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Blog - New computer!

Technology New computer!

AOpen XC Cube EX65Following my impulse of the last week or so, yesterday I went and bought a new PC! After having checked reviews online, and also getting some advice (thanks rumael and also grey!), I got this nice-looking AOpen XC Cube EX65 (aka Sporty) (specs) which seemed to fit my requirements best.

It has room for 2 HDs (they don't recommend stacking two HDs together, but this one has some space between the two 3.5" slots, so I may even be able to fit a fan in there), and it even has a 6-pin IEEE-1394 (Firewire) port so I should be able to charge my iPod while having it plugged into my computer (instead of using the charger).

Although good looking the way it is, I sort of wish I could rip away that door for the CD drive. The thing is that it seems like either my drive or the case has its screws about a millimeter off, and therefore I can't screw-in the drive chassis to the case's main chassis while still having the fake front button working. And the drive chassis not being screwed, it risks being pushed back when I push the button to open it (making the button unusable until the case is opened and the drive chassis moved)... A bit hard to explain but anyway. :)

One of the main reasons I wanted to switch is that the old motherboard had its graphics card embedded, and lately the video output was constantly shaking for hours after turning on the computer. I had diagnosed that it wasn't a problem with the monitor since its settings menu was clear and stable over the fuzzy screen.

It had been years since I had built my own PC (perhaps around 1998), and I'm glad this time I could do without putting in the motherboard myself which I always thought was a pain. The hardware part went smooth.

However, Windows is giving me a bit of trouble that still has to be sorted out. The thing seems to be that I moved my hard drives containing an existing Windows 2000 installation, and Windows doesn't seem to like having all its hardware changed like this without being told anything. Windows was giving me a blue screen saying  STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE .
So I installed a second instance of Win2K, which went fine, in order to be able to at least use the thing... And that's where it's now at.

Next I'll have to follow this Microsoft knowledge base article to try to fix the original installation (I'd sure like to avoid having to reinstall all my programs).
How to troubleshoot "Stop 0x0000007B" error messages in Windows 2000

One annoyance that seems like it will persist is that my hard drives' order has changed. I had one drive with 2 partitions and a second drive with one partition, and it used to strangely be mapped this way:
- C: 1st drive, boot partition
- D: 2nd drive (odd)
- E: 1st drive, second partition
No clue why... Now they're back in a more logical order, but it will take some getting used to.
- C: 1st drive, boot partition
- D: 1st drive, second partition
- E: 2nd drive
Maybe I'll try to use some software to swap them.

And that's it! Hopefully everything should be sorted out within a few days!

Last, here's my approximate invoice, for the record:
- AOpen XC Cube EX65, ¥31000
- Celeron Northwood 2.8GHz CPU, ¥9000 (¥13000 minus ¥4000 of discount because I bought a barebone of over ¥30000)
- 512MB of P2700 (333MHz) RAM, ¥7000

Total: about ¥47000 + 5% tax = just below my estimate of ¥50000!

Posted on July 30, 2004 at 11:24 | Tweet |

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waaaa, new computer, new Nomoto Karia album, c'est la fete !
je veux un barebone PC ! (et un LCD 19' ^^)
mais je vais attendre de voir le design du nouveau iMac :)

Posted by Antonin on July 30, 2004 at 17:21

En fait, c'est ma fête, après-demain!
Donc le PC c'est un peu mon cadeau à moi-même (et en avance!). :)

Posted by Patrick on July 30, 2004 at 17:24

j'adore cette idee de se faire des cadeaux a soi-meme ;)
bonne fete !

Posted by Antonin on July 30, 2004 at 23:14

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