My Computer Story
Entry posted by Drew_Benton ·
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Just for the sake of writing, here's my computer story. Also, I'm not QQ'ing about anything, it's just the timing of it (weekend) really sucks since I had some stuff I was planning on doing. Anyways though -
Saturday May 15th, I ordered a 2TB backup drive and a sata/ide to usb adapter. I figured I'd go ahead and start backing up all my stuff during the week because one of my hard drives (750gb Seagate Barracuda) had been reporting errors (spin retry count) for over a year now. During that time, I just stopped using the drive and left all the data intact, copying all but a couple of large media folders to my other 750gb HD (I had bought 3 a while ago).
From Monday to Friday, I spent all day every day working on backing up my data. I have about 5 hard drives laying around with stuff on them from over the years, so I had to consolidate it all first onto one drive. From there, I had to duplicate that across the 2TB drive and then to my third 750gb drive. The biggest problem I had when moving all that data was lockups from Teracopy and then antivirus interruptions from AVG. All in all, it took all week to backup everything, but I finally got it done and all my extra hard drives formatted. Ideally, I need to random fill wipe them all, but I don't have the hardware for that since I only have one adapter and it takes a very long time to do drives that large.
So, after all the software backups were completed, it was time to remove hard drives from my system. I had left my case open on the floor with a few fans blowing across it and the extra hard drives I had attached internally but were laying outside the case due to space constraints. I've worked with computers a while, so I know how careful you have to be with them. After I took out all the hard drives I had to boot back up a couple of different times to ensure I had labeled them right, marking the bad one, the one that's going to be my new storage, and then the previous storage that I'm saving with the 2TB.
Along that way, Windows notified me my system configuration had changed too much and I'd need to activate again. Bummer. It's a genuine Windows copy, but I got it from MSDNAA while I was in college, so sometimes those can be quirky on reactivates. Anyways, I finally had everything working fine so I needed to put in my final HD and then close up the case. Somewhere along the way, I must have bumped a cord or something and didn't notice because as soon as I started up the PC made a really scary beep, Since it was Friday morning like 3am, I cut the power so it'd not wake up everyone else in the house. I had to wait about 3-4 more hours before I could get back to working on it.
After the time passed, I booted up the PC again to try and figure out what happened. It just powered on for a couple of seconds, then powered off. It did this over and over until I cut the power. I figured I had a short somewhere since I've seen computers do similar things before. I took it all apart and cleaned everything out. While it was totally disassembled on my floor, I tried booting it up again. Success! Carefully, I put it all back together back into the case and started it up again. Success!
By now I was feeling pretty good since I'd not have to replace anything. However, when I got into Windows, the sound wasn't working. I have one of those asus xonar cards that requires a power cord so I jiggled that in the case and that seemed to fix it. I had only a few wires hanging out of the case still since I was taking very small steps in putting it back together. I didn't want anything to happen again. As I put in the last two cables and slide the case over, it happened again. The PC shut off.
!@%!#^@#^!#$
It started doing the same thing with the endless reboots. Annoyed, I took it all apart again to try and figure out what happened. This time though, it never made it out of the endless reboot cycle. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm thinking the power cord on my sound card and the 1x PCI-E slot it fits in is to blame. Maybe it got loose or out of place a bit on the slightest movement and as a result, caused a short in the mobo. I tried booting up using only a CPU and PSU but it was still stuck in the endless cycle. I tried removing the battery as well and was going to clear the CMOS but at that point I figured it was a lost cause.
I read up online about the model I have (x38-ds4) and the "endless reboot" problem it seems to get. I figure that was triggered somehow and it wasn't an electrical short that brought down my PC. I haven't done any PC maintenance in years because I know computers get "settled" and as soon as you try to do something with them, they have a tendency to break. That's why I don't even mess with computers or upgrade them as much anymore as I used to, it's just too iffy.
Anyways though, so now I'm looking at what my options are. I've been waiting since 2009 to upgrade my PC, but I've not yet found an upgrade that would give a good price/performance ratio. I mean I have an xeon X3350, which is almost literally the same as a Q9540 (the xenon was a lot cheaper when I bought it, but it still cost a lot). So it's a powerful little CPU, but it doesn't have HT. That means if I were to upgrade, I'd only get noticeable performance increases if I went with a i7-920 or above CPU. Anything else is simply not worth it.
Therein lies the problem. Why spend another 1k+ for a new i7-920 computer when I'm not really going to be able to make the most use of it? The same is true of upgrading the graphics card, what am I going to use a 1gb 5870 or gtx 480 for? So, I've put off upgrading or parts buying for almost 2 years now because I'm "fine" with what I have. My 8800gt is like 4-5 generations old now but it still works fine.
If I am going to upgrade, it needs to be a significant upgrade that justifies buying new stuff to last another number of years. For a power user like me, I look at it like this - each 1k that is spent means the computer should last at least 1 year. So if I put down ~2k for a PC, it should last at least 2 years for me and then still be usable by others with less demanding needs. I pass all my old computers down through the family so they all end up paying for themselves.
Enter the 980x. 6-core cpu with HT, now there's an upgrade that would be significant enough to make. However, $1000 for the CPU alone? No way. I just can't justify spending that much money on something that is going to be replaced in like a year. It'll still have value for many years to come, but it'd never pay for itself if I got it. So, scratch that. Instead, I'll just wait for the consumer level 6 core w/ HT cpus which should be coming out in the 3Q (i7-970 supposedly).
Now I'm not that much of a waiter, because if you just wait for the next best thing, you'll never get to enjoy anything as it all passes you by. However, if I can get by just fine with what I have, then I don't mind waiting to upgrade to something that really seems like it'd be worth the investment. Where does that leave me in regards to my current PC?
1. Pay ~100 for a replacement mobo to get a working system back up. Assuming everything else works still fine, then I can get back to how things were and continue to wait to upgrade. However, I've been itching to do some upgrading for a while now so that brings me to 2.
2. Upgrade CPU, Ram, Mobo, and Video Card (1-2 generations old, not latest) and reuse HDDs, Case, PSU. This is more cost efficient in the long run since I save in rebuying those parts, and this computer is not the type to be handed down anyways due to how big it is.
3. Wait it out for the next big upgrade. I'll make use of my desktop replacement laptop (which is what I'm on now) to get the most out of a poor investment. I was thinking at the time, it'd be a good idea to get it because of what I thought I needed, but it turned out to be a bad decision. It's not a bad product, it's just not what I needed: HP Pavilion HDX9494NR
4. Downgrade. Make use of as much as I can to put together a lesser computer. The next paragraph explains this a bit more. I still have a C2D 8400 cpu laying around unused that I could make use of as well. I have enough parts to build two smaller PCs actually come to think about it. I'd just need mobos and cases and another PSU really.
There are some other factors to consider as well. Right now, my desktop PC warms my room by at least 2-3 degrees Fahrenheit. That on top of the fact it's about to be summer time here in Texas, that is going to be bothersome. It's also rather noisy and large and uses a lot of power. It's so large and heavy in fact that I've been wanting to scale down significantly for a while now. I'm thinking about buying a more specialized case and changing out a few things to make it more efficient and less "polluting" to my room.
That's why I'm in no rush to buy a mobo to get it back working; I want to think of a longer term strategy to take while the opportunity presents itself. Monetary issues are not a constraint right now and I do have time to think it out now, since it's the weekend. Of course, I'm not asking anyone for advice on what to do, I'm just thinking aloud for my own edification. I like writing 
That's basically where I am right now. I'm just thinking aloud to help wake up and start thinking of the possibilities ahead. I guess at least I have my backups done so I'm not preoccupied at the thought of having lost anything. Also since I'm not employed right now, I don't have the need to act asap and can take some time to think things through. Maybe it was a good thing after all with the timing.
I'll probably come back to this post after I've done some more research and made a decision. For now though, I need to start working on a project that I was originally intending to spend all of last week on. Dang, I don't like getting behind.
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