When I took my job at my current employer, I bought my first Windoze box.  I had been using Macs at home all through college and my first 9 years in the working world, but my new job was going to require more familiarity with windows so it seemed like a prudent thing to do.  I bought a Gateway box, and it was okay for about 3 years.  Then it started to suck, so I decided to buy something new.  My choice was a refurbished (read: used) Dell Optiplex GX110...

At the time, it was a beefy computer.  It had 392 Mb of RAM, a 1 gHz pentium 3 processor, and a 20 gB hard drive.  (I had never owned a computer with a "gig" of anything, and so I was pretty tickled by the idea--as a result, I called them gigglebytes and gigglehertx.)  It had a smoking hot 16 Mb nVidia graphics card in it... it was the balls, and it cost a cool $1500 once the monitor was tacked on.

Over the years I have tried to upgrade the thing three times.  What a nightmare.  Every time the upgrade ended in failure. 

The first time I tried to install a piece of hardware in the GX110 it was a CDRW drive.  No dice.  No matter what I tried the drive wouldn't work in the optiplex.  Period.  So instead I plonked it into my old gateway box (which had since become my wife's computer), and it worked fine.

Then there was the internal modem card.  A MODEM CARD for pete's sake.  No dice.  The level of IRQ sharing on the optiplex made the zoom modem card puke.  I dropped the card into my wife's PC (where it worked fine) and went out and bought an external modem for my optiplex.

The GX110 is soon going to be retired off my desktop.  Since I intend to give it to my kid, and the thing can't handle the graphics of "Secret Agent Barbie", I decided to bite the bullet and try to upgrade the video card.

I went out and picked up a GeForce 128Mb FX 5200 DDR3 PCI a few nights ago, foolishly believing that since I was swapping one nVidia card for another, it would be no problem.  $130 later I am once again kicking myself for even considering the idea.  I'd put the card into my wife's computer, but the gateway has since gone up in smoke and my wifey now uses a Dell Inspiron laptop.

Inside the flap of the box the card came in is a big warning label saying "Please Note: If your product is not working properly DO NOT RETURN TO THE STORE".  Not working properly?  I'll say.  The machine will not boot if I swap the old card for the new one! Yeesh!  Doesn't even get through the bios load.  Just drops dead right after the Dell logo pops up.

Yipee.

The consensus at Dell was that the 200 W power supply in my box was too wimpy to run the card.  Checking with the card manufacturer confirmed this, the card wants a 300 W supply or better.  The largest PSU Dell makes for my box is 250 W.  I looked into trying to get a third party power supply but it turns out Dell power supplies use a nonstandard pinout and connectors.

I found a company that sells Dell-like power supplies, and they assured me that their 360 W version would run fine in my box, but many of the techy folks I asked weren't so sure.  Ordinarily the motherboard will only draw as much power as it needs, it doesn't matter how big the supply is.  But the video card in question had no external power adapter.  It was expecting to pull all of its juice through the PCI slot whih is attached to a riser board that is plugged into, you guessed it, the motherboard.  Hence 300 W of power would need to be drawn through the motherboard, which has been running off a 200 W power supply for years.

Then a friend of mine at work said, "Look the video card plus the new power supply is going to be over $200.  And you might cook your box in the process.  Why don't you just go to Dell and buy the lowest model of new computer available and give THAT to your kid instead?  It will cost about $500 and it will probably be able to run all of your daughter's games off the onboard video, and it will be brand new instead of 4 years old."

Wise words, 550 bucks spent and my daughter is getting a computer that puts my $1500 box to shame.  It even comes with a monitor!  The low end systems at Dell are pretty impressive.  And if I can't upgrade it?  Well jeeze, it was only $500... it's not like I spent thousands on it.  Lynnea's new system is about 3 times faster than mine, has about twice the RAM, much more hard disk space, and it's own printer, to boot!  Pretty good deal!

So what to do with the optiplex?  Probably make it into a backup server or print server.  Or a nice planter.   Haven't decided.

Of course, this leaves me with no computer at all.  However Christmas is coming, and I've been a very good boy.  This time I'm going to get a really hot box.  Something so fast it makes my neck hurt.  Something so hot it burns my eyebrows off.  Something so insane only an insane person could handle it.

Oh yeah, and it has to be purple.

I'll think of something...

Model
Model Name
Aurora™ City 17™
Brains
CPU
 AMD Athlon™ 64 3500+ Processor with HyperTransport Technology
Memory
 2GB Corsair XMS Extra Low Latency (2-2-2-5) DDR PC-3200 SDRAM at 400MHz - 4 x 512MB
Motherboard
 ABIT AV8 - VIA K8T800 Pro Motherboard
Network Connection
 Integrated High Performance Gigabit Ethernet
Media
System Drive
 High Performance - Serial ATA - 120GB Seagate™ Barracuda 7,200 RPM w/8MB Cache
Storage Drive
 Additional Storage Drive - 36.7GB Western Digital™ Raptor™ 10,000 RPM w/8MB Cache
Optical Drive
 NEC™ ND-3500 16x Dual Layer DVD-R/W Recorder
Portable Storage
Alienware™ USB 2.0 256MB Flash Drive v2.0
Floppy Drive
 3.5" 1.44 MB Floppy Disk Drive - Black
Video
Monitor
 Alienware™ 20.1" LCD Display
Graphics Processor
 NVIDIA™ GeForce™ 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and S-Video Out
Video Cooling
 AlienIce™ Video Cooling System - Astral Blue
Audio
Sound Card
 Creative Sound Blaster™ Audigy™ 2 ZS High Definition 7.1 Surround Firewire (IEEE 1394) - $15 Mail-in Rebate !
Speakers
 Logitech™ Z-5300e 5.1 280-Watt Speakers
Headphones
 Sennheiser PC140 Multimedia Headset
Box
Chassis
 Alienware™ Full-Tower Case - Plasma Purple
Power Supply
 Alienware™ 480 Watt Power Supply
Keyboard
 Microsoft™ Multimedia Keyboard - Plasma Purple
Mouse
 Microsoft™ IntelliMouse Explorer 4.0 - USB - Plasma Purple
Software
Operating System
 Microsoft™ Windows™ XP Professional with Service Pack 2
Productivity Software
 Microsoft™ Office 2003 Professional Edition
AlienRespawn
 Alienware™ Respawn Recovery Kit
Security Software
 Norton™ AntiVirus™ 2005
Desktop Enhancements
 Exclusive AlienGUIse Theme Manager
Game
 DOOM 3™
Game
 Half Life 2
Game
 Neverwinter Nights -- Shadows of Undrentide
Game
 Unreal Tournament 2004
Game
 World of Warcraft
Support
Automated Support
 AlienAutopsy -- Automated Technical Support Request System
Warranty
 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service
Other
Digital Camera
 Canon Powershot S500 Camera
Flash Memory
 512MB 40x Lexar Compact Flash Card
Blank Media
 Verbatim DataLifePlus DVD-R 4.7GB 8x Speed 10-Pack in Jewel Case
T-Shirt
 Free Alienware™ T-Shirt - Black
Mousepad
 Free Alienware™ Mousepad