Assorted parts of my gaming (main) computer…

As of yesterday it has been a year since my Dad passed away. I don’t think you ever stop missing a parent. You see them in so many everyday things. While the pain may lessen, the loss does not. There is a constant that is removed from your life’s equation. I miss my Dad. I don’t put much stock in miracles and such… but there was an incredible rainbow yesterday in Caledon. It lasted maybe 10 minutes and it was gone. But both and I saw the entire creation of it. Coincidence? Maybe. But even so, the universe did choose his anniversary for such a spectacular scene and allowed me to see it.

My primary (gaming) computer has been having issue for a while now. It was randomly deciding not to see the Express port and my video card. Which sucks for a gaming computer. This weekend it starting acting worse, it wouldn’t boot past the BIOS. Normally I’d just upgrade the whole system but my i5 chip (IMHO) is still pretty awesome and there is nothing wrong with the other components. So I just ordered a new motherboard. There weren’t a ton of options. I don’t normally get ASRock boards but it was the cheapest option. In reality it is probably a really old board. It is for a 1155 chip. *shrug* It was a cheap option – hopefully it will work out okay.

It was a beautiful weekend. Between bdot and I we hauled out 4 buckets of weeds. We have sunk a lot of money and time into the backyard. It is really starting to pay back with some beauty.

We keep losing heroes. Muhammad Ali passed away last weekend. He seemed to be one of the most charismatic and interesting figures in sports ever.

UPDATE!

So the ASRock board arrived. Thanks Newegg. I tried to keep my old massive, ridiculous Cooler Master CPU fan… but the board was way too tight and installing that fan is nothing short of madness. I think it is part of the Hyper Series. What bollocks. So after it frustrating me for over an hour I just installed the OEM fan in 30 seconds. Sigh. Once it was on, I also had to switch power supplies and lost half my RAM due to limited slots… but still, it is up and running pretty well. The mobo is certainly not as nice as the Asus board. Now Windows is -of course- nagging to activate on a system that was activated and a legit key. It won’t take the key. Sigh… so I guess I could reinstall Windows 7, wait for the 10 upgrade and do it that way… I won’t though. If it nags a lot or won’t accept updates I’m simply going to run Linux Mint on it. Fsck Windows. Steam has made the transition possible. I may just do it anyway…

Yup. WTF. Diving in. Goodbye Windows. Switching my primary gaming computer over to Linux. *Deep breath* Wish me luck. I’ve been waiting for this day for years.

UPDATE 2!

Sigh. Well it seemed like a good idea. And I really WANT to switch to FULL TIME linux. But alas…. it is better than it was…. but it is still not there. Half the games in my Steam library aren’t compatible. Trying to do something simple like create a new Stream Library folder OUTSIDE of /home is a hoop jumping nightmare. So, with deep regret… I pretty much have to switch back to freaking Windows.

How disappointing. That said, for a non-gaming PC I’d keep it.