'll have such a feeling of accomplishment when it's finished. This is what friends and colleagues told me when I set out to build a PC. It did not quite go that way.

It seems more and more people are choosing to construct their own gaming machines rather than buying them already made. It's cheaper (in theory), you get to choose the exact specifications, and it's something to do while you're stuck at home in lockdown. Even Superman actor Henry Cavill has been getting in on the act, making a video of himself constructing his new machine while wearing a really tight vest. I thought it would be a fun thing to do with my 13-year-old son as a sort of Easter holiday treat. We're both nerds - what could go wrong?