Feb 3 2011
New Computer!
For my birthday a friend of mine sent me a computer, which rocks! How many of your friends send you a computer? I did not do much with it for a few months because I did not really have a purpose for it or the time to put into it, but with the upcoming game, Rift, coming out, I wanted to finally have a computer that could play games decently.
Rift Beta 6 starts Friday so I wanted a computer fully ready for it before then, which led to an all night quest on Monday night to get the computer ready.
What I bought
- Graphics Card: ATI 5570
- Case: Altec 900 II
- 2 GB of RAM (5600)
The power supply I had laying around was too large for the original case, so I had to go buy a new one. The case was on sale for $60, making it much cheaper than a new power supply that would fit, then loaded a 1 TB Hard Drive into it and installed a (legal) copy of Windows 7 (32 bit).
I did run into a few problems through the day, which led to making 3 trips to Best Buy and a really pointless trip to Walmart (after Best Buy was closed). The first problem, well, stumbling block, was solved by simply making sure the 4-pin connector was plugged into the MB from the power supply and using the proper power switch… Yeah, seriously.. I was in such a hurry to get it all working before Best Buy closed (in case I needed to buy anything else) that I missed the obvious problem of pushing the wrong button.
Then the next problem that I found, after Best Buy closed, was I did not have a SATA cable for my hard drive… After searching the house for one I ended up going to Walmart, which was a mistake. I asked the sales rep in the electronics department for a hard drive cable, to which they responded “to plug into your monitor?”…. What??? Seriously? But they didn’t seem to get it.
Me: “No, for a hard drive.”
Walmart Rep: “What are you plugging it into?”
Me: “…. the motherboard.”
Walmart Rep: “I don’t think we have one of those, but we have video cables.”
Yeah, seriously that is how the conversation went. I can understand most people not knowing what I am talking about, but someone who works in electronics should know at least the basics of a computer.
So anyway, I ended up getting the computer up and running by using the eSATA adapter that is built into the case and running my hard drive in an external enclosure all night. The next problem was with the RAM, only 2 GB of RAM doesn’t do well with Windows 7 when trying to run games and install applications. I was maxing out 80-95% RAM usage while installing stuff. So I went out and got additional RAM and now everything works great! The best computer I have had, except for my Mac, which does not play games. I can now play World of Warcraft at ultimate video settings with very little or no lag.
Thanks Xiontawa!
