the tindog coffeehouse

Actually the title of this post should be “Way past time for a new computer.”

I’m getting ready to order parts to build a new home computer, and I can’t wait.  My current desktop is a Dell Optiplex GX260 which I got for free two years ago from work.  It was old back then, but after several parts upgrades, I was able to run Windows Vista on it.  But now disk space is running low on the C: drive, and the strain of running Vista on an old Pentium 4 machine is really starting to show.

My wife’s computer, on the other hand, isn’t even faring that well.  She inherited her machine from me about four years ago, a Gateway desktop bought in January 2000.  Yep, that’s over nine years ago, an eternity in computer years.  And now it’s finally pooping out.

So the plan is to build a new machine from scratch for me, then reformat the GX260 for her.  OK, so it’s another hand-me-down, but this hand-me-down is like ten times better than what she has now, and with XP on it instead of Vista, it’ll run great.  Trust me, I’d love to buy her a brand new machine, but we’re on a tight budget here.  (That’s also why I’m building a new machine instead of buying one off the shelf: more bang for the buck.)

Here is a run-down of the components on my shopping list (in case you’re curious):

• Rosewill Conqueror case (pictured right, from Newegg.com)
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz processor
• MSI G41M-FD motherboard with on-board Intel GMA 4500 graphics and gigabit ethernet (Sticking with on-board video for now, although I may add a separate video card later.)
• 4 GB DDR2 RAM (I may upgrade to 8 GB later if I upgrade to 64-bit version of Windows 7.)
• Western Digital Caviar 500 GB SATA hard drive with 32 MB cache (Will probably add a second drive later, but not needed right now.)
• SATA DVD-ROM drive and DVD Lightscribe burner
• 600 Watt power supply
• ASUS V72 CPU fan

I’ll transfer my existing Vista Business and Office 2007 licenses over and will use my existing keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

And of course I’ll update the blog once I get everything in and start assembling it.