What Good is a PC that Won't Boot? 02 Jul, 2008
Among the things I’m getting around to unpacking is my desktop computer. I was planning a switch to the Athlon64 I have since the dual Athlon XP bit the dust just days before I left Denton (it was bridge modded and three years was longer than I expected to get out of it anyway). The Athlon64 no longer POSTs due to I believe a momentary short in the front panel USB ports of the case, which has fried the northbridge — it gets burning hot within seconds of applying power now, and never gives a post beep even with the motherboard out of the case).
Computer’s don’t travel well, it seems. Oh well, trip to Fry’s! They had a Q6600 combo on sale (and they’re real good about having boxed cpu deals now) so I made the trek last weekend. I don’t know why I still get CDs from Fry’s, since the last three I have all had broken jewel cases found after the fact... but I did. I think it’s the instant gratification as opposed to the value and relative quality of Amazon’s music selection.
The motherboard was an ECS G31T-M, which features some impressive onboard video (quite well supported on Linux, although no DVI connector) and good overall performance. FSB1333 is not supported, and the USB2 ports onboard use up a lot of cpu, but that’s easily worked around by a USB2 PCI card I had sitting around. Also the MS Wireless Optical Desktop 4000 has pretty good range (around 5-6 feet reliably) so I’m using it at home and taking to work so I have a consistent keyboard feel. It’s slightly ergonomic but not too goofy. (I hit H with the wrong hand so all the MS Natural keyboard slow my typing considerably unless I use them all the time.)
After I got all that working, I bicycled 5 miles and came back tired. Still not ready for long rides.