Frankenputer

[kdn003]

It is ALIIIVE!!!! ... Well in a metaphorical sense anyways. And I know, Frankenstein was the creator of the monster not the monster itself.

Point is: I've just put a brand, spakin new CPU in my computer and it's got me somewhate retrospective on the subject. When I originally bought this thing (about four years ago) it had a big ass hard drive and about nothing else. The RAM was less than a Gig, the Video card was already ancient and the processor was actually a Gerbil named Harold who ran on a little wheel. (around 1.5 GHz) You get the idea.

Since then, I've gotten 4 Gigs of RAM added to the Motherboard, a new grahpics card and power supply, and, just recently, a new Quad Processor. So yes, Frankenputer.

Anyone else have a soft spot for updating their PCs and if so, what updates and modifications have you made?

[Invader]

Yeah, I really like opening up my computer and shoving new guts in it. You know what this computer was before I got my hands on it? A low-end server for some small business or other. It was horribly outdated, so I had to replace literally everything inside it. It was worth it. My latest addition was a nice GPU, a Radeon HD 6870 with a gig of GDDR5. The next addition will be a massive hard drive, because the ones I have now just ain't cutting it.

I've also considered putting the guts of my old computers together into a lower-end Frankenputer, but I don't even know who would use it.

[Shiav]

I've built all my computers from the ground up. Some out of the scraps of old.

I currently have two SLI'd nvidia 280's, 2 TB of hard drive space, 16 gigs of RAM (yes I know it's more than I currently need, I'm planning ahead) and an i7 980 hex core processor with cool red glowy lights throughout.

But I still usually play on my laptop because it's good enough for most games and I can play it while laying down on the couch/in bed.

If you ever happen to want to build a computer talk to this guy.

[japester]

Oh, yeah. I love tinkering.

I've done upgrades for decades, but I built my first completely custom computer about 5 years ago. What a great experience. Nothing terribly fancy or exciting, but it handled everything I threw at it. The video card was the weak link, so the last upgrade I made was finding a 9800GT for about $70 two years ago. Last one in town (thanks slickdeals! LOL).

I'm looking forward to saving up a few bucks and building a new system in the next year or two. I love shopping slightly behind the curve, maximizing my bang for the buck. I never understood the guys who paid 200-300% more just to get a few % gain in performance.

The biggest surprise for me when building was vanity elements--stuff like case lighting. I'm a totally practical guy, so I've never been tempted by glass-sided cases with all the nutty light effects. But some of my chosen components just happened to have LEDs, and once I saw them I was hooked. My other nerdy delight was organizing the cables. LOL. Maximizing airflow and keeping everything tidy with zip ties was a challenge that I enjoyed way more than I should have.

[Fugue]

My current pc was the last I am spending any money on, it's showing it's age now 3+years, no plans to update it and when it dies the bits will be recycled somewhere.

Upgrading & tweaking never really interested me, I do really like the blue led's on the case fans

[kdn003]

Ah Damn. The Frankenputer melted. The Hard Drive it came with just kind of died Friday. Since then I've done a complete System Recovery (managed to save all my documents thankfully) and it's back to working again, but I think It might be time to get a new Hard Drive. From what a computer savy freind told me, if it crashes like that once, it's going to do it again. Damn.

[japester]

Sorry to hear that, man! At least you recovered your data.

This was the old, original drive, right? If so, definitely replace it. Drives are so cheap nowadays. In my experience, if a component is going to fail, it's going to do it right away. If it survives that first month, you should be good for a few years. But it sounds like this one is already a few years old, so it might be time for a maintenance replacement.

Is it still under warranty? Drive warranties are pretty long. (Another great benefit of building your own system--component warranties rock!)

I was shopping flash drives the other day and couldn't believe the prices. Under a buck a gigabyte for sticks. Yowza. We're not too far off from replacing platters entirely. At the very least, let's see hypbrid systems were we store all our important data on an internal flash drive and replaceable stuff on the traditional drive.

[headkase]

When a flash drive costs < $300/TB (OCZ released a TB drive: Linky. But it's sitting at best $1.10/GB or $1,100 - too much for me) then I'll be "movin' on up." Until then, I'm just too poor so I have to use a spindle drive.