I knew my
title post would sound so nasty but I’m so sorry for that. I just want to share
my post what kind of computer that I’m using and I have been curious what other
people have. Hmm, this is not a battle of the pc or some sort just a sharing
moment for all of us; maybe for some they just want to know “that’s it, there’s
no big deal” and in my case I just want to be aware of the stories behind those
computer how people actually used it, how they benefit from selecting a
particular brand and how their computers stand the test of time. Isn’t great? So
we can generate a continuous awareness which brand is good and gone bad based
on our own experiences and the beauty of this is that we don’t have to rely on
particular reviews found on the net.
Well, Lemme
tell you my story, it was in 2002 when I decided to put up my small scale
internet cafĂ© – so I went from a local computer store and bought several half
identical brands for each parts that I preferred to use “of course not the best
brand and the fastest in its class during that time” my selections were based
on my limited budget so I ended up have these parts below and paid that
over-the-counter:
8x AMD AthlonXP 1700+ processors
8x Cold Master HSF
8x Asus A7V266-M Motherboards (socket A, built-in
audio)
4x PQI 128mb DDR 266
4x Kingston
128mb DDR 266
8x Inno3D MX400 64mb/64bit Video cards
4x Seagate 20GB 5400rpm (ST320014A)
4x Maxtor 10GB 5400rpm (2B010H1)
8x CNET Pro200 10/100 Lancard/NIC
8x PPC mouse ball (Free)
8x PPC keyboard (Free)
8x PPC speakers (not FREE)
8x 15” AOC 5en CRT
8x PPC Tower
casing /w PCC PSU 300w
8x Diamond Evolution 300w AVR (plastic type
casing)
7x Windows 98se retail edition w/ COA
sticker
1x Windows XP home retail edition /w COA
sticker
1x Sony FDD 3.5” 1.44mb
1x Asus 52x CD-Rom
1x 16 port CNET 10/100 Switch Hub
1x Box UTP-CAT5 (generic)
1x Generic Network Cable Tester
1x Crimping Tool (generic)
1x Artic Silver Heat Spreader
Obviously,
all the parts are made in China ‘So, China Rules! LOL’ except for the processor
I think that was made in Malaysia. Anyway, after all that tiring shopping I
went home and rested for a couples of hours; but after that I started put them
into pieces (hardware assembly – a no brainier task) ‘ehem I’m a business
management grad -- no formal training or whatsoever just had an experience
wrecking my old IBM XT clone PC with NEC V20 processor 8mhz turbo mode wow!
What a PC and a Pentium 3 MMX166mhz wow again, and by reading some ebooks and
printed books about computer carpentry LOL’.
So, after I
had done with my first task, I went to the software side so basically it took
me a number of hours before completing all the necessary software installed
from operating system, drivers, and games of course. Though it wasn’t the
hardest part; I felt so wasted from “putting on” and “pulling off” that CD
drive from one pc to the other, whew! What an experience having just a single
CD drive ‘How I wish I designed my pre-builder installation software and a BOOT
ROM for my NIC so I can access all the necessary installation software at one
point on the network, but my bad I don’t have enough resources to do that at
that time.’ But it paid off I had done everything and all my computers were up
and running on the next morning; sleepless night took me laid my back at the
couch.
I was snoring
“zzzzZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzZZZZ” while I’m sleeping that’s what my wife said (Zen is
beautiful and sexy…), so basically I skipped my lunch on that day, in exchange
for a total recharge from exhausting long hours of working in the assembly line
‘LOL’. I’m up finally! But it was dinner time, so I sat down and enjoyed every
single menu that was prepared for me, there’s a sizzling steak, a Shanghai lobster meat, a
martini glass filled with coke, three cups of Chinese fried rice, a crispy
crab, and finally a mouth watering moisture chocolate cake. I must confess I
really love those meals and how I wish consumed them all before my wife woke me
up for the real dinner.
Oh Boy! I was
only dreaming…
So, after
taking my dinner I began working with network cabling that took me an hour
completing the task from measuring and cutting those UTP-5 cables and crimping
up those RJ-45 boots (thanks to the internet and I had printed those cabling
guide and P2P networking ahead of time). It’s been rewarding in my part that it
only cost me little time to read and comprehend every bit of information I had
found on the internet “cool there’s no need for an extra bucks for books or to
hire tech people”.
All computers
and cables were sat on its place; so, I began testing for network connectivity.
Poof it works! What I did is I pre-configured all my pc to have static IP
address from 192.168.0.1…192.168.0.9 and subnet 255.255.255.0 (thanks again to
windows help file for small home networking) it works! After testing using ping
for each network; I began running counter strike patch to 1.3 at that time and
I sat on my WINXP machine to host the de_dust map. I basically configured my machine
for 8 players so I could test its connectivity for the other machine to connect
on the host machine. Then one by one I tested running counter strike on each
machine and tried connecting on the host machine.
It turned out
successful for its connectivity. But, there’s a drawback the game doesn’t gone
well; because there’s a lag during game play, so I decided to change counter
strike’s default graphic engine which is DIRECTX into OPENGL then I invited
some kids including my daughter and my nephew for a LAN PARTY. So we played for
nearly an hour and the graphics turn out well with no lag until someone used a
smoke grenade that made the game lag again. But we continued playing the game
until my daughter used a sniper gun in which she claimed the cross site is not
accurate moving along with the mouse. So we continued again and at least we
discovered graphics issues during our game play. It’s nearly two hours when I
decided to conclude the game for the dry run.
After that game I was thinking that graphics lag is
not related to software itself; I thought it could be more in my pc. So, I
picked one motherboard manual and tried reading for some configuration
information. Upon reading through the manual; I had seen a configuration pertaining
to processor speed. So, what I did is I boot up my pc again to check my
processor speed in my bios settings. It’s funny my processor aren’t configured
to use its maximum speed at 1476mhz; it was configured at 1100mhz a difference
of 376mhz unused resources for my processor. It’s a 25.5% additional processing
speed for my processor if I utilize to run at 1476ghz (correct me if I’m wrong
because I wasn’t really good with math, that is why I gave up my course in
electronic communication engineering after one and a half year of stay with
that study; it sucks it made me bored for 1 ½ year with no hands-on with
engineering instrumentation and electronics introduction or whatsoever; what I
had is a T-square and steadler and rotring stuff whoosh I’m not an architect
student. LOL).