New Computer Woes

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was planning on merely replacing the CPU fan and hard drive, and adding some more USB ports to my old computer. I asked my dad for help, as he’s the resident techie. He couldn’t find a replacement fan so we took it into his favorite computer store. The techs said they hadn’t seen that fan in years and then noticed some blown caps. So, new computer.

It has Vista. It won’t have Vista long because I’m going to wipe the damn thing off, but it has Vista. I’m hoping I won’t get harassed by Microsoft for installing XP with my old disc (it’s linked to the motherboard, isn’t it?). In any case, it’s been about five years since I used the disc so they can just deal with it.

And I’ll have to install all my software and transfer all my data. sigh Which would be why I’m goofing off instead of working on it.

My new computer is purty, but it only has two expansion slots, which are now filled.

So, specs:

  • 160G HD (and I’ll be adding my 120G secondary drive)
  • 1 G ram (spiffy!)
  • Pentium Dual, 2.20 GHz

It came with a mouse and keyboard (naturally), which I’ll be using replace the ones at work.

Wish me luck. This won’t be fun.

2

I’m thinking we must eventually learn Vista. Gotta bite the bullet sometime. Service Pack 1 is out, is it not?
Good luck, whatever you decide.
:slight_smile:

3

Add ram. Add as much ram as it will take. Even XP likes it.

If you look in the right places, a 500Gb drive can be had sub $80.00

4

I wasn’t having any problems with my old computer, speed-wise. It had 516 megs. I have space for another chip if I decide I need it.
So, I’ve got XP installed and am working on updating it. I’m reading Good Omens while I wait. The sound card isn’t working right now. Actually, I’ve got bunch of alert marks in the Device Manager. I’ll deal with them after I get all the updates. sigh Why do people do this for a living?

5

Don’t bother removing Vista. Just turn off the indexing. And yes, add RAM.

6

What are blown caps?

7

Blown capacitors.

8

Oh! Clearly I’m not down with the kids and their street language.

9

I hope you uninstalled vista because you’ve worked with it before and you found it to be incompatible with some of your software (unlikely) and hardware, and not just because you’ve heard stories.

Vista is a solid piece of software. I use if for work and at home on a gaming machine, which are notorious for needing constant driver updates and being tweaked/over clocked - and have had no problems.

Oh well.

10

It does happen, though. I’ve been able to run some but not all of the software that still runs on my last XP laptop (among ones that I can’t get working are Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, and MasterCook 9.0), which really annoys me. I also am experiencing a bug with unzipping multi-file zip files; typically they take 5+ minutes to unzip and install, while the same file takes only 30 seconds or less on my “old” XP laptop. I’ve seen that listed as an occasionally-occurring known issue before by other users but have not found a reported fix that I trust.

Usually I’m pleased each time I get a new computer, even with each OS upgrade I’ve been through, but this has been a headache from the start and continues to be so.

11

What? You didn’t fix your broken fan with jam? Or butter? Or mustard? What’s wrong with you?

12

Have you applied SP1? It changes the way Vista manages the disk and network.

Edit: oh yes, you must turn off indexing - it slows down disk access enormously.

13

See, here’s the problem - I’m not sure if I have. I tried to get SP1 when I first heard it was live, and it wasn’t listed as available for me when I used the Updates feature. I’d heard it was being rolled out gradually so I waited, and I know the computer has upgraded itself since then without my seeing what was being changed. Then I had some crash bug - oh I forgot, it likes to BSOD itself maybe every other week, which my previous laptops didn’t do - that the error report came back with “SP1 will fix this! Click here to download it”… and when I clicked it gave me the “no available updates” message.

14

Too late. I’ve installed XP and all the updates. And the first thing I did was remove the sticker with the serial number for Vista. I’m planning on using the CD as a cat toy (it’s like a laser pointer, but it doesn’t need batteries!)

I have to help a lady at work with it. It’s shiny but slow. In fact her computer is pretty much just a giant pain the ass. My work computer uses XP and I don’t really want to learn a new OS at the moment. I like XP - I know where everything is.

:dubious: I take it you’ve done tech support.

15

You might want to keep that around for the time you can’t find, say, hoverboard drivers for XP. :slight_smile:

16

Then I will buy a Mac. Seriously. As a graphic designer and otherwise artist, I’ve been drooling over Macs for years. But all my software is for PC and there’s so little real difference between Macs and PCs now so there’s no point in switching right now. When I upgrade my image software, I’ll get it on a new shiny Mac.

(The hardware drivers are on a different disc. Which I’ll be saving. I also ended up with a newer version of Nero, so I’ll be getting rid of my old disc. I went through my software and discarded a bunch of stuff.)