November 8th, 2009

Computer Upgrades!

RvB errors made me post 2 journals, this is the only one.

(Not sad anymore. I was just noticing a trend of hardly any comments on my journals and wondered if I was just using a megaphone in the desert. Guess not, thanks guys. I'm fine with you not commenting, I read a lot of your stuff and don't comment, so it's only fair. And the sadness wasn't that great, more a pondering of doing journals if no one was there to read them...but no worries now)

So I bought a 28" monitor instead of the iMac. Didn't hear a thing from Apple so I assume I wasn't a chosen one. It's probably better that way. A full time job is enough. The monitor is SO big. It's almost too big. You're supposed to look down on your monitor slightly but I don't see how that's possible with mine unless i got a new desk that was lower. Hm. At the end of November I want to buy 4GBs of RAM for my computer, so I can handle running The Sims 3 (bought on Halloween for $20 off, yep, I'm a girl) and a web browser/iTunes/Skype on the other side. I plan on getting 2 video cards to run SLI at the end of January. Further down the line...end of February is a 1TB HDD, end of March is new speakers, end of April is a sound card, end of May is a new power strip, a new mouse, a new keyboard, and a new DVD+/-R drive. And sometime after that is the rest of the pieces (cooling, power, case, quad core processor, motherboard), and sometime after that, an external hdd.

I think it's a good plan to slowly build up what I have now until eventually I have 2 machines.

Then while I was reading random articles at work (I'm seriously a walking Google now--I read about cats that have degrees at universities, 15 things you didn't know about Mr. Rogers, How to enter a room like a man, 7 uses for banana peels, and so many more that I can't keep track of but can mysteriously recite randomly in the middle of a conversation) and I read this article.

I was tempted. It sounds easy enough. If I got a little help, did a lot of planning, it doesn't seem so bad. I still have to look up how much it costs, see what tools my stepdad has, what tools I can borrow, what tools I'll need, and if this all adds up to be less than it would cost to hire someone to do it--I just might. Although it would have to be cheap enough to let me make good uses of it in one year. Hopefully I'll move out in a year and have my own internet.

We'll see...

Posted 3 months ago by Zatch Comments (10)	+ 4 Cool

Comments

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NotABluetard

Forza 3

#1 Posted 3 months ago	+ 1 Ditto [ Reply ] [ Quote ]
Haha, The Sims 3. I have to admit, I like playing The Sims (2) as well, though mostly just to build huge houses with huge garages full of custom content cars.

tonyski

MrAchievment

#2 Posted 3 months ago	[ Reply ] [ Quote ]
you don't need 4 gigs for TS3. I got 2 gigs and run it just fine.

lefty

Unless you're running a 64 system you don't need/want more than 3 gigs of ram.
I would also recommend leaving your internal HDD as is and instead investing in an external option. If it doesn't move (is a PC as opposed to a lappy) you have a ton of great options.

What I would do is put all of my media files directly on the external drive and use them from there (360 can still find them) and for other files, I would copy them over at regular intervals in anticipation of something terrible happening. Copy though, not move because I could just copy/paste the folder and leave what I have there intact.

If you are interested in wiring your house for interwebs, Home Depot has all of the tools and materials you would need. I seriously considered it as well because the setup they have at Molly's house is jank at best with cables all over and so forth. We sell all sorts of great outlet shaped things so you can run the cable/ethernet and mount them onto switches. It's really quite nice. Just be sure you know how many feet of cable you'll need before you go and how many outlet things, etc. You can always return anything you don't use.

lefty

#4 Posted 3 months ago	+ 1 Cool [ Reply ] [ Quote ]
Home Depot has a "Paladin Tools DataReady Toolkit" but they charge $200 for it. I found it on Newegg for $175 and on amazon for $150.

GamerX5005

Progress

#5 Posted 3 months ago	[ Reply ] [ Quote ]
Yay for computers! :D

ringo6483

Pops

#6 Posted 3 months ago	[ Reply ] [ Quote ]
I would love that monitor...

ShadowStylez

Never Change

I was tempted. It sounds easy enough. If I got a little help, did a lot of planning, it doesn't seem so bad. I still have to look up how much it costs, see what tools my stepdad has, what tools I can borrow, what tools I'll need, and if this all adds up to be less than it would cost to hire someone to do it--I just might. Although it would have to be cheap enough to let me make good uses of it in one year.

I can tell you right now that no matter what you need and what you get it is always cheaper to do it yourself unless you have a friend who will do it for next to nothing (or less).

ragingterror

Exhaustion

#8 Posted 3 months ago	[ Reply ] [ Quote ]
I've thought about running networking cable here as well, but the challenge would be amplified by the fact that I have two floors and would want to run cables to at least a couple rooms upstairs and the living room downstairs. I'll probably have to do a fair amount of scouting the home framework to even determine if that will not be prohibitively difficult.

Hamstar

ReStar

#9 Posted 3 months ago	+ 1 Funny [ Reply ] [ Quote ]
I alllllmost bought that toolkit Lefty just linked... you know where I stand on this... it pleases and sparkles

MSpencer

#10 Posted 3 months ago	[ Reply ] [ Quote ]
Those sound like some good upgrades. But why is it that the thought of a 1TB hard drive makes me feel old?

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