Unhealthy Hardware

I really did wear out my PC. The other day, my desktop computer stopped working due to a malfunctioning motherboard. I knew by the way it was acting, and the fact I put in a new power supply, that there was something seriously the matter.

On Thursday, I carried the box down to the truck which is no small feat in itself. After, I drove up Kingsway to my computer store in Burnaby near Metrotown.

That business takes on interested high school students doing their required business training projects. This means there are always lots of young, techie guys hanging about. Had there been personal computers in the 1970s, I would've been in a similar place. The real technician had my computer in and out in a bit more than an hour. Thankfully, he wasn't doing much and was able to devote complete attention to taking out my ASUS P4P and putting in a new cheap motherboard.

I could go one of two ways:

Get things back running as quickly and cheaply as possible, or

Upgrade to the point of nearly building a new computer.

I chose the former this time around. I always buy into computer technology at a fairly advanced level in order to maximize the years I can get out of a PC. I was really not prepared to jump up to state-of-the-art again. It makes more sense to wait for autumn when all the new technology is being pushed for the back-to-school season.

A major problem was the innards of my box were new back when this blog was. I have DDR1 RAM rather than DDR2. I bought an AGP video card recently so I'll have a video card that can run the new interface on Windows Visa. My CPU was only a 2.4 non-duel core So, for around $100 bucks I had a new cheap motherboard installed. It isn't even as good as the old ASUS. It can only hold two sticks of memory, so I had to throw away 512 megabytes of RAM. It only has three IDE slots, so I had to make a decision about what card not to install. It cannot be overclocked in the BIOS setup so my old Intel chip runs at the stated 2.4 rather than its previous 2.8 Mhz.

When Windows woke up inside the new configuration, it made me authenticate it again. I have to admit, it was fantastic to simply get access to my life again. It is a clear lesson to me that it's really what's on the hard drive that makes the computer.