I spent a big chuck of yesterday afternoon tinkering with computers. I’ve been wanting to get my sister’s computer running a little better and so I finally got down to it yesterday.
I got a few old computers from freecycle some time back and so I tried to get one of them running. I got one of them working well by swapping a bunch of parts into it but it still wasn’t quite up to the grade, so I turned my attention to upgrading my sister’s computer a little.
Her machine’s an old Pentium 2 so I can’t expect too much but I did get it to recognize a network card I installed and I put in an old hard drive for some extra storage. I even connected to our home network to see how it would handle broadband. It did pretty well within the limitations of an incredibly old, slow computer. It’s a good short term fix but I’m thinking that I might need to keep an eye out for a slightly faster second hand computer.
I messed around for quite some time inside several old computers yesterday, harvesting parts from the old machines and deciding which bits now need throwing out. I may not have got a lot further ahead, and I’m no technician, but there’s something deeply satisfying about being able to pull things apart and then put them back together and make them work.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
Technorati Tags: Computers
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I’m impressed! I don’t know the first thing about computers, or any electronics, for that matter.
Good on you Rodney. Always good to know a little bit about the omni-present PC!
Cheers, Thomas
Thanks for the comments, Jennifer and Thomas.
I don’t know as much about computers as I’d like but most of what I’ve learnt comes from trial and error.
I can pretty much pull a computer apart and put it back together as well as knowing how to add a few bits and pieces. It can be fairly handy to be able to ‘do it yourself’.