Valentine’s Day

It will just be another day with the guys out having fun and all that [:(]. All the pass 20 V Days have been spent either at home or with my friends. [:|]


I’m going to register wyred.nu on this coming V Day and make a new background image for my blog. [XD]


Here’s a portion of the conversation I had with my colleague on our way back to office from lunch yesterday:
Him: So how are you going to spend this coming Valentine’s Day?
Me: Stay at home as usual. Haha
Him: What you mean stay at home? Blah… Blah… Get a girlfriend… Blah…
Me: Don wan lah, it’s still early.
Him: What you mean still early?
Me: I’m still young.
Him: What you mean still young?
Me: I’m not mature enough yet.
Him: What you mean not mature enough?
Me: (I kept quiet hoping the conversation would die and it did.)


The new AthlonXP seems to be running fine. I hope the “burn-in” I did with prime95 has warmed up that little twit. My games are running more smoothly with the exception of Diablo2 which still lags at certain parts of the game. Everytime I climb the staircases behind Shenk the Overseer (Act 5 Quest 1), everything slows down a little. At least overall, it’s better than my older Athlon Thunderbird.


5pm: I had some spare time so I did a little flash for the top right corner of this blog. I don’t know what happened. It’s like all of a sudden, I know kung fu… nah. All of a sudden, I know how to use movie and graphic symbols. The concept just popped into my mind. Freaky… It was just like the other time at Nanyang Polytechnic, during my Final Year Project days. I had my lunch and was trying to take a nap while my partner and the other guys in the same lab were watching a Hongkong movie. All of a sudden, an idea popped into my mind for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON OR CAUSE and there, I was abusing the school’s high speed connection to send files to people at blistering speeds. [:D]

NOOOOOO!!!!!!

Argh. My computer hanged again. Troubleshooting ensues. I was able to run a CPU-stressing software for 19 hours straight with no problems. But when I play Diablo2 for 40 minutes, it hanged! [:(] . After rebooting, I was viewing my graduation photos and it hanged when I try to view a high resolution photo at it’s actual size. [X(]


Sigh…

Finally

Yay! [:)]


I made a thread at HardWareZone forums seeking help for my CPU hanging problem. Someone suggested increasing Vio (Voltage IO) and so, I did. Now, the new AthlonXP is running fine for the whole night~ What a relief.


Everytime I buy new hardware or stuff related to computers, I would ALWAYS encounter problems. [:(]. Let’s start with my very first PC. A 286. Given to me by my mother’s friend. I had my first taste of DOS and I explored every folder on it’s C:. It had a bible inside! I read the first few chapters of Genesis and I stopped. It also contains the game, Civilization, which I loved to play. Then I tried installing a mouse, and even bought my first game on a floppy disk, The Prince of Persia, which bore me. After some time, virus struck. I remember the name of it was Stoned Virus. Pretty soon, the computer can’t be used and because I still don’t know much about them computers, it was sold to the karanguni man (rag-and-bone man) for a small sum of money.


A year or 2 later, I bought my second PC. Powered by an Intel Pentium 2 233MHz with only 32MB of SDram, 4MB AGP graphics card and a 3.2GB harddisk!! [8|] . At first, I played games on it. Command and Conquer: Red Alert! [X)]. Learned a lot of stuff like designing websites, mp3s, graphic design, computer hardware and overclocking. Hah! My design sense was piss poor then. (Not that I’m any better now). During the first few days, it would always hang in windows 95. Thinking of those problems sends shivers down my spine. The problem was eventually solved by bringing it back to the shop and the guy left it on overnight. Now, I suspect what he did was to “burn in” the CPU. Sort of like warming it up for the long run.


There was this girl back in secondary school who called me up once. Says she’s pissed at this guy in our class for this and that. And asked me to send that guy a virus. I accepted the task but not whole heartedly. I had some virus EXEs on my computer back then, which I kept just for fun. I registered a hotmail email account with a female name. Sent the guy the email with the virus programs. Few days later, I heard he had his windows reinstalled and was asking around for email addresses.


Around my first year at poly, I was able to buy a more powerful computer. My stepfather’s relative had given me a very big ang pow! (red packet) I think it was $300. So what I did with that money was to buy a new motherboard together with a CPU. My current MSI K7T Turbo + AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1GHz. I don’t remember whether I encountered any problems with the new hardware. Eventually, I saved up enough money for more ram and 6.4GB harddisk. Got a freelance work to do a simple, full-of-javascript website for this Junior College student at a price of $150 and wallah! Acquired GeForce2 32MB MX200! *Final Fantasy fanfare music playing in the background*


The next worse problems were viruses. I forgot the name but it struck computers on a certain day, wiping out a lot of MY PRECIOUSSSSSS data. [:(]. One distinct feature of that virus is it’s ability to cock up your BIOS chip making your computer unbootable, which fortunately, did not cock up mine. A reformat was done to get things back up.


During the years of 2003-2004, starting with my Industrial Attachment at MobileOne, I used the money I earned to buy a Creative Audigy soundcard. It had some audio glitches. I searched the net and fixed it. The cause was the CPU cooling software I had been using, called VCool. Just some minor changes in the settings of VCool. Then I bought a 120GB harddisk! [XD] The damn shop, Costronics, sold me the wrong model. Which caused me a lot of frustration. After getting the correct model, I excountered crashes while doing file transfers between harddisks. After hours of troubleshooting, and I even reinstalled Windows XP, I found out VCool was causing the problem! [>(]. That was when I stopped using it.


Lemme see… Next up is my CDwriter! I mentioned before in my blog entries. I had bought bad media for it. Experienced huge frustration. Soon, I bought my Radeon 9800PRO. A 128MB high end graphics card. Windows kept hanging and I found out it was because I had my CPU overclocked.


I think I’ve summed it all up. The stories of my hardware problems. My curse.

New CPU!

I met up with a guy this afternoon and bought from him an AMD AthlonXP 1800+ Palamino CPU! It was the exact CPU I had spent days searching for. And bought it at a price of $85. I think he’s a gentle person for he speaks very softly.


And so, I spent an hour dismantling my computer and vacuumed all the dust [:(]. Since I left the side of my computer casing open, it gathers a lot of dust very quickly. There was a thick layer of dust on my rams cos the exhaust from the HeatSink Fan (HSF) for my CPU is blowing at it. I made a paper pipe so the HSF would suck air from the outside which is cooler. Without that pipe, it would be recycling the hot air inside the casing.


Damn I’m hungry… [X(]


——


1am: Bahhh… The new CPU hates me. [:(]. My computer keeps hanging especially when I am watching anime. Back on my 1GHz thunderbird now. Spent the whole day troubleshooting and even removed my Radeon 9800PRO card in case it was insufficient power. I’m mentally frustrated and exhausted…. The chip still has warranty till August. And the place where the guy bought it is near my workplace. Gonna go down tomorrow and have it replaced. Sigh…

Sounds of the ceiling fans

Felt a sudden rush of nostalgia. I remembered my secondary school days where I slept in class. All I heard when I closed my eyes where the loud whirring sounds generated by the four ceiling fans and the voice of my teacher yapping away. Next thing I hear would be the loud ringing of the school bell which signals the time for recess.


Lethargically, I dragged myself to the toilet to wash my face. Then run down 4 storeys to the canteen as fast as I can cos the queue for the malay food stall would always be long. I would always ask for extra rice and their curry gravy is very delicious.


After a good tasty meal, I walk back to the foyer where most of my friends hang out. We would chat, laugh, fool around for the next 10 minutes till the bell rings again. We would slowly clamber up the staircase, chatting away and enjoying the breeze if there were any.


Back to class and back to sleep till the school bell rings again and home I go.


I miss the spiraling staircase I walked up and down for 4 years,
I miss the noise of busy students when it school ends,
I miss the warmth of the sun as I take the 15 minute walk back home,
I miss the sweaty feeling when I reach home.