Well, today was the day I built my own computer for the very first time. ^_^ Lets just say, for all the times my blood-pressure soared, it went off without a hitch. Right now, I’m preparing to install Windows XP on it and am about 75% of the way through partitioning and formatting my new hard drive.

As you know from my previous posts, I made a list of the parts I would need a couple weeks ago and placed my order. My goal was a really nice, but not state-of-the-art gaming and graphic arts machine. Basically, I needed it a little more powerful than the standard computer you can buy from the store, but without the several thousand dollar price tag.

So, my case came today. Cue me prancing out to the street in my pajamas to grab this HUGE box from the UPS guy. (Who has actually been really nice about huge box a week thing.) After lunch and doing a little more homework I set to work.

I got an internship with Second Life, working on an experiment for one of the professors at my college.

While I’m seriously geeked over the prospect of an internship in an MMO, my time over the past few days in Second Life has taken my video card to the brink of death.

So, I had two options: A.) Burn the money on a new video card or B.) Get a new computer.

Lets see…Buy a new video card when: The current video card is dying, the heat sink on the north bridge spontaneously fell off so I probably have heat damage (which is probably half the reason for the graphics problems), and now the hard drive has been clicking intermittently. Yeah, new computer it is.

Not happy with the factory-built systems I have been finding, I decided it was high time to build my own. So, $830 later, I have parts coming from Newegg.

Here’s the specs/parts:

• ASUS P5K PRO LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
• Intel Core 2 dual core processor, 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache
• Seagate 500GB, 7200 RPM hard drive
• SAPPHIRE Radeon 512MB 256-bit HDCP Video Card
• 700 watt power supply
• CD/DVD RW Drive
• 1 GB memory (They were out of the 2GB sticks I wanted and figured this would be enough to get me started.)
• And finally, last, but not least: The Case

And finally, since I’ll have access to XP Pro once I can get back to my programming classes, I ordered an OEM version of XP Home to tide me over.

So, in roughly three days, the poor UPS guy should be planning my homicide. *laughs* (He seems to be deathly afraid of Luna!)