XP...upgrade...pain

Submitted by reeses on Fri, 2003-06-27 02:19.

So, last week, I ordered the MS Action Pack, because I found a coupon on techbargains for $200 off, bringing the price for (among other things) ten licenses of Windows XP and ten licenses of Office XP down to $100. I wanted to upgrade my primary machine to XP, and thought that now was as good a time as any.

If I ever say 'upgrade' again, please shoot me.

On Friday, the box arrived, with lots of CDs. I fearlessly put the XP cd into my drive, and rebooted the machine. Everything's going hunky dory, and I install files, etc.

Then I reach a point where it says "Completing Installation" and giving the estimated time remaining as "25 minutes".

It stayed that way for ages, so I thought it was frozen, and rebooted.

And did the same thing again, this time saying "24 minutes". Another time, "23 minutes".

Yeargh. So I leave it overnight, thinking it's wedged, but it's not completely dead, (the mouse can move, the "XP is wonderful!" messages continue flipping through) and that it will clear up after a few hours.

When I came out in the morning, it had finished the installation, and rebooted. Yay!

Crash.

After a few more hours of wrestling, I found out that XP didn't love my video card (an old GeForce 2 mx), and that it would only avoid crashing if I turned the acceleration settings way down.

Hey, I have an Office Depot nearby, and one thing they do sell is video cards. So I went to the store, bought the one AGP card they had, and brought it home.

Doo de doo, let's play a video.

Crash.

Apparently Microsoft hates Nvidia or something.

At this point, I'm thinking,"Motherboard." That's because I like to feel as if I know what's going on in the box of demons, and motherboard sounds as if my troubleshooting skills aren't completely shot.

Newegg, to the rescue, since Office Depot and Staples don't carry motherboards, etc. This was also a time to upgrade my CPU from my 700Mhz Athlon, and I'd obviously need to get RAM, too. DDR400, baby! I paid more for overnight, and it arrived, as expected, umm, overnight.

I rip open my old box, start unscrewing the motherboard, and something occurs to me.

This motherboard has three PCI slots, while the new one has six. Do you think it'll fit?

No prizes for answering in the affirmative, because you're an idiot, and obviously don't know how these computer things work.

So, another overnight order from newegg, for a case. Shipping was about $40, but the case is actually not pure suck.

I watch the Fedex tracking page, and it says the case is delivered. I look in the package room, but it's not there. I look in front of my door, and it's not there. I go to the front office, and ask if it was dropped off there, but the woman there assured me that packages never go to the office, only to the package room. I looked in the package room again, because it may, just may, be possible to hide a 1'x3'x2' box in a 15'x8' room. Really.

I call Fedex to track the package, and the poor driver comes back to the building, calls me from the intercom, and tells me that it was in the rental office where the person on the phone _told_ me it was. He sounded a little put out, which is not at all surprising, of course.

So I mosey on down there, and the fricking box was setting RIGHT NEXT TO THE BLOODY WOMAN WHO INSISTED IT WASN'T THERE, AND THAT PACKAGES WERE NEVER DELIVERED TO THE FRONT OFFICE. So, of course, she apologised, right?

Yeah, right.

With the case, motherboard, cpu, and memory all together, I open up boxes and start reading directions. This stuff is hard! I remember why I never mess with innards, and only buy whole machines! Case maker calls connectors one thing, motherboard maker another, CPU maker doesn't mention the cpu clock settings in the chip package, and I'm a bloody idiot who hasn't done this sort of thing in almost ten years.

But, it all worked out for the best. Now, I have an Athlon XP 2200+, motherboard with bluetooth, 5.1 audio, 512M DDR400 RAM, 160GB 7200 RPM ATA133 drive, big beefy case, craptacular Nvidia GF4 card, all for about $700, which is TWICE what it would have cost me to buy the $350-400 "machine deal of the day" from Dell via techbargains, which would have been faster.

That $200 off on Action Pack is the devil.

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