Google Search

Monday, September 23, 2013

Old Computer Died. RIP?

When I bought my computer in early 2008 I decided it should be a beast.
I got a Tower casing with a quad core processor, 4 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive and some medium level nVidia graphics adapter.
I figured I could always replace some parts (like memory, hard drive, graphics adapter) but generally, it was a strong computer that was suppose to be sufficient for my needs for many years.

It did survive almost 6 years, but in its last days (well months, actually) it started giving me hard time:
It was shutting the screen down off all of the sudden, or rebooting just because, or having the entire screen go the same color (I remember off-white, pink and light blue as the colors it used to get stuck in) and doesn't letting me do anything anymore.

I tried to understand what was happening by looking at system logs, but it quickly reminded me of an old joke: "How many programmers does it take to replace a light bulb?". None. It's a hardware problem.

So I got a new computer (double the performance, half the price, quarter the size), installed a brand new operating system (moved to Linux, finally), and now the old one is standing on the side of the room, useless.

Now the thing is, I think it is salvageable. A good chance it is the graphics adapter, and if I can only get a new one things will work just fine. I thought of connecting the monitor the on-board VGA output, but alas! There is no on-board VGA output!

I feel sorry not to resurrect this computer, because it has a fairly good specifications even in today's (2013) standards. For one, it has a quad core processor, when most processors today are only dual core. OK, so it's the first major quad core series and much slower than the new series, but who really cares when all you want to do is use the browser? Second, it has 4 GB RAM, meaning it must run 64 bit operating system to use it all. Most cheap systems still come with a 32 bit operating systems, and some come with only 2 GB of RAM. And third, it has room for more! More memory, more hard drives, more bays that can be used...

Maybe sometime soon I'll try to save it. Or maybe I'll just sell it for some low price. I thought I'd give it away as a donation for some school or something, but I figured I can't really donate something that doesn't work.

No comments:

Post a Comment