Ye’ol Computer Issues

Filed Under (Waste Basket) by Mysk on 28-01-2006

Yesterday I received the new CPU fan and heatsink that I ordered from Newegg. UPS, as usual, didn’t deliver the box until past 5:00 PM. This time, it was about 5:20 PM before the box arrived. I could vent more about them, but they’re not really worth the space.

Anyhow, the new block is pretty nice. It’s a no frills, inexpensive Masscool brand cooler, and it sure is nice and quiet. It produces little more than a whisper; a dashboard mounted fan for the car would be in good shape to put out as little sound as this thing does.

There are a couple of points in its favor. First, it comes with grease pre-applied. I doubt that it’s Artic Silver brand stuff as that would increase the price of the product, I’m sure, but it sure beats nothing at all. Which is what I had in so far as thermal grease was concerned.

Second, the latch that connects the block to the mobo has a dandy “notch” of sorts made specifically for a flat headed screw driver. Perhaps all cooling blocks have this and I have simply been unlocky enough to not encounter them, but this useful little feature allowed me to apply the necessary force to snap the latch into place without worrying so much about ramming the screw driver through the motherboard. It also saved my thumbs from the typical pain that’s associated with installing these darn things.

All in all, I’m pleased with it. I’ll give it another few days before commenting on the heat dissipation. I want to give the grease a chance to “settle in”.

On the flip side, the issue with my computer’s RAM is getting worse, unfortunately. The system will randomly reset when doing anything now. Watching videos has been a problem for a long time now, but listening to streaming audio is quickly catching.

Worse, however, is the latest development. The damn system will go down while doing nothing but browsing websites. Opening a few tabs in Firefox is now risking a random system restart. The system memory, processor, and FSB are not over clocked.

I’ll just have to deal with it until I have $100 to blow on parts to fix the computer, which isn’t going to be any time soon.

/sigh

~Mysk

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Comments:

One Response to “Ye’ol Computer Issues”

  1. Mysk on 28 Jan 2006 at Jan 28, 06 | 2:25 pm #

    I forgot to mention the issue that I have with my track ball. This is lovely: It’s nearly impossible to click and drag.

    Like all trackballs, the one that I own must be taken apart about once a month (or so) to clean out the gunk. Otherwise the ball does not roll very well. This is a requirement despite the fact that it’s an optical trackball.

    I must have goofed up while putting it back together at some point. This was probably just a matter of time.

    Imagine, for a moment, trying to use your computer without click and drag.

    Luckily I can still get it to work occasionally, but the buttons tend to “give up” in the middle of dragging when I do get it to work. This causes the files and/or icons to be dumped where ever the mouse cursor happens to be at that point.

    It’s terribly vexing. >/

    ~Mysk