It reaches back at least as far as a couple of weeks before Christmas, when The Excellent Wife (TEW)'s Prius wouldn't start, then wouldn't show icons on the dash, then wouldn't shut down. She wound up buying a plug-in Prius, with, if not ALL the bells and whistles, then at least enough to start a good-sized carnival.
Then, Optimum raised our rates for internet and phone by 40% and would not listen to reason; they only offered a lower price after we'd already set up the other service. No thanks; we'll go back when Verizon screws us again (as I'm sure they will; don't get me started on Verizon).
This morning, her eight-plus-year-old laptop stopped responding to any trackpad or mouse inputs (I suspect some dodginess in the USB interface). The replacement is on order.
In between, the motherboard for my desktop gave up the ghost. There had been a weirdness for years; I'd gotten messages that some of the USB ports weren't responding, but I could get around that by using other ports. But then the hard drive controller gave up, too. I kept it limping along long enough to do a final backup, and went shopping for parts.
I built this computer from parts in 2009; I'd done a few upgrades in the meantime, but I know it was old. I built it, though, on the understanding that I'd be able to swap out parts and keep it going. So I did.
Now, there have been some changes since I built my last computer. Time was when you could tell if a motherboard had graphics built in by looking at the ports: if there were video ports, no separate video was necessary (this blog is about the most demanding thing I do on the computer). In the intervening time, however, AMD has built some video processing into their main chips. So I needed to get a board/chip combination that did the video, and I didn't know that until I'd bought some parts. I got the board, the memory, and a wrong chip from Newegg, and then was lucky to find a proper chip for $20 on Ebay (didn't need the heat sink; I had that).
The last of the parts came today. I'd downloaded a fresh copy of Linux Mint to install after the build, and I was ready to go.
Case empty, ready for install.
...and a table full of parts to go in.
The hole where the motherboard panel shows in the back of the case.
...and the panel installed.
Motherboard in. The one it replaced was twice that size, and the case could hold the old full-size one.
That silvery rectangle at center is the chip that makes all the difference. Not much to look at, is it?
The chip, though, gets covered by a heat sink and fan. It looks all industrial-punky, but its whole purpose is to take excess heat from the chip. Under the fan are heat-dispersion fans, and copper tubing. The utility of the copper tubing is beyond me, but it looks cool; it's a shame it's gonna get closed up in that case.
Memory: the two blue strips to the right of the fan. Memory now comes all suited-up-and-bowtied, but I liked it better when it was just modules on circuit board.
I keep three hard drives and a DVD drive in there. The computer likes to boot from drive 1, so I only hooked up that drive and attached the peripherals to see if it would turn on.
Not only did it turn on, but the copy of Linux Mint that was already on the hard drive booted up; I didn't need to do a new install. I've gone and re-attached the other drives, and closed up everything, and found the couple of weirdnesses that always go with a new computer (and I'm sure there will be more). But I wrote this blog post on that computer. It's going fine.
(AND it's got a real keyboard. Having to type everything on that benighted membrane on the laptop has been a painful penance.)
So Reg's car is going great, and this computer is working again. Here's hoping Reg's new laptop is a success (and here's hoping my laptop lives long enough that I can save some money before I have to replace it).
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