It started a couple of weeks ago. I upgraded my video card from a Radeon HD 5450 to a Radeon HD 7750 core. Basically, heat is an issue, and I wanted a video card with a fan in it (and while I was at it, perhaps an upgrade). Installing the card came with its own issues. It was big. Yes, it is a PCI-e card, but it was a full sized card. My two previous Radeons were sized to fit in low profile towers as well, and so fitting wasn't an issue. This one, however, I had to disconnect all of my SATA cables *and* pull out all of my other expansion cards, just to get some space for my fingers. After reseating everything (including taking apart my tower again to put my hard drive cable back in the right slot so it could boot up again), it booted up successfully. I didn't even have to upgrade or reinstall Catalyst. Then next up was to upgrade the cpu heatsink. I noticed the cpu temperature was close to the same level that is when I bought my laptop. Which means I need to clean the dust off of it. And I figured if I'm going to have to take it off again to clean it, I might as well or a better one on. Again, space was a concern during installation. But, after sourcing a long enough Philips screwdriver, I got it to fit. This was huge. But I can see that my processor is running a lot cooler now. And more importantly, I can now put the side panels back on the tower (my previous solution was to leave the side panel off and point a desktop fan at the motherboard. The new heatsink actually works even better). The one drawback to installing the heatsink s my wifi card for knocked loose, and I couldn't connect to the internet. Had I just jimmied it, I would've been back online right away. But I had to take the hard way, and nuke it from orbit, wiping the hard drive. Fortunately, I had just performed a full backup to my external hard drive earlier that day (and that took over 4 hours in an of itself)....
Long story short, my tower is running cooler and quieter, and abd backups are always a good thing....
Did I also mention that I now have The Lord of The Rings and Star Wars on Blu-ray? And I just got the James Bond 50th Anniversary box set on Blu-ray?
So I guess while I put my tower back together that I can glory in the +1 to my Nerd Card....
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