It is definitely not my year with computers. It started around March this year. First it was my printer. I had a BJC-3000 that I’ve had for years. One day, it decided to quit on me. No problem! I purchased a new one – HP F380, one of those all in one thingy’s that can scan, copy and of course print.
Common sense will tell you not to purchase one of these because if one component breaks, you loose the whole deal. Oh well, I did … only because I wanted a scanner to be able to “save” all the old photographs still stored in albums that are slowly fading away. To date, I am slowly scanning the old photographs and storing them digitally. Although the quality isn’t as good as I wish, it’s better than nothing.
About a month and a half ago, I started encountering problems with my video card. I couldn’t get it to settle … settings were always changing randomly. I have a two monitor setup and the primary monitor settings kept switching. One day, it just refused to work. My first thought was the video card … but by removing the second one, it works! Somehow the two cards refused to co-exist after working together for months.
My system was pretty old. Believe it or not, I still used a PIII Dual Processor 550Mhz system that setup around 8-9 years ago. I figured, since it still worked … why replace it. I wasn’t bothered by the speed with daily routines … it was only when I edited video that I would promise to upgrade.
I finally got the video cards sorted and they finally decided to co-exist once again.
For a few days, I was happy UNTIL my data drive decided to say goodbye!!! In case you missed that – DATA DRIVE!!! It’s a hassle to reinstall software and all that, but loosing your data is unacceptable. Good thing the drive still kinda worked but refused to be recognized by my system. I was in a panic … documents, pictures, videos … all to be lost if nothing was done … unacceptable.
I brought the drive to Rard’s house and thankfully his system recognized it. One true sign that the drive was going was it was making all this clicking sounds … it’s about to die!!! After hours of retrieving (actually overnight), my data was finally transfered to a brand new drive … THANK YOU RARDS!!!
After a few days … my boot drive decided it was time to kick the bucket. That did it!!! After consulting my personal computer guru Rards once again, I decided to purchase a motherboard, memory and some drives.
At long last, I was joining the mainstream once again … my computer was current technology (but for how long). I installed my operating system and was smiling at how fast the new setup was – compared to my old setup, anything was faster.
So now I have a new setup with data and programs all safe (for now).
Guess what … it ain’t over yet. Just yesterday, my computer wouldn’t switch on!!! Really, what can this be again!!! After analysing the problem and concluding that it must be the power supply … bought one, replaced it and its working once again.
Today was another matter again. Len had to receive some faxes, so I checked my fax modem and noticed that most of the lights were “on.” This ain’t right … sigh. Again, concluding that the modem must have gotten fried last week during the thunderstorm … I replaced it and now have a working fax modem.
So what’s next?!?!?! I hope this post ends ALL problems and I can go on without incident for some time … I’m really getting tired of replacing hardware … not to mention the hole it was creating on my pocket. I still have things to replace … but with every unplanned replcement, that wish list gets pushed back.
So this is my wish list (things to purchase for my PC): (1) a dual head video card (2) two drives to replace my older drives (3) 2 x 17″ or 19″ LCD screens to replace my old CRT’s (4) a DVD writer to replace my CDrom
Now … please let me save some money for replacements!!! 
that’s like buying an entire new setup! oh, and dvd writing is a pain. takes my mac 2 hours to write 5 slideshows with a menu. and takes my pc half a day to burn a half hour video.
ask about a faster dvd burning thing..(i think there is..because it feels like a lifetime passed just waiting for the disc to come out)
Yes, except for a few things, it is by all respects, a new setup. Well, it was about time … my ancient system really needed an upgrade.
Why does it take that long to burn a DVD? Given the steps involved in actually making one … hmm, yes it can take that long … at least until the authoring bit (the part where you make the menu). But once that’s done, the actual burning shouldn’t take that long. I think the software you’re using is an all-in-one thingy that does all these steps in one go … and it really takes that long.