BAROVELLI.COM

Thank you, thank you. Everything is working REAL good. And the people at Pixel USA have a new story to tell..

The computer as it sits now:

What’s been gifted:
The Intel Motherboard
The 2 Memory Modules
The Core2 Duo CPU
The silent cooler fan

What’s been added:
Not the specified Video Card, but a suitable interim card - EVGA 8600GT
New power supply - Needed some modern connectors and a ‘greener’ unit to help justify 24/7 operation.
Zalman Video card fan. Real quiet.

What’s been ripped out
The 2nd optical drive, a Sony DVD/CDR combo unit. Suffered whirr of death: whirrrrrr bzzt, whirrrrrrrr bzt, whirrrrrrrr, bzt.
Antec TruControl panel. Went with the old power supply.
3.5″ Floppy. The new Intel Motherboard has no place for old junk.
Soundblaster Platinum and it’s associated front panel. Vista hates it.

What was kept:
Dell 24″ LCD monitor. Bonus buy 2 years ago.
Seagate 750 Gig hard disk. Movies & backup.
Seagate 400 Gig hard disk. Main operating drive
Coolermaster Stacker tower case. The most beautiful and roomy case ever made.
Zalman fan bay. I like blue lights.
Coolermaster triple gauges. More blue lights.
Microsoft Keyboard 4000. I like the Microsoft split keyboards. I don’t use all the geegaws on it.
Logitech G5 corded mouse, with ALL the weights installed.
Sony DVD RW/CDRW. One optical drive is enough.
Hauppauge WinTV PVR150 TV tuner & FM Radio card.
Windows Vista Ultimate. I did get the 20 questions when reinstalling Windows. I installed it right over the old install on the same re-used hard drive. It set off alarms that I may be stealing from Bill Gates so I had to talk to a guy from India to get it activated. Was kind of unfriendly and not a happy experience.
Altec Lansing 2.1 speaker system.

What’s it still need:
Couple of new 120mm fans. Without the old computer’s noisy video card fan (BFG7800GS - no one made a replacement fan for it) the tower’s 4 year old fans revealed their noise.
Two more memory modules.
A better video card - Some Nvidea 8800GT
Keep thinking about a new keyboard. I know I’ll spill Pepsi into the old Microsoft KB4000 some day, that will make me change it.

The pilot’s view