I 've been less than active the last two days. My system hadn't been formatted since last June, and it desperately needed one.
A friend of mine got his hands on a free "malfunctioning" nVidia 8800gtx. After a short bake, it was good as new. So we tried to SLI it with my 8800gts, it being a cheaper version of 8800gtx. We had a couple of hours trying to work them in SLI mode, downloading nVidia drivers and 3rd party ones. Motherboard BIOS upgrades didn't help but add to my frustration by creating problems on the side. No luck. They see each other, but don't want to pair. I work them in parallel for now. Will try with another 8800gts some time later.
On the same time, I decided to add 4GB or RAM to the existing 2GB. I just went to the nearest store of the largest retail supplier in the country and bought myself two Corsair DDR2. Once in the system, the PC denied to boot. After a few trials I discovered that one of them was dysfunctional. It was the second time in 3 RAM purchases that this happened to me. I returned them to the service department yesterday. As I expected it, they needed 4 hours to check my application, so I had to pick them today. However, today, due to protests on the area, the service office is closed.
Not wanting to do a fresh format and then having to re-install a dozen of software in my PC, taking up several hours, setting up and configuring, I decided to use my friend's PC recovery system image, which he had already used in 4 PCs and laptops. As expected, the image refused to boot in the end, regardless of the Windows' boot disk to repair the installation. In the end I ended up having to re-install a dozen of software in my PC, taking up several hours, setting up and configuring, AFTER spending another one trying to make the image work.
I 'm taking my own image now, I refuse to go through this again.
In short, this is why I detest formats.
A friend of mine got his hands on a free "malfunctioning" nVidia 8800gtx. After a short bake, it was good as new. So we tried to SLI it with my 8800gts, it being a cheaper version of 8800gtx. We had a couple of hours trying to work them in SLI mode, downloading nVidia drivers and 3rd party ones. Motherboard BIOS upgrades didn't help but add to my frustration by creating problems on the side. No luck. They see each other, but don't want to pair. I work them in parallel for now. Will try with another 8800gts some time later.
On the same time, I decided to add 4GB or RAM to the existing 2GB. I just went to the nearest store of the largest retail supplier in the country and bought myself two Corsair DDR2. Once in the system, the PC denied to boot. After a few trials I discovered that one of them was dysfunctional. It was the second time in 3 RAM purchases that this happened to me. I returned them to the service department yesterday. As I expected it, they needed 4 hours to check my application, so I had to pick them today. However, today, due to protests on the area, the service office is closed.
Not wanting to do a fresh format and then having to re-install a dozen of software in my PC, taking up several hours, setting up and configuring, I decided to use my friend's PC recovery system image, which he had already used in 4 PCs and laptops. As expected, the image refused to boot in the end, regardless of the Windows' boot disk to repair the installation. In the end I ended up having to re-install a dozen of software in my PC, taking up several hours, setting up and configuring, AFTER spending another one trying to make the image work.
I 'm taking my own image now, I refuse to go through this again.
In short, this is why I detest formats.