Ryandor.com

always make sure you have three times the money you think you'll need so you can replace all the things that break as you go along.

For those of you wondering; Murphy does indeed hate computers.

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Darien Dragon
"There is no good or evil, only fun and boring."

Hehe I know that feeling, my last motherboard had a short in it which they replaced for free and then the jumpers were not the same so I had to do a little modification. Then the graphics card had to be changed because it was an old AGP...on and on...

Could of bought a new computer and saved a week and about 200 bucks but I still prefer to make my own.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

Yeah I much prefer making my own. I bought a water cooler because my CPU was always overheating. So I installed that and a new PSU, and the processor died. So I had to toss up another few hundred on a new CPU but now my graphics card seems to be having issues. But I've run out of money, so I guess it's good I can use the machine now at any rate.

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Darien Dragon
"There is no good or evil, only fun and boring."

Hmm...

I just built my first ever computer from scratch (i've upgraded a lot of stuff before but never started from scratch)

Budget for build: $50 for case (rest of parts were free)

Built it in less than an hour!
Worked first time.
Nothing went *pfft* or *pop*

Besides a shortage of memory (which I will fix when I have the cash) all went well.

So I can't say that I have experienced this phenomenonenonenon.....

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Script Sharing - What can't we do together?
There are no stupid questions...
Only stupid answers.

Well my problem was poorly translated instructions. The cooler came with about 7000cc of antifreeze additive and I was supposed to inject it all into the unit. The manual said to inject only 50cc of fluid which I did.

The system promptly overheated flash frying my CPU and damaging my graphics card. I had to spend the last of my cash on a new CPU and dig out an old Matrox graphics card. It's not much use for gaming but my Radeon was so screwed up it couldn't even display images. Technically the Matrox was a step up in this case.

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Darien Dragon
"There is no good or evil, only fun and boring."

I would point out that discrepancy and demand reimbursement.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

EDIT: <insert vulagarities here>

Turns out I read it wrong. Bloody hell. I thought my syringes held 100 cc; they hold 100 units, or 1 cc. =\

I've always used mL and L but never 1cc = 1mL so of course it didn't cross my mind. The bottle held 50-70cc so they more or less wanted the whole thing added to the unit. I added 50 units, or .5cc. So technically it's my fault but I still say the manual should use mL if they're going metric either way. Bugger.

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Darien Dragon
"There is no good or evil, only fun and boring."

Additional things I have had to buy:

Broadband router, networking cables, UPS, RAM? bleh. Not quite twice as much as I planned to spend, but certainly more.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

I has preferred and shall prefer notebooks for their mobility and compactness. Never have practice in assembling PC... the one trouble in my current right now is just unworking microphope port...

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"Be calm and silent, as Darkness care not of passions and lies. Be patient and cold, as Darkness exists out of borders of time and emotions. Just be yourself, as You are in the Darkness and Darkness is inside of you."
-Dark Ones Doctrine, 2001y (c)-

Portability and compactness are very nice features, though notebooks do not give you nearly as much speed for the money, and are more difficult to upgrade (not always THAT much more difficult, though). You pay a lot for compactness, which is worth it to some, but not to me, at least right now. I do not need portability, I need speed, and if I had spent the same amount of money on something more portable, I would have a mediocre computer at best.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

BIGGER IS BETTER!

Notebooks are only good for keeping pot burns off the table and pegging people in the head for pissing you off at the airport. If your really hard up you can watch a movie on one.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

hehe... I always tend to go with the cheaper desktops. I spent the same amount of money on my desktop and on my wife's laptop. The desktop has twice the RAM, four times the graphics performance, twice the storage, and a total system benchmark floats between three and four times as good (high, low, whatever's better). To me, a laptop is an expensive data transporter with potential for use in presentations...

*EDIT* Err... didn't mean "cheaper" desktops, just meant desktops being less expensive than laptops...

Laptops can be useful in some colleges that allow you to use them during class. One college I went to even encouraged, and put up the presentation online to follow on your computer with the instructor. Not to mention, if you are in any kind of CS course, using your own computer has many benefits.

It could also come in very handy for people who travel a lot or have jobs without a fixed location?. Other than that, I think laptops are pretty much reserved for the wealthy (compared to me, at least).

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

In first moment, laptop is a workstation. I am cartographer by work, and require mobility and should to be ready to work in a field. Also i can use my computer anywhere where i want. I'm ever taking it to the university, always taking it to the vacations and this is very handful thing. If i will be successful at education, we got a deal with father, that he buy me most powerful laptop he could to find, without looking on it's expensivity...

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"Be calm and silent, as Darkness care not of passions and lies. Be patient and cold, as Darkness exists out of borders of time and emotions. Just be yourself, as You are in the Darkness and Darkness is inside of you."
-Dark Ones Doctrine, 2001y (c)-

Well I have a crap job, can't afford school, and do not know what a vacation is. And I make more money than my father, which is not much at all.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

laptop can be useful...
Take last night for example:

Some friends were over and one of them was talking about Diablo. Then everyone decided that messing around with Diablo would be cool..

Bust out all the computers for a quick lan game of Diablo...
I made a iso of the Diablo cd and copied it to all four of these computers:

P4/3GHz
AMD 2000
P2/850 MHz <-- Laptop
P1/366 MHz <-- Laptop

All four ran it just fine, being an older game, of course.
It's kinda nice having a couple laptops sitting around just for something like this.

Both of these laptops are wireless so it's nice to be able to wander around the house surfing the web.

I have a 3rd laptop (Celeron 900) that is currently on loan to another friend due to him blowing a power supply. Until he gets around to fixing it, at least he can get online and check email and such.

While none of these are desktop replacements, it sure is nice having them around.

-Ryandor