My computer upgrade

[JayM]

Update: my CPU arrived yesterday, shipped economy class from China and very well packed, inside a plastic clamshell case thing surrounded by several inches of bubble wrap then a sturdy cardboard box. They even included some thermal grease. I'm still waiting for my cooler though, shipped with standard class and only coming from the Manila area, which was supposed to arrive by Wednesday. Lazada is the SE Asia region's version of Amazon and Deepcool is one of their flagship stores, so shipping is handled by the Entrego Logistics & Fulfillment Center. They should rename it to Entreslow because every other time I've ordered from merchants on Lazada the items arrived on or before their scheduled delivery dates, shipped via the normal means (Lazada Express.) Buying from a flagship store actually takes longer. Harrumph!

Meanwhile our doggos will get their 5-in-1 and rabies shots next Monday afternoon. I have the money for that already set aside.

[sunrat]

I wouldn't worry about power consumption. I have a 750W Corsair RM750i (600W one was out of stock) which has an internal link with which the power consumption can be monitored in Windows. Other bits are i5 6500 and GTX970. I checked it after playing a serious round of a recent Tomb Raider game and its maximum draw was ~250W.

[JayM]

Thanks a lot for that info, sunrat. That's really good to know.

I just contacted Lazada's customer care and was informed that they'd changed the expected delivery timeframe to the 15th-20th (without informing me or updating the order status on their site.) He's going to pass my concern along to their logistics people. Meanwhile I get to listen to my noisy OEM 70mm CPU fan and look at this quad-core processor sitting here waiting for its cooler while reflecting that it takes less time to ship an item clear from China than it does to send something 600-700km. within the same country.

[Eadwine Rose]

Yeah.. you gotta love that! But.. just a few more days :)

[JayM]

Yeah.. you gotta love that! But.. just a few more days :)

I know, but it's a failure on Lazada's part to properly set my expectations. If they'd only notified me it wouldn't be so irritating, but they said it should be delivered by the 14th at the latest and never revised their estimate. The customer care guy's already escalated it to their logistics/shipping team lead to look into and try to prevent it from happening again.

Meanwhile I've just ordered one more item: a 24cmx12cm washable dust filter with magnetic edges to stick on the back of the case over the PSU and case fans to help keep things cleaner inside. Only ₱188 with free shipping. I think I can still afford that this month. (Also it's coming from China and they ship quite fast. It should be here in 2 to 2 1/2 weeks. I'm in no great hurry for it though. I've been running it with no filter for over 2 years so what's another couple of weeks or so?)

[Eadwine Rose]

Exactly.. and indeed I would be annoyed as well over this!

[m_pav]

I just upgraded my "home server" from an old Intel E5200 to an Intel Q9400 for $US 11.50. Both are 65w CPU's but the computational differences with the latter are sooo much better.
My system went from;
2 Cores @ 2.5 GHz, 2MB Cache and 800MHz FSB to
4 Cores @ 2.66 GHz, 6MB Cache and 1333MHz FSB with

So I went from a slug to a reasonably useful machine which I can now use virtualisation on without crippling the system and that's with the constraints inherited from the latest security patches trashing the once useful traits of the Intel CPU's. Your AMD upgrade will have negligible losses from the latest kernel constraints, so its presence will most definitely be felt.

I'm very certain your upgrade will make a nice difference. My wifes' machine runs an AMD Phenom II X4 955 which has done over 80,000 hours of use and it almost rivals some of the dual-core basic office machines available today.

[JayM]

Today was a slow, lazy day so I decided to give the inside of my computer a more thorough cleaning, just for something to do. I found that it has a space for a 120mm case fan on the front which I never knew was there. I went rummaging around in my stash of computer junk and I actually found one that I didn't remember having, and it worked so in it went! Now I have the 120mm front-mounted fan and one 80mm rear fan with a place next to it for a second one (I don't have any, but I may get one later.) That should help with the heat inside, and the extra noise it's making isn't very noticeable.

[Eadwine Rose]

Great!! Always good to find out stuff like that

[JayM]

Yeah, I've had this computer for 2 1/2 years and had never removed the front case cover until today as far as I can remember. There were lots of dust bunnies in there too, which all got feather dustered into oblivion. :)

It's always nice to have a stash of various computer parts around so you don't necessarily have to go shopping or order online every time you want something. You might already have it.