nockergeek | (no subject)

A bit more tired than normal today, thanks to me not getting to sleep until 2:00 AM. Way to go, me! Was worth it, though. Looks like my computer is back down to 40 degrees C, so the redressing and removal of the DVD seems ot have cooled things down a bit. It's a shame to be without a DVD-ROM right now (although I'm not really; Z's machine has one), but I'll cope. As I said, Newegg's got them for $30 to $40, with new CD-RW drives having comparable prices. I see another upgrade in my future, although not the near future. Rounded cables first, baby. Rounded cables first.

Z's system needs upgrading too; I'm thinking about doubling her memory and putting in a PCI Radeon 7500 - thanks to Gateway, I can't put in an AGP card. Sad thing is, the PCI cards are $20 to $30 more expensive than the better AGP cards. Oh well. If I doubled her memory and put in a PCI card, it'd still only be a $170 upgrade or so, which is not a bad price. See if Dad's got a 3GB HD for use as a Photoshop scratch drive, and she'd be happy.

Speaking of Z, got a call from her this morning. She spent yesterday eating lobster in Maine and cavorting in the ocean. I'm glad she's having a great time. I should really try lobster sometime, perhaps when it's free. ^_^ She and her crew are driving to Baltimore tonight for Otakon tomorrow. Should be a fun weekend. She said she may give me an update call on Sunday or so, so I'll let everyone know what I hear.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A friend of mine's goin to Otakon (they leave tonight from here in Alabama, driving) and I was supposed to go but couldn't afford it. I coulda maybe met her there! :p Hope she has fun. :)

Why can't you put an AGP card in? That's odd..

The thought of putting anything but network packets or sound over the PCI bus maketh me to cringe.

Because Gateway put in a mobo with no AGP port. You can see the rectangle on the board where the port would be, but no actual port. Pissed me off, because I was going to put my old Radeon 7500 in her box to free up the memory used by the onboard video.

And it's really no biggie; her system's an art box, not a gaming rig. It doesn't need to be killer. Just needs to be able to run Photoshop and Painter well.

Still, that's bizarre. I've not seen a mainboard without AGP for years. Los bastardos.

Here's the odd thing - the mobo has AGP support for the onboard video. The bus is there, but no port to tap into it with an add-in card.

Oh well. It's either replace the mobo (and I haven't a clue on good P4 mobos) and put in an AGP card, or keep the portless mobo and put in a PCI card. Considering my budget (or lack of one right now), the PCI solution's winning, despite my distate for it.

Prior to the purchase of my new monster, I researched a plethora of mainboards to find just the right one. It's not trivial research. Tom's was the best help.