Our computer (the Windows XP desktop) at home started to disintegrate this morning in noisy fashion. Following the school of thought that says “you should never switch a computer off”, I haven’t done so for many months. Then last night, in order to provide a peaceful night’s sleep to my brother in law, it was switched off.
Do you know what “cavitation” means? It’s a marine engineering term - the dictionary describes it thusly;
The sudden formation and collapse of low-pressure bubbles in liquids by means of mechanical forces, such as those resulting from rotation of a marine propeller.
I’m not sure there is a non-marine equivalent term, but if there was, it would precisely describe the noise that erupted from the computer this morning and didn’t calm down throughout the entire day. Mercifully we were out for most of the day, but no doubt the rattling scream from the computer drove the cat absolutely nuts.
Finally this evening curiosity got the better of me and I disassembled the computer. After sticking a pencil in the various fans in the running machine (a highly technical procedure, I can assure you), I ascertained that the fan on the graphics card was to blame. It verified it’s dilapidated condition by increasing in volume momentarily. Strangely a thump to the top of the computer case caused the volume to lower for a second or two. Not wishing to sit thumping the computer for the forseeable future, I had a brainwave.
Most motherboards come with “integrated graphics”. This is another name for the computer maker being a total cheapskate, and sticking a piss poor graphics chip on the motherboard, that shares memory with the computer. The performance of “integrated graphics” always sucks balls - for very good engineering reasons that I won’t get into here - but is better than nothing.
So - a minute later I had ripped the graphics card from the machine, and fired it back up. Windows didn’t like the idea of running the screen at the appropriate resolution until it had a good long conversation with Microsoft (no doubt recording every piece of software I have installed in the process), but eventually blinked a few times, and then settled down. Hay-presto - an almost silent computer, now with a cool new vent/gaping hole in the back where the graphics card used to live.
Of course now I am faced with a dilemma - do I act on the reconnaissance mission I just did at the Novatech website and purchase a new graphics card and a few gigabytes of memory, or do I just let this computer run itself completely into the ground? It’s tempting to do a patch up job, but the cost will approach the same as a new motherboard, processor and memory - which will run significantly faster anyway.
The options would therefore seem to be;
Leave the computer alone. It works. It might not be the best ever, but it works.
Get the graphics card and memory. It will extend it’s life for another 4 years.
Replace the motherboard. This will mean re-installing windows (I would rather eat my own entrails).
At the moment I am leaving it alone. All the computer gets used for is blogging, and printing things out. Photoshop Elements is occaisionally fired up to correct a wayward photograph, but that’s about it.
What would you do?