After dealing with my current rig for something like 4 years now, I finally have gained the ability to upgrade. However unlike previous upgrades where I was getting what I could afford, this time its a similar case - what I can afford - but I'm able to afford much better this time. Since I damaged my current case some, I've picked up a new one similar to it, but this one has a temperature guage on it and no glass top. But here is the general spec for my upgrade, and this one is just about across the board, only a few parts will remain the same.
Here is the list:
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0 GHz Dual-core 64-bit Processor)
- ASUS A8N-SLI (Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard)
- XFX Geforce 6800 XTreme Video Card
- Thermaltake 550W Power Supply
- RAIDMAX Mustang Mid Tower Case
For once I can actually say that I will have some nice specs on my system. I definately could have gone higher, but I didn't see enough reason to drop an extra 0-0 for a higher CPU like the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ or going to something like the GeForce 7900GT Video Card. While I certainly could have goen for either of these options, I have reason for this. The 3800+ suites my purposes well and I saw little enough reason to go to a higher CPU, and thus spend more. For video though, I've got a rather good reason. A 6800XT can handle basically any game I could throw at it right now, and with Vista around the corner (despite the push back to next year) that still means DirectX 10 is close. Current video cards to my knowledge do not support DX10. As such, killing a few hundred on a video card now and then havig to turn around and do it AGAIN next year is rather moot. So I'm going to a good card at this point. Besides, I needed a video card that's PCI Express 16 since the mobo has not AGP support. I think I'll survive. With that I've got the new PSU. I decided to get the bigger PSU pending future upgrades to the thing. That's a lot of power and I've got space for four SATA drives. Must... Use...
But for now I'm stuck at work. I woke up early since the parts came a day earlier than noted by FedEx. Whenever FedEx says delivery is Thursday, I've always gotten it on Wednesday. People wonder why I use FedEx, hehe. While I had time to take inventory of my parts and start playing with them, I didn't have enough time to finish putting them all together. I had just enough time to pull everything out, drool, mount the new PSU and mobo into the case and package things back up (with a shower taken somewhere in there someplace) before moving it all to my room and leaving for work. When I get home I will be spending whatever time is needed to finish it. When I'm done I will know if it will cooperate, then it will come to the fun part. The last part will be testing whether I'll be able to install Windows on the thing. It will be interesting since I have yet to get Windows to install on my system as it presently stands. My current rig with the ATI Radeon 9200 cannot be reinstalled. For me to reinstall Windows I have to first drop in my old GeForce 4 MX400, and THEN install Windows. Attempting the process with the Radeon will cause the install to lock up during the device discovery and driver installation step. I did not enjoy that discovery.
If it all works out according to plan, my system will be taking another FFR within the next 24 hours. I will just need to backup my C Drive again. THEN I can worry about installing Linux.
I can't wait to get home...
You know, I really hate being sick. I've spent most of the year thus far sick. At first I caught something along the lines of the flu that left me with a cough that would not go away. The annoying part of it was despite all the prescription medicine, the cough never left. What was rather annoying was I missed work a few day because of it. Went to the Doctor and he wasn't entirely sure what I had, and so had to guess. Whatever it was centered on my throat, did a number too. Heck, it even knocked out my voice for a bit there. Now here I am WEEKS later and I'm sick with what seems like a hellish head cold. This one is just kicking my butt. I've had all the basic symptoms, plus my head felt like it was made of wool. So I went to sleep. Working yesterday wasn't much better. I ended up spending most of the day feeling rather dizzy (far more than normal to those who wish to know), had a headache that seemed based off sinuses, and part of the day my head felt like it was made of wool. I hate being sick.
I'm back to working on v3 again. Hopefully I'll have something up and ready shortly. At present pace I hope to have the Admin v1 up for use at least sometime within the next couple months. This is basing off the time that I have available in order to actually work on it. I have User Authentication mostly working and should have basic Group Authentication ready soon. I also still need to build in the News Admin as well. The tables of the current system should work continuing on, but I'll need to build new code to work with it. At present I can't tye it into my system so I'll need my own. So be it. At least the layout is complete.
With only minor formatting, I have posted the current states of my ever growing Quote List. For those of my visitors that wish to read it, it can be found in the menu at the right under Site Base.
Enjoy.
Yes, its now three days off from Singles Awareness Day. This will account for the tenth year that its really mattered much. Starting back in my teens and junior high, and continuing to today. My life in that category has been very uneventful. So be it. Sometimes its easier to be single. If nothing else,
at least I won't need to worry about having to do the romantic stuff for another year. Sad part is, I even have the day off. Ahh the fun of sitting around doing nothing on such a day. Singles Awareness Day indeed.
Work has continued to become ever more trying. More requirements are being levied at us, and some people simply aren't doing their job. And I mean that in a very literal sense. We don't see them. We've had more people callling in within the last couple weeks than I've seen since I started working at my present job. With a few people you really have to ask "Why?" I also see why there are so many continuous training classes: People keep quitting for whatever reason. Quit themselves or simply don't show up, thus placing Job Abandonment. And now it appears that what calls we'll be taking are going to change. It feels good to know less than you should about what you're going to be told to do. Meh.
The computers are up and running again, though some things still need to be done. I'm still needing to call Dell to get the proper App restore disc for my model. The one that was sent was lacking a few programs that I will be using over time. Problem is I'm lazy, and keep forgetting to actually call them. Bah me on that. Must remember to call soon. I may need to ffr the beast one of these days and I'll want to make sure that I can reinstall everything that I want to keep. At least I didn't have to worry about office because I already had my own copy of it sitting around. I also picked up a couple copies of Neverwinter Nights Diamond so that I can play both computers online at the same time. This will come in handy if Sean and myself play at my place (thus using both computers) and Dan wants to join the game as well.
On a side note, I like my toy, its good.
I still haven't finished coding the upgrade for the site, I still need to get that done. There's still quite a bit of work that must be finished. I still need to finish the overhaul of the user system.. hell, I need to FINISH it. I never did finish it in the first place. I was however going to reduce the number of times that the system required hits against the database. On a larger scale, the present setup will cause a hit every single time someone reloads a page. That can seriously degrade site performance. I'll have it taken care of soon.
In related type news I've picked up a new domain. At this time I haven't yet decided what exactly I shall be doing with it, but I shall get around to it soon enough, its merely a matter of time. At present I have several ideas of what I may do. Presently I'm cycling between hosting type, something for my writing, and a hub between the sites I work with and utilize. Until I decide I guess.