After I logged out from posting on “Ye Laptop of Olde” yesterday, I noticed a couple of errors that I wanted to correct on the posts here. That is when something very strange happened: I couldn’t log back in to the posting page. I reset the password, and I still couldn’t log back in.
Didn’t matter, I was set on shopping for a new CPU anyway.
Before I went to the store though, I stopped by my work to see if it was the laptop that was giving me the problem or if it was something with the site. It ended up that it was something with the laptop that wouldn’t let me log in, because I could get in and do anything I wanted with my PC at work. Very strange. Very strange indeed.
So anyway, even before Rivrdog’s insistence, I knew there was only one place to go to pick up my new system: Fry’s.
The wife and I rolled into the parking lot just as they were opening the doors at 0900 and went straight back to the corner where they keep the systems.
I was helped by Mrs. Moneybags who had a small stash of cash that bumped up my possibilities considerably.
In the end, I decided on an HP machine. This one, as a matter of fact. Refurbished.
The last RNS Blogstation Tacoma system lasted 3 years and 9 months. The one previous to that was bought in the summer of 2000 and is still going strong as the game system for the neices and nephews. It is an HP machine.
Nonetheless, because all they only had the refirb’d systems there and they were $100 less than the one listed above, I paid for the $89 5-Year Service Warranty Contract w/Loaner and called it even.
Hopefully now, neither I or you, faithful RNS reader, shouldn’t have too much to worry about until January 26th, 2012.
So, if you click on the system description, you’ll see that this is an Athlon machine. I’ve never had one before. In fact, as a confession, none of the RNS machines, except for the laptop, is even a Pentium machine. The laptop is a P3 and the rest have been Celerons. I don’t do too much else besides blogging and music on the computer, so I didn’t really need the speed.
This new machine, on the other hand, is a freaking Ferrari compard to the others and that is wherein my error lies.
I forgot that I am going to have to reset everything with this new piece of equipment: Reinstate favorite links, reinstall drivers after finding the disks or finding them on the web, all the rewiring and re-ziptie-ing. Goodness fuck, there is a lot to do.
So do enjoy today’s light posting. There is a quiz just below this post and then David has another good book review. Feel free to let me know about what I just bought in the comments (lord knows I have very little clue other than it works) and we’ll see you all tomorrow.
The Athlon 64’s are pretty good systems, and it looks like you got a good deal on a micro-ATX board-based box. Some advice: either consider doubling up your RAM or get a good PCIe or PCI video card and move your sound card from your old system into the new box. Since everything is “integrated” (sound, video, ethernet, modem), everything – especially video and sound – utilizes system RAM. This means that the RAM is subdivided by the tasks and everything slows down. This isn’t a knock against what you bought, it’s just a fact’o life with the fully-integrated mATX mainboards. Typically, in the newer fully-integrated systems, 1 Gig of RAM is the absolute minimum needed to keep everything happy. You probably have two empty slots for a matching pair of RAM sticks. Another gig should cost you less than $150 for a matching pair of 512’s and would be well worth the cost.
According to HP’s tech support website, the Pavilion a1600n uses paired PC2-4200, DDR2 SDRAM’s. The board is by ASUS, one of the best mainboard manufacturers out there. You got a good one.
I put together an Athlon 64 system about 2 years ago and it has been rock solid. JT has a good point, even though the machine is plenty quick, more memory sure sped it up. The separate sound card helps a bit to.
Ed C
JT’s spot on about the memory. I could quibble with him over the quality of Asus boards, having been stuck with a couple bad ones in a row, but that would amount to yet another geek slap-fight with nothing productive coming, and may well have just been the product of my keenly honed bad luck.
The only other point that may be of interest is upgradability. Windows Vista has some fairly hefty hardware requirements, and the integrated video may not be able to cut it. The good news is that pci-e x16 slot will take a video card that will handle vista (and any games, should the urge strike) with aplomb. Switching from integrated video to card-based would probably require some tinkering in bios, but shouldn’t be a big deal. This of course presumes you’d even want to upgrade to Vista which, given it’s near-insulting licensing agreement, outrageous price structure, and a DRM setup that was apparently designed by the most draconian SOBs they could dig up from the RIAA and MPAA, may not be the most desirable course of action.
My pet rant on Vista aside, slap in another gig or two of memory and you’ll be happy for a good while with that rig.