My recent lack of success

[KevinL]

I thought my AGP video card was dying on me, so I searched Ebay for a new AGP card with more memory, found one, and bought it. When it arrived, it would not work with my system. I tried it in my dad's computer, and it worked fine. So then I figured the reason why the video card was flakey was because the +3.3V was constantly fluctuating between 2.5V and 3.3V. So I searched Ebay for a new motherboard similar to the one my dad has. I found one with a P4HT 3.2GHz and 512mb RAM. It arrived on Friday and I installed it only to discover I accidentally purchased one with a PCI-E slot!

So I headed off to the local electronics store to purchase a new PCI-E video card, installed it, and everything works now, along with 2GB total of RAM. But, I spent $41 on the AGP video card, $51 on the motherboard, and $70 on the new PCI-E video card. Needless to say, my wife is not happy that a $41 Christmas gift from her turned into a $162 upgrade-a-palooza, but I hope I can make some of the money back by selling both video cards and my original motherboard and 3.2GHZ processor.

[Hawk]

What make and model numbers are those things you're selling?

BTW! Are you familiar with NewEgg? That's where I do 90% of my shopping for computer parts.

[Knave]

My percentage for buying from Newegg is over 99. Not quite 100. I have a couple of power supplies...left over. Yeah, I know what your Wife is saying.

[WPandP]

ONLY $162 for an upgrade?

That's nice and cheap. I have a tendency to spend $300 to $600 at a go, when upgrading season comes along. Of course, that happens less frequently these days. But I've really only ever bought 1 computer for myself, a Gateway Pentium-75 that I snagged in 1995; ever since then, it's been in continual upgrade cycle. I still use the original case, though I've had to modify it with a jigsaw in order to get some new parts to fit, and these days I've got a Core 2 Duo 3.0 Ghz with 4 GB RAM, an Nvidia 8800 GTS video card, and a 500 GB RAID-5 array; it's almost but not quite to the point where every performance statistic that once had the prefix "mega" now is the same stat but with the prefix "giga". That is, the original machine had 8 MB RAM and a 750 MB hard drive.

Actually, maybe I get point for the hard drive, because my RAID is built out of (3) 250 GB drives, so I've actually got 3x250=750 GB of storage capacity, if I did away with the RAID 5.

I know, these days you can get whole new computers, compleat with a photo printer, for $500. But I've never had the heart to just junk my baby; my full tower case still has that old Gateway logo on it, it still looks like *my* computer.

[Gwizz]

Well,

I have a tendency to spend $300 to $600 at a go

Truly the boss of the house.

Me. I'm hen pecked, but I wouldn't have it another way.
She is the world's best cook among other things.

[Gandar]

In my home I do the cooking and my wife leaves me to my PC whilst she watches TV. This is why she didn't complain when I went out to buy my new machine, I very cunningly fed her a non Weight Watcher meal so she was in a good mood when I went shopping.

[KevinL]

What make and model numbers are those things you're selling?

BTW! Are you familiar with NewEgg? That's where I do 90% of my shopping for computer parts.

I gave the motherboard and processer to my dad, wherein the motherboard promptly died. Good thing I upgraded as it was more of a problem then I thought. (Or maybe he just killed it using an inferior power supply I told him not to use.)

The video cards are a ATI Radeon 9200 AGP with a VGA and DVI output and 256 MB, and a ATI Radeon Sapphire 3650 AGP with 512 MB and two DVI outputs.

Yes I have heard of Newegg but I prefer to take my chances and buy cheaper used from Ebay. For new I go to the local store, Fry's Electronics.