Rest In Peace, CM Aquagate VIVA, And A Few Other Stuffs

Hauling my 'waifu' (my desktop PC) back and forth from my college at Setapak Jaya to my campus (or, my 'office') at Jalan Semarak for like two weeks seems to have some consequences as my 'waifu' is starting to feel 'sick'. And so one day I left my 'waifu' in the 'office' overnight, the next day she 'screams' as I turned it on. The cause: lack of coolant flow in my Aquagate VIVA triggers the safety alarm. After a little fiddling with the internals, I do manage to get it into working state again, for another two weeks, but not without the occasional quick-fixes. Heck I even have to reformat my HDD due to some data corruption from frequent restarts.

In fact I've hauled it to Temerloh, Pahang for a week during a community welfare program, and then for a few more days back and forth from my college to my campus. Think of how much endurance my 'waifu' have to take.

Until yesterday, I decided to put the faulty liquid-cooling system to rest, replaced with the far cheaper CM Vortex 752. I don't do any overclocking due to the motherboard's limitation, so I think that would suffice for now.

Things doesn't go well all the way. Removing the water block caused the CPU to be plugged out by force, which in return caused two of the pins to bend. Fortunately enough I can straighten the pins again, and get it working. Damn I was worried I would have to spend another RM200 just to get myself another Athlon 5000+ BE. The thermal grease made the bond so tight like a powerful suction cup, and with the water block still there, I can't lift the latch which holds the CPU in place. With the help of a screwdriver, I finally manage to separate the water block and the CPU. Whew.

Speaking of damages, my trusty CRT monitor sometimes needs to be plugged off before it can be waked up from standby mode. And my keyboard, Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000 also failed me after a simple wash (some drink spilled on it, unfortunately). Fact is, the keyboard is waterproof, or so it was claimed. Splashed it with some water, let it dry, then some keys no longer work. And so comes another dirt-cheap replacement for RM18. At least the only thing which isn't a replacement is a Logitech Dual Action gamepad, which oddly slows my reaction in certain games suitable for a gamepad, like GRID, HAWX, and NFS Undercover. Maybe I'm just not used to it. Devil May Cry 3 works very well for me though.

There goes my salary, RM200 for making a Flash presentation about global warming, and another RM50 for designing graphics for some sort of resume (not mine). A part of it was lended to the Photography Club to repair a faulty Nikon D70s, and another part was spent for pizza.