Each time something goes wrong with my internet connection or my computer hardware, I am reminded just how central a role both play in my life. When the internet is out for extended periods, I can go to the local PC cafe to handle the vitals, but as I do my work at home my daily routine is drastically disrupted. Fortunately, internet outages rarely last longer than a few hours. What’s worse is a hardware failure.
The system I have now was first assembled just shy of three years ago. Before I’d had the system a year my graphics card burned out. IIRC, it was a Chaintech NVIDIA Geforce FX 5200 LE. I had wanted something more, but at the time money was tight and I figured I’d upgrade later. When it burned out, I replaced it with a Chaintech Geforce 6600 GT. Since that time, I’ve replaced my power supply twice. The second time I went for a more reputable brand than those generally available at the average hardware shop in Korea.
Finding a reliable computer store in Korea isn’t exactly an easy task. I can relate a few personal stories of being ripped off in one way or another. There were several lessons learned (such as, don’t leave the store until you’ve opened the box to make sure you are walking out with the brand you paid for). Ultimately, I found a reliable shop that actually sells for a bit cheaper than others. They have a great reputation and a number of their customers are foreigners, so the staff speaks English well. The last isn’t so important, since I can usually get by with just speaking Korean, but I’m not fluent so the ability to use both languages reduces the chance of a misunderstanding. The only problem with this particular store is that they usually stock their shelves with whatever hardware brands happen to be the easiest to sell at any given time.
For most people, which brand you buy doesn’t really matter. When I go to the store to browse video cards, I’m always asking if they have any ASUS brand NVIDIAs. Without fail, the answer is “no.” Without trying, I already know that browsing other shops in the vast electronics market where this particular store resides will also result in the negative. The problem is that every single one of those shops (and there are at least a few hundred) get their stock from the same supplier(s). I haven’t figured it out yet (and I haven’t asked) but there may actually be only one supplier for the entire electronics market, though I have suspicions that there are two or three. As a result, if the suppliers don’t carry it, the stores don’t stock it. That’s the primary reason I wound up with Chaintech video cards the two times I purchased them.
This past Sunday morning, I booted my computer shortly after stumbling out of bed. It took me a moment to realize that the computer was booting, but nothing was showing up on either of my monitors. I was immediately taken by a bout of depression, knowing that it was Sunday and that my regular hardware shop, like most others, would be closed that day. Even if it were open, I knew I wouldn’t be able to narrow down the problem without help. All of the repair shops would be closed for certain.
After a few vain attempts at rebooting, I unplugged everything and started poking around inside. I was certain the problem was one of two things: the graphics card or the power supply. The last time a video card burned out, it was quite obvious — a section of the card had actually been charred from overheating. This time, there were no such signs. I had no spare video cards lying around to test with, so there was no way to eliminate the card as the cause. I do have two old power supplies sitting on a shelf, but both of them are defective. Even if I did drop them in temporarily, there was no guarantee neither of them would display the same symptoms (which would make it impossible to rule out the power supply). So, I resolved myself to spend a day with no computer and decided to take the whole thing to a repair shop the next day.
In my first English lesson at 7:00 am Monday morning, I related my tale of woe to the class. One of the class members (these guys are all senior managers with Samsung-Total, so I always feel strange calling them ’students’) told me that he usually calls to have a repair man come to his house when he has trouble. This sounded inviting, as I was dreading the idea of lugging my computer around the electronics market. So I decided to ask my wife to schedule an appointment.
Considering that I speak enough Korean to live in Korea, you’d think it would be a simple thing for me to call information, get a phone number for a local computer repair shop, and make the call myself. But experience has shown that even the most basic of phone conversations can result in the Korean on the other end repeatedly asking “What are you talking about?” I’m often complimented on my pronunciation and grammar when speaking in person, but when speaking over the phone it takes extraordinary effort to get my point across. So these days I just ask my wife to handle it.
The day went by and I didn’t hear from my wife. Her office is usually quite busy, so I didn’t bother calling her until I was heading out for my evening class in the late afternoon. As I suspected, she had forgotten to make the call. By the time she did get around to it there was no way the guy could make it out that day. She made an appointment for 11:00 am on Tuesday.
The repair guy showed up at the appointed time this morning. The first thing he attempted to rule out was the video card. So he dropped another card in, booted, and the monitors happily came to life. He was going to sell me the video card he had put in until I learned it was an old Geforce FX 5700 Ultra. No thanks. I paid him about $35 for his time, headed out to my regular hardware store, and picked up a Geforce 7600 GT. This time, I was determined not to buy a Chaintech. As usual, there were no ASUS cards (they have ASUS motherboards, I can’t imagine why they don’t stock the graphics cards, too), so I went with the only other option available: emTek. If I could wait until next month, I’d be able to buy a heavier card, but as always this sort of critical hardware failure only happens when my credit card is nearly maxed out and I’ve already overspent my budget for the month.
Still, I’m fairly happy. I’ve been considering a graphics card upgrade and this forced my hand. It’s not top-of-the-line, but it serves my purposes. I have a couple of games that I could not run full-throttle on the old card but this new one handles them nicely with all options enabled. Plus it’s my first 256MB card. The previous two had 128 MB of RAM on board. All of the reviews I’ve read of the 7600 are positive. The biggest surprise for me, though, is that this card is silent. That Chaintech card I had sounded like a friggin chainsaw. This new card is running in stealth mode.
So two full days of no computer make Aldacron a grumpy guy. When I recently took a week off from programming to do other things, I was still checking blog feeds and email, playing games, and making the occasional post to my blogs. The past two days, by contrast, were an eternity. I finished off a book, watched all six hours of Lonesome Dove in one sitting, watched more CNN International that I care to admit, and I must have walked a marathon pacing around my living room. I’m having a hard time remembering what life was like before I bought my first computer.
Technorati Tags: NVIDIA Geforce, hardware, graphics cards, Chaintech, ASUS, emTek, Korea
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