So, a couple of years ago when a power surge burned out my power supply it also slightly damaged one part of the motherboard. The video channel of the board. Haven't been able to play video games on the computer or transmit video from the computer to the TV. Plus rebooting takes nearly half an hour. Aside from that, the computer works okay. Some videos will make it overheat because it makes the processor work too hard.
This weekend, daughter wanted to play a video game. Couldn't do it. So I ordered a new motherboard yesterday. Wanted to let the financial dust settle from paying the bills. All clear and enough left over to not be taking away from savings.
Motherboard for this computer still isn't cheap but the price has come down since I last checked by $15-20. The one I ordered is factory refurbished but it is a gamer's card which cost nearly twice the price new. It will handle multiple video cards and monitors. Not sure I'll go that far but if I do I'll get a used monitor and see if both my video cards work. If I go that route, video cards have come down in price with the price of memory in recent years. Not sure of that one. Not seeing the benefit of multiple displays except bragging rights. I'm a geek but I'm a rational geek.
I may eventually get around to replacing the solid state drive, which allowed for a boot time of like 30 seconds or less. That also got burned out by the power surge. However, computer is working well on the 2 TB drive, so that's not a priority for now. Prices on those have come down but I'm sure they will continue to drop as those drives become more mainstream. Who knows? Maybe once I replace the motherboard the old one may work again.
I had tried replacing the video card but that didn't do any good since the board isn't recognizing the card. Had to remove the driver for the card for the computer to work properly on the native Windows driver.
Another chance of rain tomorrow. Probably work on more of the fence tonight and go to the gym tomorrow. For the moment, keeping trips to the gym to once a week. Until my weight comes back up a little.
This weekend, daughter wanted to play a video game. Couldn't do it. So I ordered a new motherboard yesterday. Wanted to let the financial dust settle from paying the bills. All clear and enough left over to not be taking away from savings.
Motherboard for this computer still isn't cheap but the price has come down since I last checked by $15-20. The one I ordered is factory refurbished but it is a gamer's card which cost nearly twice the price new. It will handle multiple video cards and monitors. Not sure I'll go that far but if I do I'll get a used monitor and see if both my video cards work. If I go that route, video cards have come down in price with the price of memory in recent years. Not sure of that one. Not seeing the benefit of multiple displays except bragging rights. I'm a geek but I'm a rational geek.
I may eventually get around to replacing the solid state drive, which allowed for a boot time of like 30 seconds or less. That also got burned out by the power surge. However, computer is working well on the 2 TB drive, so that's not a priority for now. Prices on those have come down but I'm sure they will continue to drop as those drives become more mainstream. Who knows? Maybe once I replace the motherboard the old one may work again.
I had tried replacing the video card but that didn't do any good since the board isn't recognizing the card. Had to remove the driver for the card for the computer to work properly on the native Windows driver.
Another chance of rain tomorrow. Probably work on more of the fence tonight and go to the gym tomorrow. For the moment, keeping trips to the gym to once a week. Until my weight comes back up a little.
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