What goes around comes around – Comp down again

The week started with my computer conking out on me again, exactly one year since I last changed the motherboard, it seemed that it went out again, this time with a blank system after it failed trying to recover the bios. Maybe I was too caught up with force booting the past month just to get work and projects done, I ignored it’s cries for attention and it just simply died foaming in the mouth 2 days ago.

🙄 Given this age of Intel core duo & AMD 64bitx2 processing power, my current system is just a Pentium 4 Socket 478 system, which is like “so-technology” 5 years ago. Now with this, I am left with 2 choices, go for a $800 upgrade where I have to change everything (processor, ram, and GPU) to like a beefy AMD 64-bit dual core in time for Vista or at least the over-hyped Core 2 Duo system. Or should I just simply spend $100 bucks on an old S478 motherboard and forget about the whole thing?

Going with the 1st option, what I can only savage are my harddisks, PSU, soundcard and DVD drives, on top of the casing of course. Otherwise, my current AGP Geforce 6600GT, slow DDR333 ram & Pentium 4, B generation processor can be reused unless I get an old compatible board for peanuts.

I am a little lazy now and seem to lean over the cheaper latter. Anyway how many users out there are actually making full use of dual core, let be quad core or even running a 64-bit OS on their 64-bit systems now? Hardly! In this technology age, I find no point spending so much to upgrade on technology which will always be so expensive at first and cheap/obsolete later, just like it can’t justify the high prices now.

I guess what I can do now is to live with my backup system now, which is my ummmm, tablet. There are 3 tests next week to study for and I guess I won’t be seeing myself able to drop by simlim to sieve out what’s left of the Pentium S478 boards in this LGA era. Maybe like 2 weeks time or so, not urgent. Hope I can get a good bargain here or there then and maybe an occasional snicker from the store when I “clear their stocks”.

Amusingly, it’s funny trying to hook up my laptop to the monitor everyday back from school with a pile of wires and USB hubs here and there. What was once the heart – my desktop now transplanted my a mobile heart. So disorganised is also my desk now. But I guess at least my emails and files are keep sync on one system least and not over so many systems.

😯 The other annoying thing is that my tablet running on the GMA 900 graphics solution only allows output of 1600×1200 resolution MAX and NO Widescreen options! BRwharr!! The new drivers don’t seem to support or output at my monitor’ native 1920×1200 resolution – something my mum’s laptop can do, but her’s is running on the newer Intel GMA 950, so I may pass – mine’s old and have no such output support. So I am either stuck with 2 gaps at the side of my screen or if I want to fill the whole screen, my image will be stretched, which is a nightmare as all my design work involving perfect circles will all start to look like ellipses…. Dammit.