New computer (soon)

I finally ordered parts for a new (desktop) computer. I have been meaning to do so for at least a year now, but kept putting it off because of being busy or lazy and not knowing quite what I wanted. In the end, I decided upon and ordered:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6750, 2.66GHz for $291.38 from XP Computers
• Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L (Intel G31) microATX motherboard for $125.28 from PC Genie
• nVidia GeForce 8400 GS for $61.43 from PC OnLine Shop
• 2GB DDR2-800 PC2-6400 SDRAM for $32.04 from PC OnLine Shop

Unfortunately the place I ordered the processor from apparently does not have any in stock at the moment, and do not know when they will get more. Others places selling the same model are significantly more expensive, and the closest other model is also quite a lot more expensive. So I guess I will have to wait a while longer yet.

It will be good to have a new machine though, as my current motherboard (I assume) has a lot of problems: the serial port is broken, often when it is cold the graphics card and sound hardware do not initialise properly for the first few attempts at booting it, so I have to keep rebooting until finally it works. Lately it has also been having random crashes at all sorts of times, which may be due to bad RAM or also the motherboard (though I have not tested). And it is a bit old and slow; it was fairly much bottom of the line when I got it about 4 years ago, and even with the new RAM and drives I have got in that time it is a bit of a pain sometimes.