House SettlementjawaproFri 11/04/2008 06:06 PM
Well ladies and gents - this is my house.
Yep - it's officially mine now.
Settlement was finalized today. Now I've got to start moving things in.
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Phaeton Build UpdatejawaproWed 09/04/2008 12:19 AM
Well - tonight was much nicer than last night.
I’d been worrying and praying about getting my computer going all day at work - but I decided that I’d tackle things differently tonight.
First up - I took an hour and a half completely off to watch some telly, relax, and pack some more of my stuff up ready for the move. And it helped - I was feeling a lot better by the time I hit the pc.
That’s not all I did either. Instead of setting up Phaeton in place of my current pc as I'd done last night, I dug out a second screen for it, and restored Jades Fire (current PC) to it’s customary place. That meant it didn’t feel so bad as I had a pc going anyway - and had access to my music collection etc. Made things feel much more normal - even thanks to the comforting humm that was missing this morning with no pcs at all going.
Unfortunately my PC is dying, which is why I’m building Phaeton. So it was only able to play a video I watched while I worked on phaeton. I wanted to log onto MSN chat to try and catch some of my friends, but JadesFire isnt able to do both at once anymore - so I had to enlist the support of Jade (my laptop) for that. So I had 2 running PCs, and one I’m working on.
^ Just a shot of my TV working as a second monitor. Great for watching movies.
Well - I seem to have found the major culprit for my problems last night. It seems this is a dodgey stick of RAM. I tried installing Windows with all 4 sticks of RAM in different combinations - and it always failed when this one was in, and succeeded when it wasn’t.
So I’m currently running on 3Gs instead of 4 - but I’m running!
Not 100% sure that everything is right though - I got a blue screen after a while playing CnC3 as a test. Not sure what caused that one - but I’ll get some decent ram testing software next time and see what that says.
Might not be 100% yet, but I feel a lot better about it all tonight. I might even get some more sleep this time.
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Phaeton Arrives and Brings DisappointmentjawaproTue 08/04/2008 11:09 AM
Isn’t it amazing how quickly you can go from being insanely excited to being devastated and depressed? Read on…
You see - the last components of my new PC (code-named Phaeton) arrived yesterday.
The keyboard, mouse, and fans aren’t mine - they were bought by a friend.
So last night I had a great few hours opening boxes and trying to work out what everything was and where it went.
^ Here’s a picture of Phaeton without most of it’s innards.
^ Here’s the motherboard - the base of the machine, upon which everything else is built.
The CPU - the ‘brain’ of Phaeton. It’s a Quad-core, so it basically is 4 CPUs on one.
^ This rather large CPU cooling fan was stupidly difficult to mount.
^ Next up - the RAM. 4 glorious gigs of it.
^ This dude was hired for security during the project - to try and keep any Mac lovers from seeing what a real computer looks like.
^ Eeek - what a mess of cables.
^ They all fit inside - sort of.
^ Sorry about the lack of focus on that photo. Phaeton and it’s security guard.
So by the time I had everything in the case - I was excited and rather ecstatic in fact. Stupid things like that can get me in a good mood for days. I remember when the 2nd trailer for Star Wars Ep2 was released. I was in school back then - and I was in a great mood for about a week, just thanks to watching the trailer.
This time, the mood wasn’t going to last.
I think my security guard should be sacked - he must have let some Macintosh terrorists through.
Because when I was part the way through installing XP, it BSODed. (BSOD = Blue Screen of Death).
Then on reboot - it wouldn’t even POST properly (POST = Power-On, Self Test).
I can get it to POST most of the time now, but I still can’t get windows to install. I keep getting a DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL message in the STOP screen (STOP = don’t go no more).
According to the net it could mean the mobo is faulty, the RAM is faulty, the SATA isn’t compatible, or the CPU is overheating. Not exactly specific…
After working on it all night - the lack of progress is enough to get me pretty depressed.
I’ll have to try some more trouble-shooting tonight.
Even when it cant get past the POST screen - its still better than a Mac would be. And when he eventually gets on his feet - he'll be an awesome machine.
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A Tale of Xboxs, Yorkfields, and wasted months...jawaproThu 03/04/2008 11:19 PM
As a PC-Gamer, its rather embarrassing to admit this – but I have finished both Halo 2 and Halo 3 on my xbox in the last few weeks.
Why?
Well, let me tell you a story.
I returned from my Mount Isa trip in Early February (the 1st or 2nd or something). I had always planned to get a new computer after returning, so I started deciding what to get – and asking advice from my friends.
You see, I may be a geek – but when it comes to current technology, I wasn’t really up with it. So I asked my friends who were more knowledgeable.
Nifen gave me some good advice, Klutz was a great sounding-board (didn’t give much advice, but was happy to discuss options), and MartinLeader was helpful too.
But I mad the mistake of asking Turkey.
Don’t get me wrong – Turkey is a great friend of mine, and was much more current in hardware than I was. It seemed like a great person to ask.
Turkey and his friend Benny decided to help me out with the advice. I’d been planning to get a Quad Core Intel Processor. For non-geeks, that’s like having 4 processors in the one computer. I was going to get the Q6600, which was the best you could get at the time, without spending over $1000 on just the processor.
But the Turkey and Benny alliance said that would be stupid.
Why?
Apparently within the week, the new Intel Quads (codenamed Yorkfield) would be out. They were faster, better, and would cost the same amount (give or take $20).
They made a good argument, and it seemed logical.
So I decided to listen to them, and I waited.
Now, Benny is a Mac fan, so I should have realised his advice would be up the creek from the beginning – that was my fault.
The week passed, and no Yorkfields. The Benny and Turkey alliance swore it would be soon. So I kept waiting.
It’s now the beginning of April, so it took nearly 2 months.
And do you know what’s really funny – it wasn’t worth the wait!
The Yorkfields have finally been released. They are good CPUs, but not that much faster than the previous generation (Q6600). And here’s the kicker – they cost twice as much!
So after being told they would be out in less than a week, and cost the same as a Q6600, I’ve been disappointed on both fronts.
On a positive note, I now am much more current with hardware than I was – thanks to haunting website trying to find the late Yorkfields.
But I’m still pretty annoyed.
Not only did I wait for nothing – it was painful doing it. My current computer has been dying. I’m blaming a problem with the graphics card, but I don’t know exactly what’s up with it. It’s defiantly hardware.
A while ago, it started jamming when I played intense 3D games. I had to scale my games back a bit, but I was ok with that.
But over time, it’s gotten worse. I’ve had to scale back my games more and more.
For example – at the last Axon I played a lot of DOTA (Warcarft III mod). I can’t play that anymore, because the computer will cark itself after about 5 minutes.
It’s gotten to the state where it’s struggling to handle Windows. It’s frozen twice in just windows now. I don’t mean frozen as in just locking up and needing a reboot – it’s the hardware. The computer locks up, and I get awful artefacts on my screen. I know its hardware, because sometimes after a reboot, the artefacts are still there during the BIOS/POST screens and I have to actually kill the power and wait a while.
So I have had a dying computer, and waiting for these promised Yorkfields before I replace it. That’s why I ended up playing the xbox – because my computer was pretty much out for the count.
But as I said – the Yorkfields have landed.
After thinking long and hard (for a few hours at least) I’ve decided they aren’t worth the extra $300, and went for the Q6600 anyway.
They defiantly weren’t worth the wait.
My motherboard, CPU, and RAM are currently in transit – and should arrive shortly. Then I can finally build my awesome (hopefully) gamming rig.
The moral of this story?
Don’t take advice from your friends – it might just force you to play an x-box.
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SONY accused of piracy!jawaproWed 02/04/2008 09:46 AM
This will put a smile on any geek's face.
Sony BMG is one of the major anti-piracy companies in the world. The sort of people who say things like "If you copy a CD you own to an Ipod, you are stealing it".
Apparently their IT department rang up for support with a program, and when asked for the cd key, they gave a pirated key.
Thats not just wrong - that's stupid!
There are reports that up to 47% of the programs used in the company would be considered illegal copies (in France at least).
Thats pretty funny - considering most of the news you hear is SONY suing people over copy-right infringments.
Details here:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/01/sony-bmg-busted-for-software-piracy-in-france/
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/03/sonybmg-under-i.html
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