11-15-2005, 10:26 PM
I bet most of us have done it before. A tiny flaw manifests itself in a piece of hardware on your machine, and you use that as an excuse for a new upgrade. But, in all honesty, what was your weakest excuse used to fool your spouse/kids/parents/self into justifying that upgrade?
Some time during March this year, the old Foxbox was starting to grind on a bit. People have been in and out of prisons in the time my computer was 'alive'. It was eight years old.
It was also a spectaculary crappy Packard Bell PC, forged in the dark days of, um, darkness where all the PC manufacturers were trying to beat the iMac in design stakes with their smooth lines and superfluous edges and stuff. I'd overhauled the machine a lot in those eight years with a shiny PCI graphics card (64megs), 64MB of RAM on top of the 16 that came with the box (EDO is getting harder and harder to find now), a 20GB hard drive, several sets of keyboards and mice, and three monitors*.
Because much of the case design was "custom", it meant that when the CD drive started to crap out I had the perfect excuse - There was no way in hell I could buy a new drive to replace the custom-designed one for my computer, and you try finding a replacement drive to spec that doesn't cost more than a new PC. The problems were: Refusing to open on the first or fifth prod of the open/close button, problems reading, and generally junkedness.
So, in my zeal, I ordered the parts to build a new box. I had fun junking almost an entire system (Very little was salvagable, and I haven't bothered to put the old hard drive in my new box yet) all on the premise that the CD drive was acting a little fritzy, but I had to look at things logicall - If a serious problem arose, then I probably wouldn't have been able to install anything onto it from boot, since it was an old and custom BIOS that I couldn't flash. So I ordered the parts and waited.
The parts took a week to arrive, and the drive performed flawlessly in that time. :whistling: Ah well, better I junk the old girl then than later.
* Best excuse I've ever had for upgrading a component was when my second monitor blew up. The tube inside literally exploded resulting in a bright flash that burned onto my retinas and a lot of smoke. It was awesome. The fact that I was drunk at the time had nothing to do with it. :ph34r:
Some time during March this year, the old Foxbox was starting to grind on a bit. People have been in and out of prisons in the time my computer was 'alive'. It was eight years old.
It was also a spectaculary crappy Packard Bell PC, forged in the dark days of, um, darkness where all the PC manufacturers were trying to beat the iMac in design stakes with their smooth lines and superfluous edges and stuff. I'd overhauled the machine a lot in those eight years with a shiny PCI graphics card (64megs), 64MB of RAM on top of the 16 that came with the box (EDO is getting harder and harder to find now), a 20GB hard drive, several sets of keyboards and mice, and three monitors*.
Because much of the case design was "custom", it meant that when the CD drive started to crap out I had the perfect excuse - There was no way in hell I could buy a new drive to replace the custom-designed one for my computer, and you try finding a replacement drive to spec that doesn't cost more than a new PC. The problems were: Refusing to open on the first or fifth prod of the open/close button, problems reading, and generally junkedness.
So, in my zeal, I ordered the parts to build a new box. I had fun junking almost an entire system (Very little was salvagable, and I haven't bothered to put the old hard drive in my new box yet) all on the premise that the CD drive was acting a little fritzy, but I had to look at things logicall - If a serious problem arose, then I probably wouldn't have been able to install anything onto it from boot, since it was an old and custom BIOS that I couldn't flash. So I ordered the parts and waited.
The parts took a week to arrive, and the drive performed flawlessly in that time. :whistling: Ah well, better I junk the old girl then than later.
* Best excuse I've ever had for upgrading a component was when my second monitor blew up. The tube inside literally exploded resulting in a bright flash that burned onto my retinas and a lot of smoke. It was awesome. The fact that I was drunk at the time had nothing to do with it. :ph34r:
When in mortal danger,
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.
BattleTag: Schrau#2386
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.
BattleTag: Schrau#2386