So I Rebuilt My Computer Today

Okay, it's 12:48 AM, so I guess I should say I rebuilt it yesterday. Anyhow, it's always a great joy to do a major undertaking like this and have everything actually work when you put it back together. I did have one scary moment. After installing Windows 7, I got to the registration page, and after filling everything out including the key #, I got a message saying that my software was out of date. At first I thought maybe I needed to reset the clock/year in BIOS, but then it suggested that I go online and try to register it there, but wouldn't you know that W7 couldn't detect a modem or a driver for one. I use AT&T DSL along with a D-link N 300 so my laptop can go wireless. I figured Windows would have a driver for the ethernet connection. It didn't. Strange. Fortunately the utility disc that came with the new MOBO had the driver on there, so after installing it I was able to get online, and W7 somehow did the registration automatically. Funny that just a few minutes earlier it was flashing a message saying my copy of W7 "may be illegal." I don't really know what that was about.

I just bought a new Antec case a couple of years ago, so I re-used that and also kept my DVD burner which is only a year old. So I basically got a new MOBO, CPU, HDD, RAM, and the new pro version of Windows 7 64-bit. Oh, and I kept my Firewire card because there's no FW on the new MOBO. My new laptop didn't come with any FW either. I guess it really is on the way out, and USB has won the war. The FW built-in to most MOBOs is junk anyway most of the time. The only thing I really use it for is transferring MiniDV footage.

For those interested in the details, I use a microATX case because it fits perfectly under my desk and I don't need a lot of slots. I went with an ASUS M4A88T-M/USB3 MOBO. It looks to be a great one (ASUS makes some of the best), and comes with some terrific overclocking tools. I hate to use the term "overclock" because no one really overclocks anything anymore. You never push anything past its prescribed limits. They should really call it re-clocking. I'm continuing my love affair with AMD chips and used one of their best quad cores--the Phenom II X4 965. It's rated at 3.4GHz, but I've been... umm-umm... re-clocking it to nearly 3.9 with no problems at all. I can't wait to get my audio and video programs running on this tomorrow since they're smart enough to know how to take advantage of all four cores. I also went with one of G-Skill's 8G Ripjaws RAM sets. This machine ought to smoke!

And hard drives... man I can't believe we're seeing 2-terabyte units out now. That's an amazing amount of space. And some are running at 10000rpm! I went with just a 1-TB Western Digital unit at 7200rpm. You can get them fairly cheap, and it's still a lot of space.

I'm thinking of switching from Adobe Premiere to Sony Vegas for video editing. I'll probably be blogging about that soon. I would love to get away from the evil giant. Adobe is a longtime funder of the Planned Parenthood baby killers and is on just about every abortion watchlist out there. I also can't stand one of their video personnel.