My Computer

I recently decided that it was time for a computer upgrade. I decided though to build my own computer instead of buying a pre-made one. I had previously owned a Compaq and had many problems with it. The only brand I have every heard of that has any kind of quality success rate is Dell. I also decided to build my own computer because I could reuse some old part and get a better computer for less money. I thought this project would take only about 1 month, but it ended up taking about 6 months until I had a stable machine. I first orderd the parts I would need: a motherboard, a hard drive, RAM, an Athlon XP processor, and a new case and power supply. I ordered all the parts online from various sites that I found on pricewatch.com with the exception of the RAM. This was my big mistake. To make a long story short, I basically got ripped off on the RAM. I was first send a defective stick, the promised a replacement that never arrived. This took about two months. I finally gave up and bought a stick from Fry's. Things went well for a month or two when my hard drive stopped working. Luckily it was under warranty so it was replaced for free and even upgraded from 100 GB to 120 GB. The bad news was that I lost all my data. When I got my hard driver back, my computer was very unstable. I think that when my hard drive died, the motherboard was also messed up as well. I just dealt with the unstability for a couple of months. I eventually got fed up and exchanged the Soyo motherboard I had for a MSI one. Now my computer is running very quickly and is very stable. Above are pictures of my computer. You can click on them to view a larger one. Here are the details on my computer: