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Nerd rage
Something about the components I installed yesterday (or the way I installed them) caused my PC to migrate from "occasionally unstable" (unexpected restart once a month or so) to "cripplingly plagued" (total system freeze within an hour of turning it on). I don't know, maybe I dislodged the memory, or something's touching something that shouldn't, or something. Either way, buying a new core system is suddenly markedly more enticing than it was.
(Is it likely to be one of the new components? All I put in was a new DVD-RW, a boxed Netgear wireless network card and a new fan. Anyone?)
What's holding me back right now is the motherboard. All I want is a reasonably cheap (~£40) Core 2 Duo-supporting S775 board with 2 IDE sockets that will take up to 4GB of memory. (This last is optional. I'm not planning on putting that much in to begin with, but it's nice to futureproof.) It's like IDE connections are going out of fashion. Which, you know, fair enough, but still, it's important (to me) for me to be able to connect both my optical drives and the old hard disk, at least to begin with. And ideally I'd like to continue to use the HD at least for storage backup - I don't see 100GB of storage as something you simply throw away.
Pricing rants aside, I'd be tempted to just buy this on the basis that it will definitely all work together, except it's only got 1GB of RAM. And one IDE connection. And it won't tell me what the motherboard is, so I can't buy more RAM myself. But still, it tempts.
EDITED TO ADD: Ah! eBuyer do that thing I've been wondering why people don't do, and suggests compatible (and alternative) hardware. Unfortunately it is genuinely starting to look like the second IDE socket is what they take out to make room for the second core...
EDITED TO ADD EDITED TO ADD: Oh, it's the wireless network card. Taking it out allowed the system to run for 2+ hours without difficulty; returning it caused immediate apoplectic fits. Am downloading new drivers. Using the faulty network card. May be some time.
Am just stepping out.
(Is it likely to be one of the new components? All I put in was a new DVD-RW, a boxed Netgear wireless network card and a new fan. Anyone?)
What's holding me back right now is the motherboard. All I want is a reasonably cheap (~£40) Core 2 Duo-supporting S775 board with 2 IDE sockets that will take up to 4GB of memory. (This last is optional. I'm not planning on putting that much in to begin with, but it's nice to futureproof.) It's like IDE connections are going out of fashion. Which, you know, fair enough, but still, it's important (to me) for me to be able to connect both my optical drives and the old hard disk, at least to begin with. And ideally I'd like to continue to use the HD at least for storage backup - I don't see 100GB of storage as something you simply throw away.
Pricing rants aside, I'd be tempted to just buy this on the basis that it will definitely all work together, except it's only got 1GB of RAM. And one IDE connection. And it won't tell me what the motherboard is, so I can't buy more RAM myself. But still, it tempts.
EDITED TO ADD: Ah! eBuyer do that thing I've been wondering why people don't do, and suggests compatible (and alternative) hardware. Unfortunately it is genuinely starting to look like the second IDE socket is what they take out to make room for the second core...
EDITED TO ADD EDITED TO ADD: Oh, it's the wireless network card. Taking it out allowed the system to run for 2+ hours without difficulty; returning it caused immediate apoplectic fits. Am downloading new drivers. Using the faulty network card. May be some time.
Am just stepping out.
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Ooaaah. this appears to incorporate all the above features as well as gigabit LAN and six channel sound. That may be the one for me...
EDIT: Wait, never mind, this isn't just a list of compatible processors, there's a big fat 'NO' down the side against all the Core2 Duos. Never mind.
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you can get SATA to IDE converters, thin about £15. Not ideal but may solve your problems short term
As for reinstalling OS, if you are changing major system components and or experiencing reliability issues that may be wise anyway.
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That's why most people don't do it. Unless eBuyer have changed their business model significantly in the last two years, they will simply re-sell returns as new stock.
Which is illegal, just hard to prove.
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Graphics cards
The industry peskily changed the format for graphics cards from ATX to PCI-E. I discovered this when my CPU/Mobo died, and I found my relatively spangly, though few year old, graphics card was useless to me; I just couldn't get a mobo that had an appropriate slot.
Re: Graphics cards
The ultimate goal, of course, is to upgrade that as well. PC Format suggests an ASUS 8600GT, or a Radeon 3850 if you have money to burn...
Re: Graphics cards
My factory overclocked 8800GT cost just under £150, and currently the Nvidia 8800 series is kicking the Radeon's into the gutter. Overclocked GTs are almost as fast as the 8800 GTXs which are the top flight currently and ~£400.
I personally find Tomshardware pretty useful for deciding what compares to what.
By the way, were you running the suspect network card Sunday evening? Net traffic through the router dived to an absolute crawl periodically , and I couldn't figure out what was causing it...
Re: Graphics cards