About like it runs compared to how it could run.....
If you're like me, and you're still employed on a regular basis [**], you start wondering how much trouble and money it would be to upgrade. And, man, does THAT open a can of worms. Rather, Pandora's Box o' Snakes. And, you start cruising places like PriceWatch and look at the going prices for certain things, like Motherboards and CPUs and Memory. Then you drift into other areas, like MB/CPU Combos, Cases, Power Supplies, Video cards, Modems, and you soon realize - THERE'S NO END TO THIS MADNESS ! Just where do I draw the line on how much to spend for what kind of upgrade? Do I spend $250 for a BX Board and CPU combo and use my existing peripherals, the old modem, the two 4Gig Western Digital ATA-33 drives, the 192 Megs of SDRam. Oh, let's see, the ISA slot is history and is not available on the particular Motherboard I just decided on, so that means a new Modem, even though this one works just swell. (And having already tried 7 different modems, I don't really want to go through THAT again.)
Or, let's see, if I buy an Athlon CPU and Motherboard combo, I can use the ISA Modem, but, hmm, now I need an AMD approved (and bigger) Power Supply to fire up that Athlon. But, I can still use my other stuff; how slow would that be, using all that old ATA-33 stuff, so let's figure a new Hard Drive in there for another $80 to $110. Oh, and some newer SDRam - which is pretty danged reasonable anymore. Makes you wonder why it was so pricey to begin with, doesn't it? I mean, someone's either losing their butts now, or they already gouged us so much that they can now afford to virtually GIVE it away. Hey, maybe if I wait, they'll give away Athlons....think?
I could use the same Midtower Case I have now and save a couple of bucks, but a Power Supply alone is almost the price of a Case and Power Supply together. So, if I buy a new case, then I can maybe make a unit out of the parts I have lying around, and take out one of the Hard Drives, sell that, and .. round and round we go, think I'm gonna spew. Information Overload, Stephanie, no more input....
OK, well, let's figure out the price of a brand new unit. Yeah, that's the ticket. Let's spec out all the stuff for a brand new system. Don't have to go overboard with a new GeForce III card, don't need no DDRam or board, don't need no RAID capability, don't need no LAN stuff (like there's any LAN parties in THIS neck of the woods)[we actually ARE in the woods], don't need no 1000 watt surround-sound 15 speaker setup, since I actually have a real stereo against the wall over there, and don't need a new keyboard, or monitor, or mouse (although the glider pads have worn off this old Logitech, so maybe I could use a new mouse).
Sure, just spend a few weeks reading tech reviews, overclocking forums, pricing stuff at o/c hardware sites, whip out Excel and start filling in the blanks. Yeah, it's all coming together, I think I have some idea of what to do here. Now, just get all the prices figured out at all the vendors, and compare shipping rates, and Return Policies* and.....
(**] Damn. I just quit my full-time job [ Back ]
Now what?
Well, I guess all that talk and enthusiasm was contagious. A friend of mine caught my bug. HE wants to do it now. (dang copy cats.....;-) Oh, but wait, my friend has that certain something that I lack... $$$ He's really going to do it. I just happen to have an Excel Spreadsheet somewhere on my desktop... let's see, under here? no, oh, yeah, I know where, it's in the Folder I named: Fat Chance now that you QUIT, Bonehead Yep, here it is.
After 4 hours of online price comparison shopping for the stuff I'd already decided on earlier, all we had to do was kick back and relax until all the stuff came in. Easy enough. Yeah, right. Like Christmas when I was a 5 yr. old. Especially when those confirmation emails started coming in:
"Dear Sir, we recieved your order, but due to differing shipping and mailing addresses we have cancelled your order until you contact us personally. Thanks for doing business with us, we appreciate it."
Got that all straightened out. Until we realized that everything had finally come except for, what was it? Oh, the Case. Minor detail. After calling the vendor again, that got straightened out, we hoped. So another long 5 day wait.
And, let me tell ya, all those parts
)
lyin'
around the casa was almost more than a red- blooded geek like myself could take.
"Yo, Richard, yeah, got it all together finally. No, that's what an Athlon
LOOKS like, really, they come packaged in an Intel PII Shell. Didn't you read
about the trial merger with AMD the other day? What's that? Why's mine
so much faster lately? It must be that new SoftFSB program I
found the other day. Works pretty good for an old 266, didn't know I could get
my PII up that high. Maybe we could do something for yours, too."Would I do that? Nah.
Here's the list of 'stuff' I came up with for a minimal (?) tornado system