Monday: “It’s been a while and my graphic card’s performance is starting to get out of date.”

Tuesday: Go to Fry’s. Buy new video card. Install new video card. Video card sort of works. (Sometimes the screen goes blank and sometimes the sync isn’t working) Video card also doesn’t give any performance increase based on benchmark program. Video card is returned to Fry’s, better video card is purchased. Better video card is installed. Better video card gives a piddly 10% increase, and also has line noise on the DVI port. Better video card is removed, old video card reinstalled.

Wednesday: Second video card is returned to Fry’s. New processor is purchased instead. New processor is installed.

All hell breaks loose. Explorer.exe starts crashing whenever I try to do anything. Might be a BIOS problem. Check BIOS. Nothing there to change. Might be a windows problem. Reinstall Windows. Get the oh-so-fun BSoD during Windows install. (a.k.a. hello, this is a hardware problem, dumbass!)

I skipped a few of the snafus and brainfarts in that last part, but the net result is still the same. I have a computer that worked, put a new processor in, and no longer worked right. And now I have a fresh install of Win2k on a freshly formatted hard drive, and it BSoDed during the install…. and trying again and that’s where I am.

Have I mentioned how much I hate Microsoft?

Update 9:39pm: The install seems to have frozen while trying to “Register components.” The hard drive is making noises like it’s working, but the bar hasn’t budged in 15 minutes. Going to try restarting, reformatting, and reinstalling again.

Update 10:33pm: A likely culprit has been found. Your friend and mine, heat. (The CPU was running at 79C… while sitting on the BIOS screen.) I need to buy thermal paste, and possibly a better cpu fan at Fry’s tomorrow. So no FFXI for me tonight. And no Half Life 2, which was what I did on Monday when I couldn’t play FFXI because of scheduled mantainence. I… don’t know what to do.

I think I’ll go eat dinner.