New PC

Hi all,

My computer gave up the ghost last Sunday, so I've been shopping.. :)

Bought a new one, and it's all sparkly and shiny. Tech details for anyone interested follow..

ASRock K7S41 Mobo
AMD Sempron 2600+
80Gb HD
512Mb DDR Ram
DVD/CD-RW Combo

XP Home SP2

And the guy also threw in a spindle of 50 TDK CD-Rs. I asked if he could take something off the price.. as you do. He couldn't as the price was set by the accountants, but was happy to throw those in to the deal. That's saved me a tenner anyway.

I was looking at the Dell site to start with, but although they advertise on telly with complete systems for only £370 etc, once you actually go to the Customise section and put in what you want, the price rockets. You have to buy the whole package as well. As this is a replacement for my other machine, I already have a 17" monitor, and all the other stuff.. speakers, keyboard, mouse etc, and could save loads just buying the base unit.. but I couldn't.

My new machine did come with a standard PS2 keyboard and mouse bundled in. I've already sold the keyboard at full retail, (£11) to someone broke theirs.

And it's all up and running now. I've just installed the scanner. I bought a UMAX Astraslim SE on Ebay for £6.50, yes £6.50 last week. I'm trying to get a laptop for £30 next. :) I figure if I bid up to £30 on every laptop that shows, eventually one will slip through the net.

I haven't really explored XP yet, being an advocate of W98 all these years, but at first glance, I'm wondering why I so stubbornly hung on to 98 for so long. The first thing I did though, before installing anything was to get rid of the tellytubby hill wallpaper. And install Avant Browser, Adaware, Spybot, AVG and Zone Alarm of course.

I didn't quite realise how noisy the old machine was either, but thinking back it sounded like a jet engine on take off. :) This one by comparison is a glider.

Now for the next blog..