There is little that gladdens a geek's heart more than the sound of that first successful post beep from a self-built computer. So when mine finally purred into life, we were doing victory laps around my sitting room.

It had taken a long and frustrating time to reach this point. My friend John and I had decided to rebuild my ageing PC, reckoning that it would be a fun project. Plus, you can't really claim true geek cred until you've built a PC. And it's not actually that difficult to do given the standard architecture. It's not like we're back in the days of homebrew, deep in the dawn of computing prehistory – everything just slots together. What could possibly go wrong?

I assembled the components, going for high end, as this build was to replace the gaming rig I'd bought from Voodoo PC when it was a boutique builder of high-performance PCs before it became part of HP.

So I gathered together an Intel i7 2600K processor, the top of its new Sandybridge range and an Intel DP67BG motherboard. As I wanted this to be a fast machine that will last me for a while, I decided to go for solid state drives, ending up with two – one for the OS and apps, and one for the data I access most, which is photographs: I do a lot of processing of images in Photoshop and Lightroom, both of which will gobble up as much speed and processing grunt as you can throw at them.

Next up – Ram. With the focus on image processing, 16GB of DDR3 1333Mhz Ram from Kingston seemed just the ticket. I'm also not averse to a bit of gaming, and as this was swiftly turning into a luxury build, Nvidia's GTX 580 seemed the obvious choice, not least because Nvidia has swapped noisy fans for a vapour cooling.

We reckoned my old 700W PSU, which was new only three years ago, would suffice; and I really like the Voodoo case the original build came in: it's big, with plenty of airflow, the fans are quiet and it's got a side panel through which to admire the computer's innards, so there was no reason to replace that. And my DVD burner, a newish SATA one I'd put in recently, would also be fine.

Stripping out the old build took a long time – it was, as was fashionable in 2005 – watercooled, so it had to be drained.

Watercooling worked well for me at the time, and I had few problems with it bar having to replace the tank once when it started to ooze. And it looked pretty cool through the side panel to see the snaking tubes carrying blue coolant around the system. But times change and we decided not to go for it this time.

All the old stuff out of the case, we assembled the new parts within it. Ready for the big switch on, we crossed our fingers and I pushed the button – only to be greeted with an alarming fizzing and popping, with all the lights on the board flashing frantically. That was a bad and scary moment. Out it came, where the same thing happened on my wooden floor. Bits were removed, the symptoms didn't go away.

Testing the PSU suggested that the voltage was all over the place, so the decision was taken to order a new one. Disappointing, as it had been fine in the old build, which, with two DX9 GPUs in SLI and a couple of 10,000rpm Raptor HDDs in Raid 0, was a power-hungry beast.

We still don't know if the old PSU coincidentally failed, or was tipped over the edge by something shorting inside the case (more on that in a moment), but either way, it was time to ditch the old one in favour of a new one, an OCZ 700W StealthXStream PSU.

While we were waiting for this to arrive, news broke of problems with Intel's Sandybridge chipset which could affect the transfer rates of serial ATA disks. My SSDs are 3Gbps, but the delay meant we could do some research, discovering that the 6Gbps connectors are not affected by the flaw, so we made a note to plug the three SATA disks – the SSDs and the DVD burner – into the 6Gps connectors.

Finally the new PSU arrived, and we reassembled the PC. The moment of the big switch on had arrived (again). We crossed our collective fingers and pushed the button. Nothing. Just a light on the motherboard, which seemed to warn of overheating.

Frustrated, we took it out of the case again and tried it on the wooden floor. This time, our hearts leapt when we got a post beep.

Back in it went – nothing.

We finally arrived at the answer via Google, discovering that something shorting the board will (obviously) prevent a successful boot. Suggestions ranged from using brass standoffs (which hold the motherboard screws) to putting a rubber sheet between the motherboard and the backing plate. We went for the less obtrusive option of adding rubber spacers – which finally solved the problem.

Everything back inside the case (again; next time I'm buying a case where everything snaps in rather than having to be attached using tiny fiddly screws, and one with a removable motherboard backing plate) and finally the long-awaited post beep sounded. It's the geek equivalent of great sex. Or, at least, great chocolate.

I haven't started overclocking the CPU yet, but already it's a joy to use – fast and responsive in demanding apps such as Photoshop, and I'm looking forward to trying a really demanding game. The Windows Experience Index, a rough and ready indicator, gives it 7.2 out of a possible 7.9 – the system SSD is the slowest part of the rig. I'll be running proper benchmarks when I've done the overclocking.

It's been a learning experience. At times frustrating, at times downright tricky and fiddly. But the moment I first gazed upon my new PC's Bios screen is right up there with the happiest moments of my life.