I've used a PC extensively for years, far more than any other electronic device I've owned in my life (in fact, I might end up with more internet mileage than TV mileage, at this rate). Yet I never bothered to upgrade my system with new specs, parts, or anything else unless it was absolutely necessary. Some extra RAM here, a new hard drive there, and that would be the end of it.
But recently I decided enough was enough. I grew tired of the random freezes, choppy output, slow processing, and other aged quirks from my five year old Dell. With enough cash and motivation on hand, and a bit of online guidance, I decided to do some extensive online shopping and get everything up to speed for at least another five years or ten years.
I tried to do a bit of Froogling in other to lessen the expenses, but further insistence from my online PC consultant convinced me to buy the items new and unopened. I spent a good $700 or so in total, but I was told it would cost me over twice that much if I just bought a brand new PC with the same specs.
My room quickly turned into a mini warehouse as the boxes started piling up, but I refused to do any installing until I had all materials on hand. Those materials include...
1. The Power Supply:
Apparently my old power supply didn't have enough voltage to sustain my new PC, so I went with this cheapie recommendation.
2. The Motherboard:
This would basically count as the "torso" of the new PC, where all cables, wires, and cards would attatch to. Perhaps "intestines" would be a more accurate description.
Next to it is a 250gb hard drive, which would be the "stomach".
3. The Processor:
The "brain" of the PC.
4. The RAM
The uh, legs? It makes everything run faster.
5. And finally, The Graphics Card:
This would definetely be the "muscles" of the PC, and was also the most difficult item to acquire (convieniently out of stock in nearly every website at the time I was searching for it).
I finally had everything I needed.
I was pretty nervous, since I've only added components to my PC, but never replaced anything. I was assured constantly that it was very simple surgery, and a pair of screwdrivers, some compressed air and a bit of thermal glue were all the tools I'd need.
I unplugged everything and bravely opened up the tower. It was time for surgery.
Yikes. I never gave it much thought, but I certainly should have cleaned up this dust more often than not.
But fortunately, that's what the compressed air was for.
And viola. Nearly dust free (cough, cough). I can still feel the particles brushed against my nostrils.
Just one last look before taking everything apart. A SATA hard drive, a Radeon graphics card, some RAM too. It's too bad nothing here could be re-used. I doubt I'll get much out of it from Ebay.
Motherboard was the first thing that needed to be installed, followed by the processor. The processor was the one part I was most delicate with, since essentially any problems would screw up the whole bloody PC. I also had the thermal grease on hand, and was basically told to just dump it on top of the processor, like a "poop stain".
I tried to swirl the grease around the edges, but there wasn't enough to go around the whole processor. So I gently smeared the rest around until all areas were covered.
The sheer magnitude of cables was daunting at first, but I slowly took my time with everything, and managed through without much trouble. It was really a simple case of "this fits here, so it should go here". I was concerned that the power supply wouldn't fit in my tower unless I turned it upside down, but it turned out that having the fan point directly at my motherboard was actually a good thing.
The only wire I couldn't find a port for was this thin black one that came from the front of my tower. I spent a good thirty minutes trying to find a place for it, but ultimately gave up. I may never know what it does, but it looks like I didn't need it.
I won't bore you with the details, which basically amounted to several days where I try to illegally download a proper version of Windows (my old disc still worked, but basically limited my PC to XP Home), only to come into constant hurdles and spyware, as well as new security measures where Microsoft can detect a pirated copy and promptly bitchslap you for it. So as I spent another 4 hour night in trying to do some registry hacks and reboots, I woke up the next day and decided to buy a legitimate copy of Windows Vista.
Two secure, painless days later, I still don't regret it. You certainly get what you pay for.
Final Specs of 2008:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2Dual Core Processor 4000+2.10 GHz, 2.00 GB of RAMGeforce 8800GT 512mb
Basically, there's nothing my PC can't do, now. Currently I'm making some tweaks to run Crysis perfectly, but it already runs far better than I expected as things are now. With a bit more tweaking, I'll even have Playstation 2 emulation up and running, which is well worth it for the beautiful resolution boost.
And finally, there's the Steam community, which is basically the PC equivalent of Xbox Live, except many times more stable as well as free. I do worry about the dangling temptation of ordering games online, and having them download to your computer immediately after. It's all very tantalizing, but my hunger should be sustained for a while once the Orange Box arrives in my doorstep this week. There are countless mods available, and countless ways to get new enjoyment out of the same game. Looking forward to it.
My PC name? The One Free PC.
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