Grrr Computers

I replaced "my" laptop just... last month, I think it was? And then had one of my older hard drives fail in my desktop PC. Now the other old drive has been showing IO errors with some regularity. Thankfully the main system drive hasn't shown any problems. I think I've got everything backed up from the old one, so that's not a huge problem. It's also been locking up on occasion with a glitchy-looking on-screen pattern. That's not so good. I actually just swapped my keyboard and mouse over once last week to finish the WoW dungeons I was trying to do.

My gut reaction was an overheating graphics card or somesuch, but this tends to happen shortly after the computer is turned on rather than after it's been running for a while. It's not happening all the time, but enough to be annoying and troubling. Video card? Maybe. RAM? Maybe. Motherboard? Well... maybe. It could be just about anything, but it's not consistent enough (and I don't have spare components to) really troubleshoot. With the drive problems too... I sort of just don't want to deal with it.

So while I see if that gets worse, I've started looking at new desktop options. After poking around the internet, I'm actually leaning toward a custom-built system from iBuyPower. They seem to have good options and reasonable prices compared to others. The setups I've been looking at might cost me $150 or so more than if I put the same parts together myself, but I'm actually considering that to be a premium that's worth it to avoid some of the headaches from last time. I still do consider building one's own computer to be a very worthwhile experience, but the savings don't seem as huge as they used to when you're talking all new components and OS. Maybe the difference is still greater at the higher end, but my current PC has handled every game I've thrown at it and I'm looking at upgrading from there.

Still... it's a fair chunk of change however you look at it, so I'm hoping I get a chance to save a little more before the issues with my current system become unbearable.

I suppose it doesn't help that the absolute best case scenerio as far as the condo repairs that's still within the reason involves work picking up in the next month or so, everything being finished by the end of summer, and all the owners being assessed another $500-1000 to pay for it. Stupid monies!

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