Well Its Official

[Atrocities]

I finally got around to working on the blue box today and sure enough the HD on it is shot. I tried to re-install win2k and well it failed. Kept getting a message saying that the Drive contained errors.

So now I am faced with a dilima, do I buy a new HD, well yes, but do I put it in with this system, or do I go the extra mile and buy a new MB and CPU? Currently its an AMD 1.4 with an MSI mother board. Bad combination I am sorry to say.

I have an old GF3 video card, ya I know, I was suckered into buying it at $450.00 two months before the GF 4 cards started coming out. I was leap frogged. I will NEVER again pay $400.00 for a video card.... NOT WORTH IT. But given that the GeForce 3 is now four years old, I should also considered getting a new Video Card. I know there is a lot of talk about these new PCI Express cards, but they are too expensive and I really don't understand if they are better than AGP or not, or even worth the extra cost.

I intend to take all of my old parts and build another system, a whimp back up system that the nephews can game on. The GeForce 3 card will work well for them.

[parabolize]

Have you tried to format the ntfs partition?

[Atrocities]

Yes, and it too failed. I tried NTFS first, then went back to FAT32.... by this time it was hopelessly toasted. I rebooted and tried again, no joy.

Time for new HD.. this one is old and well, its been a pain since day one. I hopefully backed up everything I needed a year ago when I knew the drive was failing.

Its just sad in a way, As I move to a new PC I seldom keep the stuff on the old PC. Then when I do need it, its gone.

[Suicide Junkie]

Bleeding edge is never really worth it for a home user.

Consider your old hardware; it does the job, right?
If it didn't, you certainly wouldn't have waited until now.

How many years ago did it come out?
Your new one will probably have a similar lifetime. Is it worth taking a year off that by buying a year-old model and saving a buttload of cash? Probably.

If it is fast enough to run SE5, you'll probably be happy with it for about 4 years while waiting for SE6 to come out.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Well, too bad about the loosing stuff. Hope the back-ups work.

[Renegade 13]

The PCI-Express video cards are the way to go it seems. It'll replace AGP before too long I think. And they aren't too expensive either, I got the Nvidia 6600GT for $200 Canadian (about $160 American), and it works just great for me so far. So it's not too expensive, depending on the size of your budget, but it should last for some time too.

[Atrocities]

Thanks Renegade. Nothing lost that I hopefully can't do without Narf. Good Point SJ. I intend to reuse my old stuff.

[dogscoff]

AT, what the hell do you do to your PCs to have them break down so often? Do you live near some kind of techno-hellmouth, or keep your computers buried in the back garden when not in use, or what?

[Atrocities]

Built Blue Box in 2001 to replace aging PII 400.
2002 P2 400 died
2003 was given HP - HP failed - replaced with used HP from HP. Finally ended up with this PC.
2004 - Roof leaked during rain storm. PC's drenched.
2004 - Blue Box started having issues.
2005 - Blue box failed.

[Thermodyne]

Suicide Junkie said:
Bleeding edge is never really worth it for a home user.

I would disagree with that statement. Bleeding edge is never enough. Engineering samples kick butt