This is why you don't clean it with soap, water and a wire brush. Just use air.

I have been living with only my work laptop for years now because that happened and then I didn't want to deal with it until later.

Ahahaha. Last time I did clean my PC and re-paste for the first time since 4 years - my wife has touched PC case and hit it with static. She saw my face fall into despair the moment it happened. She didn't knew. It didn't start after reassembly. And that's how I bought my current PC.

After many attempts and debugging I found out that one ram slot is dead and PC wont boot with any ram sticks in this port. But that was too late.

The industrial design has improved enormously since then, as well. The days of using the same connector for different voltages, or connectors which can be rotated are gone. Everything has a keyed connector or similar pokayoke that means it only fits to the correct place, and only one way around. CPUs don't suicide if you forget to attach their system cooler, they just throttle. Much better, and obvious in retrospect that it should always have been that way.

Apart from the front panel connectors on a motherboard, of course. Those fiddly little bastards can get straight to hell.

Similar to the smoke-button at the back of power supplies. This might not work in the US, I don't know.

Not the best idea to plug it directly into the socket either, unless your home has surge protection built in. Dunno if that's even a thing.

Ideally plug it in to a UPS with an isolated circuit so that it acts as a surge protector, filter, and battery backup.

I've built quite many computers and the first powerup always fails for some very minor thing, like the psu switch being off, forgetting ram... but last time i got everything right the first time. but it still didn't go smooth. i powered it on. fans spinning, black screen...i waited and waited...shut it down, tried again. nope, shit. switched rams to different slots. nope. tried with one stick. nope. got frustrated, started filling out the rma form and boom suddenly it posted. turns out it just takes long to post....like ridiculously long. sometimes more than 5 minutes. since it works I've been too lazy to take it apart and rma the mobo. I'll do it just before the warranty expires.

Yeah RAM training is just unnerving. For like 6 minutes you have a Schroedinger's box that is either fucked or about to POST

Hang on, I've never heard of this. I haven't built a huge amount of machines but never knew about RAM training!

I even did a Compaq course back in the day ~25 years ago. Is this a recent thing, by any chance (DDR era)?

Wait what? How does that work? Is there some data storage in the motherboard that's remembering the best way to organize your ram?

take forever for the first boot due to ram optimization

That's not just a downloading RAM joke?

What car guys do is tap a wrench in the engine bay as soon as the vehicle owner starts up their motor for the first time so it sounds like it's knocking

Sacrilege, the machine spirit needs its blood!

I actually haven't ever built a computer that didn't boot on the first try. The closest I came, somehow, was my cousin's PC. I got it all built, I pushed the power button, and nothing happened. A quick glance around the case and a chuckle later, I pushed the Reset button and the power light came on and it booted to the BIOS.

Is this really such a common occurrence? I've built 5 or 6 systems in my life and the only time it didn't boot instantly was when I accidentally bought the wrong RAM.

I really miss case buzzers :(

After having built a bunch of pcs through the years, I've learned that components really aren't as fragile as they feel.

Same.

What I would like is LEGO-esque PC system, where you just slot shrouded hardware bricks and cartridges, no wires. The game cartridges of the SNES had variable amounts of storage or chips to enhance performance, such as the SuperFX for Star Fox and Yoshi's Island.