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Apr. 19th, 2007 05:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariUpdate on the computer thing:
I tore the system completely down to just memory, motherboard and video, no POST, no beep. Cleared the CMOS, ran it without video, ran it without memory, no beeps codes, no POST.
When I replaced the video card a few months ago, I had a lot of trouble finding an AGP card for my system, memory was hard to come by as well. I kinda half heartedly was thinking of upgrading the system.
The computer place I go to had a motherboard/CPU combination that was uber cheap. Not what I wanted (when I usually buy something like that, I try to get top of the line and then grind it into the ground (I ran a Pentium I 200MHz till 2003)), but it was cheap, and fit kinda in my grocery budget. It's gonna leave me with about $50 for groceries, but if I choose well, I should be able to survive.
It's not what I was hoping in an "upgrade" at all. It's a Pentium D running at 2.66GHz. Micro ATX form factor, though, just 2 expansion ports. It's got onboard video (mixed-memory, though), and hopefully it'll take my memory and power supply.
At best, I'll be out a week. At worse, I'll be out two months.
What a day. I need a drink.
At least the iMac is acting SOMEWHAT stable.
I tore the system completely down to just memory, motherboard and video, no POST, no beep. Cleared the CMOS, ran it without video, ran it without memory, no beeps codes, no POST.
When I replaced the video card a few months ago, I had a lot of trouble finding an AGP card for my system, memory was hard to come by as well. I kinda half heartedly was thinking of upgrading the system.
The computer place I go to had a motherboard/CPU combination that was uber cheap. Not what I wanted (when I usually buy something like that, I try to get top of the line and then grind it into the ground (I ran a Pentium I 200MHz till 2003)), but it was cheap, and fit kinda in my grocery budget. It's gonna leave me with about $50 for groceries, but if I choose well, I should be able to survive.
It's not what I was hoping in an "upgrade" at all. It's a Pentium D running at 2.66GHz. Micro ATX form factor, though, just 2 expansion ports. It's got onboard video (mixed-memory, though), and hopefully it'll take my memory and power supply.
At best, I'll be out a week. At worse, I'll be out two months.
What a day. I need a drink.
At least the iMac is acting SOMEWHAT stable.
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Date: 2007-04-19 08:01 am (UTC)Video/RAM errors always generate at least a beep of death. Onboard video has terrible performance, especually in 3D games... Second Life... on the Mac Mini is ughhh. I use my Laptop with it's piddly Geforce2Go5600 for games. I can't be bothered to build another computer untill everything is SATA, PCIe and quadcore. It's getting there, but since the mac (at 1.66G Core Duo) and the Laptop (P4 3Ghz HT) is barely more powerful I'm sticking to my rule of do upgrades till the new thing is over 4 times more powerful than the existing box. So for me, that's a 3.2Ghz QuadCore... in theory anyway. The Mac with a CPU of almost half the speed has only a slightly higher performance score than the laptop.
... Though I bought the mac solely to have an 'internet only'/maybe flash/programming box, since the laptop was nearing the end of it's 3 year warranty.
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Date: 2007-04-19 06:23 pm (UTC)>on doesn't mean it isn't dead.
I'm kinda eyeing that myself, too. Now that the board is powering on, it sure doesn't seem to be giving me any grief, and doesn't seem to be the board.
>Onboard video has terrible performance, especually in 3D games...
>Second Life... on the Mac Mini is ughhh.
Nods. The board I was looking at was a cheapie, and I knew I wouldn't have enough for a new board and PCIe video card, so I went WAY low end. Thankfully, the system came back up before I bought that board.
You're on SL, too? Or just providing an example?
>I can't be bothered to build another computer untill everything is
>SATA, PCIe and quadcore. It's getting there, but since the mac (at
>1.66G Core Duo) and the Laptop (P4 3Ghz HT) is barely more powerful
>I'm sticking to my rule of do upgrades till the new thing is over 4
>times more powerful than the existing box. So for me, that's a 3.2Ghz
>QuadCore... in theory anyway. The Mac with a CPU of almost half the
>speed has only a slightly higher performance score than the laptop.
For me, to upgrade, I've got to totally grind the computer into the ground (I used an 8088 from 1985 to 1992, a 486 from 92 to 97, a Pentium I from 97 to 2003, and now a P4 to today). And when I upgrade, I always buy the bleeding edge stuff so I get the most life out of it.
The only reason I'm considering upgrading now, isn't so much that the P4 has ground into the ground, but that it's just getting harder and harder to find parts for it. It works great for what I need, but if something goes (like it id last night), replacement parts are getting hard to find.
It works for now, but at least I'll have some cash saved up to to get a much better board in the future, instead of a compromised one now.
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Date: 2007-04-20 02:24 am (UTC)