Solo Technology

My trusty old PC started another round of hardware issues this week - primarily cooling based this time. The heat-sink fan was getting sluggish and one of the case fans was having a rough time as well. I’ve limped this thing along through a series of cases, motherboards and upgrades for almost 6 years now…

Remember the old joke? “Sure, this is George Washington’s axe! We’ve replaced the handle 3 times and this is the 4th handle…” That’s my home PC.

Since it needs a ton of fans to keep cool it is obnoxiously loud. The CPU has always ran hot — in fact, it acts like a loud little space heater in my home office. Therefore, this time around, instead of repairs I ran some back ups and then finally retired it.

The “new” machine is based on a “borrowed” Dell e521.  Still old hardware, but at least 5 years more modern than what I had. Powered by an AMD 64 3200+ and 2GB ram. A co-worker and friend donated his PCI-E ATI 1650 pro card to the cause as well. I pulled my Raptor and other SATA drive from the old one and loaded up the Dell last night.

Since I received a free copy of Vista Ultimate earlier this month, I’ve decided to give it a shot for home use. After all, the reasons I’m not going Vista at work don’t really apply to my home use.

I’m pleasantly surprised at the “Experience Score” this old’ish machine cranked out:

Think that Raptor drive helps with the primary hard disk score? I’m not sure I expected the CPU to my weak spot, but I guess it makes sense.

I’ve run the Windows Update a few times and am a bit stumped by a couple things though.

1. Vista Service Pack 1 hasn’t been offered yet. I wonder if I have to go get it manually? Seems counter-intuitive…
2. I made sure to grab all the ultimate “extras” but I can’t seem to find ‘em. I’d like to at least try DreamScene. Update assures me it is installed. [Update: Heh, I should've checked Help first!]

My home office is already cooler and quite a bit quieter due to the change. Now to see if I can adapt to Vista… I definitely still love the Start menu search action! Best feature of the entire OS I think.

5 Responses to “Ultimately Vista”

1. Alisha on May 23rd, 2008 9:58 am
   

   Wow, that is a nice score, better than my new computer’s score. The gaming graphics score for mine is a 3.0, so it kills the whole score. It’s just some wimpy on-board video. (But still able to display aero)

   My primary hard disk score is 5.8 with my processor being a 5.1.

   Your RAM score is even higher than mine and I have 4GB.

   I just don’t understand why it takes the lowest score and says that’s the overall. Vista’s performance on my computer feels like it should be a much higher score than 3.0. So, I try not to worry about the score too much. Microsoft should change it.

2. Jeff on May 23rd, 2008 11:36 am
   

   Maybe it takes the lowest score since that is going to be the drag on the system. You can only go as fast as the slowest component, so to speak.

3. Alisha on May 24th, 2008 1:31 pm
   

   That could be. But, if that is true, why is it performing so well? Unless 3.0 to Microsoft is a high score. Does anyone know what the highest score possible is?

4. Chris on May 24th, 2008 1:53 pm
   

   I *think* 6.0 is the highest?

5. » pingback » Fixed the Hitch in My Giddyup » Solo Technology on August 20th, 2008 8:50 pm
   
   

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