I curse all modern technology. I have a digital camera
and a camera-phone, but neither one can interface with the computer. The digital camera needs one of those square-ish USB plugs, which I can't find. The phone uses a trapezoid USB plug, which I have, but for some damn reason, even though the phone says it's connected and the computer say it found a device, I can't send data from one to the other. Balls. My otherwise crappy set-up looks
so awesome. If anybody knows how to make a Motorola Razor talk to a comp, I'd love to hear it.
So, system. I started with a Compaq Pressario of some model, and was stunned to realize that it's designed to be non-upgradeable. Early this year I finally scraped together the cash to get a new motherboard, and there's really nothing original left but the case and drives. Now the system looks like this-
Biostar P4M900-M4 Motherboard - Bitch to get, since they stopped making 478-pins.
2.8GHz Multi-Core Processor - I don't know the model off-hand.
XFX GeForce 8400GS Graphic Card - Best you can get for the price.
3GB DDR2 Ram - Hopefully moving up to 4 soon.
XP Home Edition - Actually a multi-install instruction edition.
80Gb Harddrive - The biggest stumbler, came standard.
All in all, it's far from Top End, but more than powerful enough for any of the games I play.
The pre-packed tower was about $500 when I got it four years ago. The MoBoard and GeForce were about $60 each. The processor was free - The tower came with a 2.6GHz Celeron D, but it welded itself to the heatsink (I can't fathom how it kept running), and my friend who was working on it with me gave me the extra processor he had. The RAM was free, and the upgrade will be too, because for reasons only they can know, Wal-Mart sells 2Gb DDR2 sticks on open racks. For the much the same reason, the OS was free because, in a truly boneheaded move, Microsoft made a multiple installation version of XP Home for training IT people, and naturally a copy leaked out.
What? XP is not able to use 4Gb RAM [even 64bit XP has issues with it], only 2, so huh??
I don't know where you got that from. System boot-up recognizes my 3Gb just fine, and as far as I can tell, it's working.