Major Computer Failure

Sorry for the lack of updates, but this has really been an all-around horrible week.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you probably already know that I’ve been having trouble with my desktop computer. Around Tuesday or so it randomly decided that it wasn’t Direct3d compatible anymore. On a Windows machine, this of course spells major trouble. Not only does it render most games unplayable, it makes it virtually impossible to get any sort of work done. Even browsing the internet can be a chore because Windows is chugging along mostly on CPU-generated software graphics. OpenGL appears works just fine, and the display is going out correctly to both monitors, the computer just refuses to interface with or even recognize Direct3d.

I’ve tried everything. I’ve reseated the video card (multiple times), uninstalled and reinstalled the video card drivers (multiple times), installed older versions of the drivers, started up with all non-Microsoft services shut down, even messed around with the Windows registry and system BIOS. Nothing. The only thing I haven’t tried is wiping the main hard drive and reinstalling Windows, but to give you an idea of just how long it’s been since I’ve had a good system upgrade, the only Windows install disc I have is for XP service pack 1.

The entire reinstall process will take days in and of itself. I’ll have to download install all the updates to bring XP up-to-date (well, as much as XP can be), find and reinstall all my work software, reconfigure all the settings back to how they were, troubleshoot all the new issues that inevitably pop up… I’m getting worn out just thinking about it. And, while this should fix the issue, if it’s a hardware issue with the motherboard/CPU or the video card, I’ll have done it all for naught.

This has been a long time coming. My computer’s failure was inevitable, and I knew it. I’ve only had minor upgrades to my system over the past decade, mostly with hand-me-down-parts, and the last one was five or six years ago. I’ve had lots of issues with my computer over the past few years, becoming increasingly worse, and I knew it was only a matter of time before it finally gave out. It’s part of why I put so much effort into getting Another Star finished before that happened. Sales from the game were supposed to help pay for a major overhaul of my system, but that didn’t work out.

Thankfully, I still have a laptop, which despite some minor issues of its own is functional. It’s not really designed for anything other than playing DVDs and surfing the internet, but it works at least. I suppose I’ll have to be switching over to it for my main system. However, with the lack of storage space and processing power, I’m not sure how long it’s going to hold up as a work machine, especially for a freelance artist.

Only time will tell.

One thought on “Major Computer Failure

  1. Ooooh, my computer is causing me trouble too. But it’s a lot more scary in my case. For some reason whenever the room temperature gets below 20.5° my cooler gets really loud when the computer is running. Also when the computer is switched off and the room temperature gets below 20.5° the cooler keeps going on and off (scary!). Only way to solve it (when I don’t actually want to start the computer or heat the room) is to remove the electrical power supply. But if I do that and reconnect the computer later on the cooler will also go on and off permanently and it’s quite hard to switch on the computer at all (I press the button but most of the time nothing happens).

    Bleh, guess I’ll have to get a new computer soon too, which sucks because I’m currently mostly playing games that need Windows Vista or older to run (currently only playing older games).

    At least I backed up all the important files already to be safe.

    I always try to keep the files that I absolutely cannot lose to a minimum so it’s not too bad to get a new computer. Which is mainly all the stuff I developed myself including notes and the text file that contains all the phone numbers of the people close to me.

    Luckily I don’t have to install too much stuff for development. Basically can just copy over the whole IDE folder and maybe install Open Office (I’m a spreadsheet addict) and I’m good to go.

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