I mentioned a few days ago that I built a new computer. This is an ongoing thing for me, about every 24-30 months since 1984.
I think I mentioned somewhere that I wanted to branch out more in my blogging, well, this is part of it. Boring way to start, right? Bear with me, I'll get better in further posts. I hope.
Pre-built computers being so...mundane, I had always built my own, but the time before last was such a hassle and so expensive I swore I'd never do it again. So last time I trotted down to CompUSA and walked out with an HP Pavilion 7865, which was a nice enough machine for the time.
Ok, so this time I was ready to do the same, drop a bit more than a grand on a PC system unit, most likely an HP, but I was open-minded.
Know what I found out? You can't buy a PC with driver disks. From HP or Compaq or any other major. WTF?
I can understand, barely, that they don't want to give out XP on discs. But no drivers? What's that, a whole $0.59 worth of CD with free software on it?
Of course, I was welcome to go download some. On my dial-up. Or order the CDs, for a nominal (not!) shipping and handling charge. They'd soon be delivered to my door. In a few weeks. Or more.
I told the guy at the store that they had just lost the sale. I never heard of such a thing. I needed a computer THAT DAY, else why the heck was I at CompUSA instead of ordering online?
Oh, and if you're wondering why this obsession with drivers, it's because the first thing I do when I get a new machine home is to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS. I have zero interest in the crap that comes installed on the computer from the factory.
So I guess I'm back to building my own.
One thing that has changed over the last few years is that now you actually can get all the parts to build a pretty nice machine right at CompUSA - for a pretty stiff premium over Internet prices, of course. But that was ok, I was in a hurry. You can't believe how manic I get when my computer is broke.
So I ended up with an Antec "Sonata" case, ASUS P4P800 motherboard, 3 GHz retail Pentium IV with Hyperthreading, 2 GB of PC3200 RAM, 2 250 GB SATA Maxtor hard drives, an ATI Radeon 9600 SE video card, and a Creative Audigy Platinum sound card. Sony CDRW, HP DVDRW. Oh and a cute little memory card reader built into a floppy drive. It reads four different memory card types and has a 3.5" floppy, and all in a standard 3.5" floppy form factor. HP lost the sale, but CompUSA ended up with it after all, and at about 2 and a half times more. Gack. In consolation, the last two times I built a machine of this "grade" it was over $5k each.
Ok, finally I'm to the point of all this, which is that this was the smoothest build and install of any machine I've ever built. Plug & Play flat worked, perfectly. The hardware all spun up without adjustment or incident. Everything configured the way it was supposed to, even the OEM stuff. Schweet. Hat's off to the developers. Of course, it's taken them most of a decade.
This machine is pretty darn fast. It's almost as fast as a Windows 3.1 machine. Heh, what do I mean by that? That during the last years of Windows 3.1, when we were running it on 386s with 4 MB RAM, it was FAST. Fast enough to be "instant". A faster machine didn't feel any faster in normal use because it was already "instant". This machine is the first one I've had since then that was almost in that league.
Intel giveth, and Microsoft taketh away. Right now that eternal struggle is pushed quite a ways over to the Intel side. It's a particularly good time to buy a computer, as it will be years before the 64-bit stuff is really sorted out and dominant. In addition, XP has been out long enough to be pretty darn stable and fast.
The machine has enough capacity that I can run two copies of SETI, my usual 20 or 30 windows, including development environments, play back sound files through the stereo, and do solid ripping using Exact Audio Copy and LAME, all simultaneously, and with zero problems with the rips. I'm impressed.