Is ten minutes of uptime too much to ask for?
by AC - permalink
So my PC has basically become unusable now. I've been relegated to using this old Duron-based rig again for pretty much everything while I use the odd ten-minute window to try to troubleshoot my main rig. And I think I've finally narrowed the problem down to either a bad CPU (most likely), a bad power supply (much less likely), or some random bad component on my mobo (god I hope not). As a last-ditch cheap effort I scraped off what was left of the old thermal paste from my CPU and heatsink -- which had turned the consistency of clay -- and replaced it with some cheap Arctic grease, but it didn't work.
So today I finally gave up and decided on some part-swapping. I ordered a new processor, CPU cooler, power supply, and some Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste from newegg.com. While it was tempting to do some real upgrading with a dual-core CPU, I decided it wouldn't be worth the hassle of switching back and forth from dual- to single-core for my older games and just went with a cheaper AMD 64 4000+ 2.4 chip, which is still a nontrivial upgrade from my apparently fubar'd 3500+ 2.2 CPU. The other essential upgrade is the cheap-but-still-better 500W PSU to replace my stock 300W unit that may or may not be itself the cause of the problems I've been having. I threw in the new cooler because it can't possibly be worse than the weak little fan and aluminum piece of shit I have now, and the Silver 5 is something I should have invested in a long time ago. The best part is with a lot of research and careful part selection, the whole lot came in at just a hundred and one bucks, plus tax and shipping. That's $101 for a brand new OEM AMD 4000+ and a 500W power supply and a copper cooler/fan assembly. The only question now is, can I put it all together and still get the goddamned rig to boot?
Something I'd like to mention about using this old Duron box is that I've enjoyed browsing with the new Opera release on it. I had chance to play with Opera 9.2 on my main rig before it went kaput, and I remembered that Opera works well with old hardware, so I installed it on this old box. It's a really impressive piece of programming. In fact, I'd say that it's a tweak or two away from being every bit as good as Firefox 2.
I first tried 9.2 to have a look at the new "speed dial" feature. It's kind of redundant to the favorites list, but looks cool and it's fairly convenient. But the killer feature in my opinion is the Block Content option in the context menu. Basically, it works like Adblock in Firefox, Flock, or Avant. It's a quick way to wild-card-block ads from any given site, and plugs up a huge hole in the reasons-not-to-adopt Opera list. It's still fast, feature-complete, highly customizable, and well-supported. Unfortunately, Java-based applets, like the games at Pogo, still don't seem to work at all when launched through Opera, and when I tried to write this post, I was inexplicably unable to type anything in the big fat blog text box. But for everyday browsing, especially on an older PC, Opera has closed the gap considerably on Firefox, and has nearly caught Flock, at least in my experience.
by AC - permalink
So my PC has basically become unusable now. I've been relegated to using this old Duron-based rig again for pretty much everything while I use the odd ten-minute window to try to troubleshoot my main rig. And I think I've finally narrowed the problem down to either a bad CPU (most likely), a bad power supply (much less likely), or some random bad component on my mobo (god I hope not). As a last-ditch cheap effort I scraped off what was left of the old thermal paste from my CPU and heatsink -- which had turned the consistency of clay -- and replaced it with some cheap Arctic grease, but it didn't work.
So today I finally gave up and decided on some part-swapping. I ordered a new processor, CPU cooler, power supply, and some Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste from newegg.com. While it was tempting to do some real upgrading with a dual-core CPU, I decided it wouldn't be worth the hassle of switching back and forth from dual- to single-core for my older games and just went with a cheaper AMD 64 4000+ 2.4 chip, which is still a nontrivial upgrade from my apparently fubar'd 3500+ 2.2 CPU. The other essential upgrade is the cheap-but-still-better 500W PSU to replace my stock 300W unit that may or may not be itself the cause of the problems I've been having. I threw in the new cooler because it can't possibly be worse than the weak little fan and aluminum piece of shit I have now, and the Silver 5 is something I should have invested in a long time ago. The best part is with a lot of research and careful part selection, the whole lot came in at just a hundred and one bucks, plus tax and shipping. That's $101 for a brand new OEM AMD 4000+ and a 500W power supply and a copper cooler/fan assembly. The only question now is, can I put it all together and still get the goddamned rig to boot?
Something I'd like to mention about using this old Duron box is that I've enjoyed browsing with the new Opera release on it. I had chance to play with Opera 9.2 on my main rig before it went kaput, and I remembered that Opera works well with old hardware, so I installed it on this old box. It's a really impressive piece of programming. In fact, I'd say that it's a tweak or two away from being every bit as good as Firefox 2.
I first tried 9.2 to have a look at the new "speed dial" feature. It's kind of redundant to the favorites list, but looks cool and it's fairly convenient. But the killer feature in my opinion is the Block Content option in the context menu. Basically, it works like Adblock in Firefox, Flock, or Avant. It's a quick way to wild-card-block ads from any given site, and plugs up a huge hole in the reasons-not-to-adopt Opera list. It's still fast, feature-complete, highly customizable, and well-supported. Unfortunately, Java-based applets, like the games at Pogo, still don't seem to work at all when launched through Opera, and when I tried to write this post, I was inexplicably unable to type anything in the big fat blog text box. But for everyday browsing, especially on an older PC, Opera has closed the gap considerably on Firefox, and has nearly caught Flock, at least in my experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment