Shyguy
02-26-2004, 9:46 PM
Well My tax return isn't so big this year so I have to try & make do with what I got for now, So I'll only be able to upgrade a few things this year.
My first & foremost neccesary upgrade, with the exception of a new HD, will be to upgrade to a better vid card, Ive decided to upgrade to a GFFX 5900XT for now, as this will be plenty of performance for when Doom III comes out & whenever the hell HL2 comes out also, I thought about a 5700 Ultra but decided to get the XT instead because of the 256bit memory advantage, its slower clock speeds but process's more data per cycle, which I'd rather have in a good vid card anyways, so Thats the card I'm getting, now I just have to wait & find a good deal on an XT or eVGA's SE model.
My next big upgrade was not an intended one, last week my HD started to show signs of dying, so i ran some diagnostic software to check it & came up empty handed, the software that came with the drive said there is no problems so did the third party software that I used, Ontrack's "Fix-It Utilities 4.0", That also said there was no problems, so i have no clue as to whats causing the problems, but will get important data backed up on DVD's (20GB's worth) at our local Computer Renaissance store, but I decided that I needed to get another HD, I was thinking about getting one until I found out my return wasn't gonna be alot, so I decided to forget about it for now, I was thinking about getting a 36GB Raptor, but after last week I decided to start looking again, well last sunday while at work I was on break & reading the Best Buy ad & saw that they had a 80GB Seagate Barracuda drive on sale for 49.99 after mail-in rebates, it was a ATA100 8MB cache drive, so I decided to get one, just got it today.
Then while cruising around St. Cloud (where Best Buy is), I decided to stop over at Circuit City & see what they got, well I noticed some cool cooling add-ons & stuff over there, so I bought an Antec HD cooling kit (5.25" cooler, with 2 front mount temp sensitive fans, & LED readout in Celsius or Farenhiet for HD temp & case Temp, also bought an Antec ATA133 round Cobra Cable & an Antec round floppy drive Cobra Cable kit, for my current system, they didn't have a second set of the regular length ATA133 Cobra cables so I'll have to get another set somewhere else, any ways all the parts will look great in my existing Antec 1080AMG case.
My next upgrade will be to get a good monitor for cheap, Ive already found one but I'll have to get it soon, I have to talk my brother into buying me one using his Credit card as I don't have one anymore, but it's a Samsung 17" monitor with a max DP of .20mm & goes up to around 1920 x something or other, can't remember what the max res is but its damn high for a CRT, especially on a 17" CRT, anyways I found one thats discontinued & for about 90 buckaroos, which is a real good deal.
I was going to upgrade my RAM from 512MB PC2700 to 1GB but I had to forego that in favor of a new HD, so that'll have to wait until this summer, hopefully with the 8MB cache HD & faster vidcard that'll eliminate or reduce the micropausing I get when playing BF1942 on line or even off line sometimes.
Any ways the last thing I need to do is buy some arctic silver compound to use on my new HSF I bought a few weeks back, Coolermaster Jet 7, originally I had planned on upgrading my CPU & mobo, but will have to use new HSF on my old XP2200+, which should help a bit with cooling in this case, just have to mount the Fan speed controller in the 3.5" to 5.25" bay adapter I bought. Also have added several L.E.D. case fans to the case over the last month also, 2 in back & one in front, need to get a 2nd for front HD cage & possibly one for side case fan, haven't decided if I'll cutout the side case fan vent to mount the 120mm Antec Ive got yet or to just keep an 80mm in there for now.
But hopefully I'll have the new monitor & vidcard in a week or so, Then i'll be able to get it back up & running, & even get back to work with FaD again.
As for the system I'm using right now, well one of my brothers friends wants to buy it, my brother finally got this devoted console junkie hooked on PC games, thought it was never gonna happen, but it did, anyways I told him sure for about 70-100 bucks, but I'm definately keeping the Voodoo3 3500 & the 32x CD ROM ( I like this drive cause last week when I got this system up & running I realized that this drive has a real cool feature Ive never seen on CD drive before, instead of the entire tray slide out the front panel part thats attached to the tray folds down & the internal tray slides out, something you don't see everyday), I'll put my old 10GB WD protege drive in there & keep the WD Caviar 30GB, So he's getting a used case with 250watt PSU, an FIC AZ11e mobo with 1.3GHz T-bird with aluminum ORB HSF, 256MB PC133 Crucial, a 10GB ATA100 WD Protege HD, 10/100 NIC, built-in sound, I'll buy a cheap 36x CD to put in, & rig a cheap 120mm case fan in there for him, even throw in the PCI slot blower I just bought too. He'll have to get a new vid card, monitor & OS & he'll be set. This is his first PC so its a great starter system for him, & he shouldn't have any problems only might have to upgrade RAM if he gets XP, but PC133 shouldn't be that much anyways, he shouldn't have any problems with playing the same games my borther plays on-line like Black Hawk Down & BF1942 & stuff, as long as he gets a decent vid card, most GFFX 5200's are decent enough for these games as my other system my brother uses only has a 128MB GFFX5200 in it anyways.
Anyways after selling this system maybe that will help me recouperate on spending so much for the other system....... Damn, I didn't realize I had typed so much, just kept rambling on, oh well, better stop for now, BYE!!!!!
My first & foremost neccesary upgrade, with the exception of a new HD, will be to upgrade to a better vid card, Ive decided to upgrade to a GFFX 5900XT for now, as this will be plenty of performance for when Doom III comes out & whenever the hell HL2 comes out also, I thought about a 5700 Ultra but decided to get the XT instead because of the 256bit memory advantage, its slower clock speeds but process's more data per cycle, which I'd rather have in a good vid card anyways, so Thats the card I'm getting, now I just have to wait & find a good deal on an XT or eVGA's SE model.
My next big upgrade was not an intended one, last week my HD started to show signs of dying, so i ran some diagnostic software to check it & came up empty handed, the software that came with the drive said there is no problems so did the third party software that I used, Ontrack's "Fix-It Utilities 4.0", That also said there was no problems, so i have no clue as to whats causing the problems, but will get important data backed up on DVD's (20GB's worth) at our local Computer Renaissance store, but I decided that I needed to get another HD, I was thinking about getting one until I found out my return wasn't gonna be alot, so I decided to forget about it for now, I was thinking about getting a 36GB Raptor, but after last week I decided to start looking again, well last sunday while at work I was on break & reading the Best Buy ad & saw that they had a 80GB Seagate Barracuda drive on sale for 49.99 after mail-in rebates, it was a ATA100 8MB cache drive, so I decided to get one, just got it today.
Then while cruising around St. Cloud (where Best Buy is), I decided to stop over at Circuit City & see what they got, well I noticed some cool cooling add-ons & stuff over there, so I bought an Antec HD cooling kit (5.25" cooler, with 2 front mount temp sensitive fans, & LED readout in Celsius or Farenhiet for HD temp & case Temp, also bought an Antec ATA133 round Cobra Cable & an Antec round floppy drive Cobra Cable kit, for my current system, they didn't have a second set of the regular length ATA133 Cobra cables so I'll have to get another set somewhere else, any ways all the parts will look great in my existing Antec 1080AMG case.
My next upgrade will be to get a good monitor for cheap, Ive already found one but I'll have to get it soon, I have to talk my brother into buying me one using his Credit card as I don't have one anymore, but it's a Samsung 17" monitor with a max DP of .20mm & goes up to around 1920 x something or other, can't remember what the max res is but its damn high for a CRT, especially on a 17" CRT, anyways I found one thats discontinued & for about 90 buckaroos, which is a real good deal.
I was going to upgrade my RAM from 512MB PC2700 to 1GB but I had to forego that in favor of a new HD, so that'll have to wait until this summer, hopefully with the 8MB cache HD & faster vidcard that'll eliminate or reduce the micropausing I get when playing BF1942 on line or even off line sometimes.
Any ways the last thing I need to do is buy some arctic silver compound to use on my new HSF I bought a few weeks back, Coolermaster Jet 7, originally I had planned on upgrading my CPU & mobo, but will have to use new HSF on my old XP2200+, which should help a bit with cooling in this case, just have to mount the Fan speed controller in the 3.5" to 5.25" bay adapter I bought. Also have added several L.E.D. case fans to the case over the last month also, 2 in back & one in front, need to get a 2nd for front HD cage & possibly one for side case fan, haven't decided if I'll cutout the side case fan vent to mount the 120mm Antec Ive got yet or to just keep an 80mm in there for now.
But hopefully I'll have the new monitor & vidcard in a week or so, Then i'll be able to get it back up & running, & even get back to work with FaD again.
As for the system I'm using right now, well one of my brothers friends wants to buy it, my brother finally got this devoted console junkie hooked on PC games, thought it was never gonna happen, but it did, anyways I told him sure for about 70-100 bucks, but I'm definately keeping the Voodoo3 3500 & the 32x CD ROM ( I like this drive cause last week when I got this system up & running I realized that this drive has a real cool feature Ive never seen on CD drive before, instead of the entire tray slide out the front panel part thats attached to the tray folds down & the internal tray slides out, something you don't see everyday), I'll put my old 10GB WD protege drive in there & keep the WD Caviar 30GB, So he's getting a used case with 250watt PSU, an FIC AZ11e mobo with 1.3GHz T-bird with aluminum ORB HSF, 256MB PC133 Crucial, a 10GB ATA100 WD Protege HD, 10/100 NIC, built-in sound, I'll buy a cheap 36x CD to put in, & rig a cheap 120mm case fan in there for him, even throw in the PCI slot blower I just bought too. He'll have to get a new vid card, monitor & OS & he'll be set. This is his first PC so its a great starter system for him, & he shouldn't have any problems only might have to upgrade RAM if he gets XP, but PC133 shouldn't be that much anyways, he shouldn't have any problems with playing the same games my borther plays on-line like Black Hawk Down & BF1942 & stuff, as long as he gets a decent vid card, most GFFX 5200's are decent enough for these games as my other system my brother uses only has a 128MB GFFX5200 in it anyways.
Anyways after selling this system maybe that will help me recouperate on spending so much for the other system....... Damn, I didn't realize I had typed so much, just kept rambling on, oh well, better stop for now, BYE!!!!!