Christmas Present to Myself

Today we had quite a beautiful snowstorm, which means I had fun shoveling the snow for a part of the afternoon. Yep, I got the afternoon off. We got offered to leave early in exchange of coming to work on Friday due to it (we were all released on Friday.. well most), which I gladly accepted since I was already working on Friday anyway, so it's only a plus for me.. although I got home, ate lunch, and went outside to shovel. After this, I watched WALL-E (great movie by the way, it's the third time I watch it), for which I then went to shovel again after the movie, and once more after supper (or diner for you).

 

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about the snow, but rather to talk about the Christmas present I am making to myself. You might have figured out by now that I am now a huge fan of PC gaming, but it remains a fact that my pre-built computer with a nForce 630i/GeForce 7100 graphic card is starting to take a serious hit and can't run any of the games I own at it's full supported resolution.. man do I love computers. So, for the first time in my life, I will modify it. To begin with, I know absolutely NOTHING in computers. To give you an example.. I know that my motherboard has a PCI-E slot.. but I don't know which one it is lol. So with that in mind, try to imagine me doing all that below.

 

See, the only thing I ever did inside a computer is change my mom's HDD because it was scrapped, as well as add a second one in my computer since I am running both Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala and Windows 7. I used to create partitions and dual-boot that way, but partitioning is boring and started being an hassle more than anything else. Therefore, buying a second HDD was the first thing I did when I got my computer. Back when I got it, nForce 630i/GeForce 7100 was a gift from the heavens for me (I don't actually believe in heaven or hell, just saying ;p) since I had a pretty old laptop with a rather old ATI Radeon card or something in it, which now belongs to my sister because I am such a good brother that I gave it to her. I never play any fairly demanding games, but when you can't run small, arcade like games at full capacity, you know that an old, onboard graphic card isn't a good thing. Luckily for me, my good, French and France coworker, is getting himself one of the most recent ATI cards for Christmas, and so he's getting rid of his nVidia GeForce 8800GT, which is way more than enough for me.

 

I decided to buy it from him. Now the problems are getting worse.. who says new graphic card, says the power supply unit in the pre-built computer isn't strong enough. Fine, let's buy a 430W one with the connectors I require and the good voltage and everything, which I was able to get an Antec one for $50 due to a rebate. But then, my pre-built computer is HP, and HP just loves making their own power supplies a lot smaller than regular ones, which means the PSU placement in my current case isn't big enough to hold a new one.. Fine, let's buy a new case.. which I happen to like fancy stuff, so I want the ones with the LEDs and everything, which usually are way overpriced for a simple case. I managed somehow to find one with the required space that supports Micro-ATX motherboards which is what came inside my pre-built PC. I found one with a nice clear window with blue LEDs, my favorite color. It also comes with 1x 80mm blue LED front fan, 1x 80mm side fan, and 1x 120mm rear fan all pre-installed, which is a good thing for me since I wouldn't personally bother messing around with adding more fans or air circulation. I could get it for $40, with a rebate, of course. To top it off, it has way more drive bays than I even need and there are front USB and Audio ports, which is rather convenient in my opinion.

 

All of this fitting perfectly with the rest of what I currently have will make my own Christmas gift to myself. Now though, I can't wait to receive these and switch from one case to the other. It sure will be a pretty fun experience (think frustrating one) since I, as I said earlier, know absolutely nothing in terms of computer. It already took me long enough to simply install my second HDD in my current computer, I can't imagine how long it will take me to switch absolutely everything from one case to another. At least the new one looks quite spacious for a mid-tower, leaving me plenty of space to fit everything and keep the cables well organized.

 

I'll take a few pictures when I'm done, or even while I'm doing it, so you can all laugh at seeing the day and night pass by in the picture as I try to reassemble all of this lol. Let's start by hoping that I'll receive it quickly, it'll be a good start ;p

 

Who knows.. maybe one day I'll even be up to building a computer entirely from scratch.