As I sit here typing away at this blog, I have three other computer related tasks going on. I’m transcoding/burning two DVD’s, I have a load of laundry going, I’m re-installing some software on another computer, and finally checking out a laptop to make sure everything is working properly. If you include the fact that one of the DVD’s is being burned on a Linux box, you could say I’m learning a different OS too. Why am I doing all of this now? Good question, and it is one I asked myself. I spent the better part of this evening installing some new and improved hardware on my main computer. It is the one I do most of my DVD work on, and I was just bogging the system down. I noticed I was able to transcode and burn a DVD faster on my laptop, than the main box. Something isn’t not quite right there. I knew I had a problem with the video card in the main box, so I swapped that out.. I also put in a dual core processor, since that is what my laptop has in it. After all that work I had to put the machine through its paces, didn’t I? And Now I think the box with twice as much memory, a faster processor, and more disks space finally catches up with the laptop. I don’t think my hard drives on the desktop are nearly as fast, and I think that is what is slowing the desktop up this time…
Dryer buzzer, time to get the laundry.
I am waiting for my tax rebate myself so I can buy a new computer. I will pretty much need to buy everything except the monitor and case, since my old one was a 1.1GHz Athlon. I may be able to use the hard drive as a secondary drive if it still works. I’m still not sure if my controller went bad or two hard drives did (in the same way- likely due to the controller). In any event, it is ATA100, not SATA so a new hard drive would be necessary anyway as the primary. Oh, no OS needed either as I will continue to use XP Pro. Maybe I will finally try Linux again, 64-bit version for some speed. Lessee now- motherboard, video card, forget sound as built-in will likely be sufficient, core2duo CPU, hard drive, RAM. Hopefully I won’t need to spend much of my paycheck on top of the rebate.
Derek
It just gets to be more fun. I installed the new processor, and extra memory, and then started running stuff. I put in all of the external devices and the machine won’t keep running. As long as nothing is attached, outside of the mouse, keyboard and monitor, everything works fine. I have 3 external drives, a network and some USB hubs. I will have to plug them in one at a time to determine what device is causing the problems. grumble
On top of all that, the other computer on the network (with a printer attached) decided to stop working. I thought it may have been the video card, but now I’m not sure. New video card works for a while and then no signal is received. Another grumble. The only device that works all the time is my laptop. I just hope that keeps working.