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Rebuilding

Battling endless PC assembly problems, but I am back on the web. Lessons learned:

Never, ever buy a 1.4GHz Athlon. Sure, the price/performance looked good at the time. But I am suffering from severe overheating problems, and my system is still freezing up about once an hour on average. Now that I've factored in the time, money, and heartache dealing with this problem (I calculate heartache at roughly $20/hour), it would have been far more efficient to go with a fast PIII. So far, here's what I've tried.

1. Baseline. Steady state chip temperature: 68 degrees C.
2. New chassis with better airflow, extra fan. Temperature: 59 degrees C.
3. Taking off the chassis side door. Now we're going ghetto. Temperature: 56 degrees C.
4. Underclocking to 1.05 GHz. Please don't tell anyone on WatercooledAthlonEnthusiast.com... I have a reputation to protect. Temperature: 49 degrees C.

All temperature measurements are with the Asus motherboard probe. Some say this probe is off by up to 10 degrees. Some say it's pretty accurate. Heck, I don't even know if the temperature is uniform across the chip. Nor do I know what magic temperature will eliminate the freezing problem completely, although I hear rumors that 50 degrees is pretty close. Welcome to the mystical world of Computer "Science".

Never, ever use Microsoft Outlook Express. Well, ok, everyone says this. Here's what gets me: the total inability to export old email messages. You can't export messages into *.PST files in Outlook Express without getting MAPI errors. You can't import *.PST files either, because the import function refuses to deal with files... just "identities". Huh?

Microsoft does have a very clearly-written technical article (#Q176267) on this subject, with step-by-step instructions. Unfortunately, the instructions don't have anything to do with reality.

So if you're using Outlook Express, you might as well scrawl your old email messages in cuneiform on the back of your motherboard. 'Cause they ain't leaving your hard drive, ever.

Never assume that if you buy a new piece of hardware, the shipped drivers are current. I hear the crowd saying, "Duh", so let's move on.

Never assume that PC assembly and compatibility problems improve or go away with time. See sidebar.

At this point, it's time to start calling technical support for the various vendors. Perhaps they'll be helpful. Isn't it pretty to think so?

Posted by Evan Goer on Oct. 28, 2001 at 3:22 PM