I'm back...but the box isn't. The PC built by, and bought from, emmathesysad and her chap, Ross, three years ago is dead. The new PSU that dabs.com sent (very swiftly overnight - good service) was to no avail as the CPU and mobo were toast as well. Yesterday saw us heading the not-so-nearest super-mall to investigate replacement options. Although I as very tempted to move to a Mac and OSX, for a new learning experience as much as anything, the cost of replicating my PC setup was just too strong for my pocket. After speaking to a 'learnt it parrot-fashion' saleswoman and her 'slag off anything other than our products' manager in The Computer Store, lusting after squillion-dollar Vaios in the Sony Centre and contemplating taking my own life for even looking in the window of Dixons, I was pretty much minded to grab a Dell from the January sale on their website. After a restorative coffee, we headed into John Lewis for a few homeware purchases on the way back to the car. It was only when I was sulking whilst the family browsed around the tableware department that I remembered that John Lewis (who, for those not familiar with the store, advertise that they are 'never knowingly undersold') have a computing department. To cut a long story short, 35 minutes browsing and stock-checking with the helpful and far-from-pushy staff saw us heading to customer collections to pick up our new PC, a top-of-the-range HP Pavillion, which pretty much offered everything I had on my wishlist.
The key elements of the standard spec are:
2.80CGHz IntelŪ PentiumŪ 4
512MB RAM
120GB 7200rpm hard disk
DVD ROM drive
DVD/CD Writer
6 USB 2.0 ports (2 in front)
2 Firewire Interface-IEEE-1394 (1 in front)
V92-ready modem
10/100BT network interface
IntelŪ i865PE chipset
1 parallel port
1 serial port
3 audio ports in front
Wireless keyboard and mouse
Multi-channel speakers and subwoofer
17" flat LCD screen on cantilever stand
To this, I have cracked the case and added the following:
Hard disk from dead box including:
- all my ripped MP3s and .rmj tracks
- all my digital photographs
- all document folders
- my downloaded app archive for PC and Palm
In due course, I intend to make this drive a dedicated media store for all playable and viewable media. In addition to this, I plan to add crack the case again (because I forgot earlier) and add another 512MB RAM harvested from the old box. All this hardware activity nearly gave me a bloody heart attack because, after installing the hard disk and reassembling, I was unable to get beyond the boot/setup scripts. As I headed towards a cross between a panic attack and a vein-busting rage, the last logical corner of my mind fought to keep some semblance of control. Applying the step-by-step rules that I coach my team to use, I worked through the installation and found no reason for the failure to boot. Second time through, and with the red mist cleaing from my eyes, I found the cause. Despite unflinching care in seating the master and slave IDE cable connectors and having remembered to move the old hard disk jumper the 'Cable Select' positon, I had forgotten to attach the power leads to either of the hard disks. With a cold sweat, I reassembled the box once again and hit the power. The momentary pause between boot screen and the Windows XP 'Please wait...' dialogue seemed to take forever but it appeared and I realised I had been holding my breath for a little too long.
It's nice to be back.
Posted by bignoseduglyguy at January 11, 2004 08:58 PM | TrackBack