So yeah, it's that time.
I've been having some issues with the old beastie a few times, but I took a "que sera, sera" attitude to it as it was already so old. For example, it wouldn't boot up once or twice, and I've noticed that the power supply had been making a constant faint buzzing sound. It even leaked some power unto the case at some point, which was mildly unpleasant when changing cables etc. So yeah, not exactly a shock (pun not intended).
It still chugged along though, until very recently. It suddenly refused to boot for 3 days, and then, without any intervention, would boot up like nothing happened again. Jesus power. It worked for another 2 weeks, but I noticed it would reset the PC clock on two different occasions. Then, yesterday, gone. Not even a beep or a fan, nothing. The only sound or light was the faint buzzing of the PSU ahaha. Checked all the cables of course but couldn't see anything wrong.
So, my assessment was that either it was a fried PSU (not booting at all, the faint buzzing) or the CMOS battery had gone (the clock resetting, not booting some days but booting on others). The CMOS battery can stop the PC from booting at all too, but from what I've read it's fairly uncommon. So, for convience sake, and because I probably should have the PSU replaced anyway, I took a gamble on it being the PSU and ordered a nice new 650w corsair one.
It wasn't the PSU.
On the bright side - it served me well for 10 years (!) with only a GPU upgrade during that entire time. And I just got a nice severance fee from my previous work. I also already have a brand new PSU (heh), a large HD to use as storage, and don't have urgent need for new peripherals. I may even recycle the GPU once I check how it holds up today. Probably not well, but hey.
So what I need now is to assemble, or have assembled for me,
- a case
- a mobo
- CPU + fan
- RAM
- an SSD
- GPU (?)
Fairly excited about becoming an SSD man.
The RAM ad GPU I can figure out for myself, as well as the case.I wonder if you guys have any input on the mobo and CPU, though? Would be very much appreciated as I've been out of the building game for a while.
Also, which SSD brand is considered market leader these days? I'm thinking of going big, 350 or 400 GB. It's too damn hot to play games inside, so take your time.
I'm in Romania for work now, but I'll look at it once I'm home again.