WWTBAM Bored

The bus on my motherboard has gone out which means my sound card and eSATA card have stopped working. My video card isn't affected though as that plugs into slot not on the bus.

I decided to buy a motherboard that can support a faster CPU as what I have is five years old now. I didn't buy one that would be appropriate for gaming as those use CPUs that cost well over $1000 and require video cards in the $600 range (I can't see spending that much for PC gaming when the same stuff runs on a $500 XBOX 360. I guess some people just have to brag about how much their system cost.). I got one that supports the Intel quad-core CPUs, the Intel DG33TL Media Series G33 Express Chipset

I got an CPU that is about twice as fast as the one I have now, the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz 8MB 65nm.

The Dolby 7.1 sound and very fast video are built-in but I had to buy new memory as my old modules are too slow. I sprung for 4 GB. I'm also buying two 500GB SATA drives to replace my 300GB PATA one. I'll run RAID 10 so that will give me just 200GB more than I had.

I found the best deals on the motherboard and CPU at buy.com, the memory at Dell, and the hard drive at Amazon.com.

The pieces will start arriving today. I'll have to hold off until Saturday to replace everything as I'm on-call and might have to use my system if I get called. I hate using my laptop for that.

What color will it be?

May as well have posted that in Hindi (the hardest language I could think of at the moment).

It does sound like you'll have a first class, high speed machine when you have all the pieces.

kayrharris wrote:May as well have posted that in Hindi (the hardest language I could think of at the moment).

It does sound like you'll have a first class, high speed machine when you have all the pieces.

Well, for many companies, you have to speak Hindi to understand the customer support people.

Isn't that the truth! I had to ask one "customer service representative" to SPELL everything he said since I sure couldn't understand what he was saying!

kayrharris wrote:Isn't that the truth! I had to ask one "customer service representative" to SPELL everything he said since I sure couldn't understand what he was saying!

I got someone named Raisa (just guessing on the spelling) both times I called on my Notebook laptop and could understand her perfectly. She's in Manila, so that makes a big difference in accents.

peacock2121 wrote:What color will it be?

Green, but it will be inside my charcoal case.

Bob Juch wrote:

peacock2121 wrote:What color will it be?

Green, but it will be inside my charcoal case.

Green is a pretty color.

I bet it works good.

Green is good.

SportsFan68 wrote:

kayrharris wrote:Isn't that the truth! I had to ask one "customer service representative" to SPELL everything he said since I sure couldn't understand what he was saying!

I got someone named Raisa (just guessing on the spelling) both times I called on my Notebook laptop and could understand her perfectly. She's in Manila, so that makes a big difference in accents.

The last time I upgraded my computer, five years ago, I had to call Intel support. I got a guy in Costa Rica who spoke almost accent-free English and was one of the best technical support people I've ever talked to.

Bob Juch wrote:

SportsFan68 wrote:

kayrharris wrote:Isn't that the truth! I had to ask one "customer service representative" to SPELL everything he said since I sure couldn't understand what he was saying!

I got someone named Raisa (just guessing on the spelling) both times I called on my Notebook laptop and could understand her perfectly. She's in Manila, so that makes a big difference in accents.

The last time I upgraded my computer, five years ago, I had to call Intel support. I got a guy in Costa Rica who spoke almost accent-free English and was one of the best technical support people I've ever talked to.

Then you are lucky. For my HP, I had to deal with India.

Actually, I called to take to Macy's last week and talked to somebody in India. I couldn't understand them, so I called back a second time and it was worse. I asked to speak to somebody who was fluent in English and the person hung up on me. I ended up calling my local Macy's store and asked to speak to somebody who spoke English. It was a longer wait, but it was worth it to me.

PlacentiaSoccerMom wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:

SportsFan68 wrote: I got someone named Raisa (just guessing on the spelling) both times I called on my Notebook laptop and could understand her perfectly. She's in Manila, so that makes a big difference in accents.

The last time I upgraded my computer, five years ago, I had to call Intel support. I got a guy in Costa Rica who spoke almost accent-free English and was one of the best technical support people I've ever talked to.

Then you are lucky. For my HP, I had to deal with India.

Actually, I called to take to Macy's last week and talked to somebody in India. I couldn't understand them, so I called back a second time and it was worse. I asked to speak to somebody who was fluent in English and the person hung up on me. I ended up calling my local Macy's store and asked to speak to somebody who spoke English. It was a longer wait, but it was worth it to me.

I have to deal with India or Indians here on H1Bs almost every day. The problem is they think they speak English. I've been on calls with Indians, Chinese and Russians where no one can understand each other.

At least I can understand them better than the guy at the bar Saturday night who lost most of his tongue to oral cancer.

The funniest person I ever had for customer support was a person working for Dell. He said his name was "Bob" and I asked him where he was located and he said "INDIAna". He couldn't help me with what I needed, but it did make me laugh.