Ooooh, Shiny!

I  finally got my PC sorted out.  After installing my new graphics card I had an odd problem where I couldn’t switch my PC on without powering off the PSU at the back first; I was also getting warnings on boot-up that my CPU fan was running slow.  The obvious culprit was the PSU but possibly the motherboard.  Not wanting to throw away money without being sure what was causing it I booked it in at my local PC shop.  They checked it over and said it was definitely the PSU so I ordered a new one, a very good one that gives me a lot of scope to upgrade in the future.  I got the PC home plugged it in and off we went.  The next morning I pressed the power switch at the front and….nothing!  Great!  I’d spent £115 on a new PSU to have exactly the same problems.

I decided to buy a new motherboard.  I also got a new CPU and some memory.  My PC is 2 1/2 years old; it did have a dual core CPU but it was one of the early ones.  For the first time ever I passed over AMD and got an intel CPU.  I also got 4 Gb of memory.  I know XP can’t use it all but it can use most of it and it gives me 1Gb more than I had.  Also when I finally upgrade XP I have 4 Gb of RAM to play with.  I still see nothing that makes me want to upgrade to Vista but several colleagues at work have downloaded the Windows7 beta and are really liking it.

I timed the delivery of all my new parts so that they arrived as I was due to start my set of night shifts and took it all into work.  I have built my own PCs in the past and knew how to do what I needed to do but my fingers are very stiff and I find fiddly jobs difficult.  Smiffy (another WoW junkie) volunteered to give me ahand swapping out the motherboard etc.  It was a quiet night and we had it done quickly with no hiccups at all.  I plugged it into one of the broadband net sockets we have and it went straight into WoW.  Then I remembered that my authenticator was home on the desk!  My one chance to play WoW at work and I blew it…so Smiffy logged into his account   It’s all running beautifully.  I’ve maxed out my graphics again and can actually run around Dalaran!  I don’t think I’ve seen the FPS drop below 30 yet.

I’ve also finally upgraded WP from 2.6 and am pleasantly surprised at how easy it was, although the new dashboard threw me when I logged in.  It feels a bit like TMI in one place so I’ll have to spend some time firtling about finding out what is where.  I’m now off work until the end of next week and feeling the desire to do a new theme.  We’ll see what happens