Alot happened in the past 48 hours. It’s quite hard to explain, just I had some arguments with mother over getting a new motherboard.
Basically about how hard it was to call Stewart to ask him about how much that motherboard was, what it was called.
Thinking, I made a thread on Facepunch asking where I could find a motherboard. I thought by ordering it, getting it shipped here, and then taking it up to him.
But two minutes after I had made the thread, mother asked the neighbor to take me up there. So now I made a thread I didn’t need to make.. ugh.
How in the fuck am I going to explain to them that “I already made my mind up”?
Anyway.. ok, now I can explain everything better. I got my computer up there. Found out why it was so hard to call, was because of the storm on Monday.
Alot of people where complaining about fried hardware and shit.
They told me they’ll be able to get it done tomorrow, which is today. So I waited back home.
I decided to get my old Nintendo Gamecube out of the closet, got it hooked up and played Luigi’s Mansion all night. Had to use mother’s computer to print out a walkthrough for it.
I need to make my own walkthough soon. It was somewhat tough to follow it.
The next day, after I get finished with dinner, and was cleaning up my mess, the phone rang, and it was them. They where done with it. Yay.
But, they wanted me to come up there and play on it for 20 minutes. Since I had no form of transport except my feet, I told them I would walk up there. I bet the reason is because I said “You didn’t even try to play any Steam game!” (not like that, but that’s how I felt), so they wanted to make sure the lock up is dead by me doing what I usually do on it.
So I slowly walked up there. Man what hell I went through when there was no sidewalk and had to walk in the grass with a trench in the middle, having to duck under tree limbs because of my length (I’m 6’2″ or something like that) but I finally got there in one piece.
I went in the back and sat down infront of a monitor with a shitty screen (bad colors) but he assured me it wasn’t my computer.
So I tried playing HL2OS. Played for a good 10 minutes. No lock ups. So I thought “Hmm. Lets see if FarCry does the same” and tried it.
5 minutes later.. WHAM. Dammit! It’s NOT the Northbridge overheating that’s causing it!
I told them that maybe it’s the fact I need 800MHz memory. So they tried a new 2GB RAM stick.
Tried it again, WHAM in less than a minute. Then they say “Hang on. Lets try this video card”.
They installed this huge card in my computer, taking two slots on the back of it. I’m guessing the 2nd is for exhaust? I noticed it had a vent on it.
Ran it for about … 6-7 minutes, no lock up. So they said “It’s your video card then”. I’m not so sure. I told them it’s probably just another temp fix, but they’re sure that it’s my old card causing it.
So as one of them prepares my computer for me to take it back home, they start talking about pricing, and decide to RMA my old motherboard and Video Card and pay me back what I paid for it, then charge me for the new motherboard and Video Card.
I end up paying $122.40 for something that would’ve costed me over $300, more than I had saved.
I got an ASUS M3A78-CM motherboard, and a Geforce GTS 250. According to Stewart, I should be able to play Crysis on High. Pretty sweet deal for $122.40.
I even get a ride home by Stewart, and give him the box of my motherboard and video card so they can RMA them, and he heads off, saying “enjoy your new computer”.
I guess I could call this Upgrade #2. But I don’t call it a full upgrade. The RAM and CPU haven’t been replaced.
Anyway, I plugged it in, and played FarCry for a good 15 minutes. No lock up. However I still feel unsold by it, saying “This is just a temp fix. It’s going to happen again!”. Then again I just got to Level 3.
The motherboard has a perk, and a setback. The perk is I now have four RAM slots, so I could go up to 8GB if I wanted to, but the setback is it has the same number of PCI slots as my old one, and the Geforce GTS 250 takes two slots, leaving no room for a sound card if I decide to play HL1 again.
But I got new onboard sound with this motherboard. This “VIA HD Audio”. Sounds pretty good for onboard sound.
Anyway, I’m gonna play this for awhile. If it locks up.. well, then the only thing it could be is my CPU and/or it’s heatsink fan, as it’s the only thing left that hasn’t been replaced.
So far though, it seems like my old 9500GT was the culprit all of this time, but I had no way of truly finding out if it was. This time I did, and looks like angry was right all along about my video card could be what’s causing it.
It sickens me as that’s my 2nd fucking faulty video card in a year. But may it rest in peace, to no longer cause grief so now I can play games like Crysis, Spore, and The Sims 3 with no issues.