Building a new PC

I really didn't get much accomplished today. Didn't even pack for tomorrow. The most I can say in that regard is that I did my laundry. We did help Cheryl move back into the ward this morning at 8:30. Bill, Dan, Wyatt, Shane, Lori, Jake, Joe, and Lindsay all showed up and we finished in about 2½ hours. There wasn't a lot to move, but some people showed up late and/or left early, plus we only had one truck for the first hour. After that I went to play Frisbee at Kiwanis. There were a lot of newer people there today, which meant it was a pretty sloppy affair. Add my ankle to the equation, and I hardly broke a sweat. The game ended by 12:30, and I came back home where I lifted weights and stuff (nothing aerobic though). It's been a while since I lifted. I did various chores (like rearranging downstairs, now that Mark's band is gone). Then I drove up to get a haircut from Heather. She was full on appointments until 4:15, so I had a tuna sandwich at Sensuous Sandwiches next door (sadly, Julene wasn't working today), and then I decided to go up to the FedEx depot in Orem and see if they had my packages. The internet indicated that one package was in Orem, and one had been loaded on a truck in SLC last night, so I thought it'd be worth a shot. I don't know if they were bored or just really kind, but the people there were kind enough to look for my packages. One turned out to still be on a truck in SLC, but I did get the package with the Shuttle barebone system in it. I also learned a lot about how FedEx works. Anyways, I then went to a local computer store and borrowed a cheap processor (well, more like I bought it and will be returning it for a refund when I get the Pentium 4 processor on Wednesday). Then I came home and spent the rest of the evening testing out the new system. After a bios update and a strategic relocation of masking tape inside the case where a screw was touching and inconvenient part of the case, the system works great. It's very quiet. In fact, the fan for my Radeon 8500 video card is the noisiest component. I was hoping the onboard graphics would be good enough for me, but the Radeon 8500 fares 3 times better so I think I'll go with that instead. So I'll have to figure out how to quiet the 8500. Oh, and the front USB panel's not working. I'll have to take it apart and see if it's something simple like a disconnected cable. Other than that, everything works fine. I'll wait till I get the processor next week before I do a final installation and post some benchmarks.

Posted May 29, 2004 (11:10 PM) | Comments (1)