Startup building gaming computers

Other than the hard drive shortage increasing system building costs, and 4 or 5 computer shops within 5 to 10 miles of me not counting retail stores, what is the likelihood of making a profit selling custom built computers and making a profit? I currently get too few part time contract jobs that are supposed to last 3 days and end up finishing in one.

I'm looking for something to supplement my income or even grow it into a full fledged business. Other than maybe Vision computers, or computers like Alienware and Falcon are so overpriced and usually have the ugliest cases I've ever seen. I've been looking at computers on eBay, but have a hard time seeing how their sales go.

Could use some advice. I haven't done water cooling, but have watched videos on it. With some if the corsair and other water blocks doesn't seem to difficult if you know anything about proper air flow. But again to the question, would I be better off starting with EBay, or starting my own web page and advertising on my car's rear window?

Hey man, saw this the other day but didn't have time to respond, I'm surprised that no-one else has though so I'm sorry for that

you're kind of in the same boat as a lot of us,
I like building Pc's, I get a few jobs from workmates, fix/upgrade/virus duties, I started with a similar idea, build Pc's and sell them,
now, The first thing I would advise is do not, don't, refrain from and absolutely never build one then try to sell it,
get the order in, and build to that, that way you don't have your money tied into a Pc that your 'about to sell' and never do
on my desk is my first 'build to sell' Pc, due to life issues, timing and other non-controllable things I have £1500 worth of Pc that I have to keep, because it will not sell even to get the component costs back,
bit of a blow huh?
other side of my 'business' is steady enough, upgrade a netbook, reinstall windows, recover data from old hard drives, so I've ended up with about 7 complete Pentium 4 rigs, a ton of Mobo+Chips, ram,hdd's cables and Psu's,
local shop has an advert for 'Refurbished computers' and I get one or two calls a week, sold one in 5 months,
I never set out for this to be a replacement for my main job, more a hobby that maybe paid out a bit, but its a longhaul hehe
theres a lot of competition in my area as well, but I'm fine with that

I'd say local shop/car window advertising is your cheapest and potentially most useful approach right now, but be prepared to be patient,
Best of luck for you in things though man, you have more chance of succeeding when you try
Moto