/Dorm PC

Somehow, I just graduated from university, and I mean somehow in terms of both grades and how fast the time flew. These past few days have had me reflecting on those early years adjusting to university life and the obsessive lengths I went to just to keep playing Counter-Strike.

My high school graduation happened during the height of COVID and didn't feel like a proper ending to those four years. With that in mind, I braced myself for an awkward start to college. Thankfully, one of my best friends from high school, Donny, was also attending my university, and we decided to room together.

A week before move-in (to Resident Hall A, to be specific), my parents told me I wasn't allowed to bring my gaming PC, only my laptop. Their reasoning was fair: I'd probably play Counter-Strike all day and flunk out. I didn't resent them for it; I understood where they were coming from. But I knew I'd lose my mind if I couldn't play.

At the time, I was playing for my ESEA Open team LocksAnimeAimers, and we were doing pretty well in Season 35. My teammates understood the situation, but I was reluctant to give up my spot. So I came to campus with my 60Hz ThinkPad X13 Gen 1, my HiFiMAN HE4XX, custom keyboard, wired Glorious Model O, and an Artisan Zero Mid. Donny, knowing how much CS:GO meant to me, let me borrow his 144Hz monitor during match nights, something I'll always be grateful for.

Thanks to him, I managed to play ten matches (8W–2L), averaging 83.3 ADR for my team. My ThinkPad sat sideways for better airflow, pushing out a stable 80 FPS. After each game, I updated a little whiteboard outside our dorm with our season record, something people on our floor occasionally noticed. Wild times.

Eventually, though, I was cut from the team. My setup wasn't sustainable, and my future with the roster looked questionable. I started focusing more on school but also began planning to build a secret PC in the dorm. As a broke freshman, my only resources were some leftover cash and a stockpile of Amazon gift cards.

Here's the eventual build:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-10400 – $194.38 (covered by gift cards)
• Cooler: Intel Stock Cooler
• Motherboard: ASRock Z490M-ITX/ac – $162.85
• Memory: Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16GB – $53.99
• Storage: Western Digital Blue 1TB NVME (Salvaged from my old PC)
• GPU: Zotac GTX 1070 Mini – $180 (used)
• Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 450 GM – $63.17
• Case: None
• Total: $654.39

Figure 1: Oct 13, 2020 4:09 PM

I'd been interested in Small Form Factor PCs for a while, but this project involved plenty of compromises. It took from August to October to collect all the parts. I was lucky with the GPU timing, just before the 2021 crypto mining boom, and it was relatively compact for a 1070. I got it from r/hardwareswap; the seller even repasted it for me, though one of the fans was zip-tied on. It worked.

I waited for sales on nearly every part: RAM, motherboard, power supply (which I snagged from EVGA's weekly B-stock restock). I brought back one of my NVMe drives after a visit home, and my parents agreed to ship my monitor under the pretense of "studying".

The case I really wanted, and eventually got during my second year, was a silver Ghost S1. But at the time, a case wasn't essential to play CS. So I placed my entire PC on the windowsill behind my desk. The motherboard sat on its anti-static bag, and the PSU rested on the motherboard's box.

It wasn't pretty, but it ran. I remember one day I left the window open before class and came back during a rainstorm. I immediately cut the power and let everything dry overnight. Miraculously, it was fine. Since I had no case, I also had no power button, so I shorted the front panel pins manually with an iFixit screwdriver every time I wanted to boot it.

I didn't save any benchmarks, but I was getting around 200 FPS in CS:GO. Sure, I wanted more, but for under $500? No complaints. I could play FACEIT and ESEA matches without issue, and honestly, this setup saved my sanity. By 2021, I'd hit FACEIT Level 10 with this build while trying out for my university's CS:GO team.

Figure 2: Dec 6, 2021 2:53 AM

The COVID era of college sucked in a lot of ways, but playing on the Division 2 team and the friendships I made made it worth it. Over time, each part of that build was replaced, and none of it remains in my current setup. But looking back, it's clear just how much this system meant to me. Maybe it was an obsession. I was willing to go to absurd lengths, hide things from my parents, and build a PC on a windowsill just to keep playing. But in a way, it also kept me grounded, connected, and sane during one of the most isolating periods of my life. Obsession? Maybe. But I think it was the kind I needed.