Computer Turns Six, Gets a Cleaning
Today marks six years since I built this computer, though only the motherboard, CPU, CPU cooler, RAM, power supply and case that I’m still using now are actually that old. The video card will turn five in two weeks and the DVD drive is approaching three, but the case fans and HDDs are only slightly over a year old, being purchased last February. The TV tuner, on the other hand, will turn ten later this year.
Of course, I definitely didn’t plan to keep using this computer this long when I bought it, in fact originally intending to upgrade after only three years, but I first added another year to that after getting this video card, and since then I keep saying every year that I will upgrade “next spring”. Until very recently, I was absolutely set on finally doing so this year, but I’m now finding myself simply hoping that nothing will fail and I’ll be able to keep it for another year, because I don’t particularly need more performance at the moment and needing to switch to a 64-bit operating system may prove a problem for at least some of the old games I want to at least try playing, not to mention that said switch to 64-bit will almost certainly require me to replace this old TV tuner. I’m considering a better CPU cooler, but replacing that truly frightens me and, either way, I’d want an outstanding one that I’ll be able to keep on the next computer as well, but those I’d have my eyes on now are likely to have compatibility issues with what I currently have, so I’m rather at a loss.
Either way, it just so happened that today dad sprayed the small amount of mold that had appeared in my room over the winter, since he said he had time for it now. Unlike in previous years, the mold actually only appeared in two places and didn’t spread, obviously thanks to the particularly mild winter, so I only actually needed dad’s help to move the desk, but he did the actual spraying as well since he was here. That left me to first take everything out of the desk, then put everything back in once it was moved back in place, and clean the room, including moving the bed to vacuum under it as well, since I can actually grab and drag that on my own. As such, there was no reason not to open the computer and clean as much dust as I could from it as well, since I hadn’t done so since last summer, and this seems to have resulted in the CPU running a couple of degrees cooler than before. The temperatures I’m seeing now still mean that a hot summer will pose a serious problem, however, hence me considering that better cooler…
I’ll also briefly mention here that I went out for a while, so I won’t stay here right after that spray was used, and decided to check out one small bookstore that sells books in English, since I noticed that they had a sale this week. Didn’t get anything, however, since the books I may have gotten immediately were more expensive than I could find them elsewhere, despite the discount, and I feel too uncomfortable whenever I’m there to browse others at length and still manage to actually purchase them. There were a few I was considering and some particularly cheap ones that I may have at least looked into, perhaps writing down at least the authors, if not the titles as well, to check some reviews and then go back in case any will actually seem interesting, but when I was the only potential customer there and had two people staring straight at me by the time I finished casually browsing, one literally standing right next to me, if probably simply because that was the only place where he could stand in that cramped space and still talk with the other, all I wanted was to get out.
