Unfortunately . . .
. . . I was wrong.
Why is it so easy to get an addiction?
My University bursary of £500 gets paid on March 18th, so I have ££40 to live on until then.
Fine, I thought, with a slightly faulty computer.
What does it do when I was using it this morning before lectures?
It decides to completely conk out to a point where I have to take it to a local computer repair shop (BUTO in Bradford, UK. I really recommend them if you live in the immediate area!). Unfortunately, the fault is an amalgamation of several faulty components in the computer:
As it was made by Maxdata (a German computer "manufacturer" who went bust in 2008 - serves them right!!!), it is simply cheap, new (for 2007), basic parts from other manufacturers just collated into one shitty tower PC (a Maxdata "Favorit" - ironic name as it's certainly not my favourite!).
The faulty parts are:
Cheap and nasty AMD (or, an anagram of "MAD" - as they certainly are MAD for making a computer this awful) motherboard, using parts that aren't totally suited for the job, e.g. traditional capacitors instead of those special capacitors that Intel motherboards use.
the Motherboard has also suffered some damage from some external speakers, it has somehow got an electrical charge from said speakers (that use a mains plug) and this has burnt out the audio jack socket.
Also, the processor card may be at fault. i'll explain how I found this out.
The computer was installed with 1x512Mb RAM stick, with Vista Home running on it (it was an up'n'running PC, straight out of the box, hey presto!) I decided to get 2x1Gb RAM sticks for it, as it had two RAM stick ports on the motherboard/processor.
When i switched on the computer after it started to show black and white stripey lines, it would just switch on - and nothing else. it wouldn't boot up (start up).
So, when the RAM stick was replaced with one of the new 1Gb RAM sticks by the very helpful guy at BUTO to try and diagnose the problem while I was there before 12:40 (I had lectures at 1pm), the computer started up as it should, with the slightly surprising "beep" from the motherboard to say that everything is functioning perfectly.
Least that's one step forward. Now for the repair/replacement of the motherboard . . .
BTW, my collection of TVs and VCRs is as follows:
TVs:
1x 1982-ish Grundig CUC 95 colour 14" portable (no remote)
1x 1985 Philips 2014 colour 14" portable (no remote)
1x 1986 Pye 14CF1014/05R colour 14" portable (no remote - faulty volume control) (FOR SALE)
VCRs:
1x 1981 Sanyo VTC5150 Betamax machine (has only recently needed replacement idler and belts)
1x 1983 Ferguson Videostar 3V43 (don't know this one's JVC identity - it's the one with audio VU meters. it's "made in Japan" so it's definetly a Ferguson-badged JVC.
1x 1983 Ferguson Videostar 3V45 (re-badged JVC HRD-150) (needed new belts, plus some work to the button sensors)
1x 1985 Ferguson Videostar 3V65 (re-badged JVC HRD-160) (head drum doesn't spin fast enough, so tape bunches up inside the machine when playing or recording - beyond repair but keeping because of sentimental reasons)
1x 1985 JVC HRD-170 (always worked apparently, never broken down)
1x 1990-ish Pye (re-badged Philips) 20DV1 (needs new pinch roller - unfortunately uses Philips "Charly" mechanism) FOR SALE
1x 1996-ish Samsung SV203B (again, needs new pinch roller - video heads not just worn, but shot to pieces as it doesn't unthread tape in fast forward or rewind)) FOR SALE
AAAAAAAAAAAAnyway, you will see loads of random stuff on this blog over the next few coming months, as it will be used for a visual diary for my visual communication lectures. this is just an experimental test post.
