I spent some of my Christmas vacation upgrading the hardware on my PC. I’ve been suspicious that there was something wrong with my old motherboard, so I decided to get a new one. And when you’re getting a new motherboard, you might as well get a new CPU and new RAM. And since I was getting a new motherboard, it ought to have PCI-Express, so that meant a new graphics card as well. I’ve been through this process a few times now, so I thought I’d try to collect some of the wisdom I’ve acquired by doing it. There are lots of people who are more expert at system building than myself, but maybe I can save someone from a special class of boneheaded mistakes: those I’ve made myself. Read the rest of this entry »