inahandbasket

Overclocking update:
Up to 125% overclock - 1800 -> 2240 mhz
I tested the CPU and determined that it's capable of 2690mhz.
I'm being limited by other aspects of the system and trying to find the best balance.

At this point I'm officially satisfied with the system's capabilities, so even if I have to stop at 125% it will have been a worthwhile upgrade. I wanted to get at least 2.2ghz out of it, and I've accomplished that. I haven't fully tested stability, but I did a few quick and dirty checks and everything's fine. I'll run a full 24 hour stress test after I push it some more.
I only had about an hour to mess with it yesterday, so I'm hoping that once I get some time to really whack at it I'll get some even better numbers.

new computer up and running, no magic smoke was released in the construction of it either.
All in all, a good thing.

Currently running a modest 114% overclock, I hope to get it up to a full 150% before I'm done.
( geek bits )
It's running pretty quiet already, but the videocard is 4x as noisy as the rest of the machine put together, so I just dropped $35 on an aftermarket heatsink for it. Once I get that installed, my entire system should be nice and quiet, like my old one was when I first built it.
*happy sigh*

( system specs, for further geekitude )

So I had a long, calm, nice weekend.
First off, didn't get to go to the cambridge brewing company's brewers dinner. That made me mad. Apparently they were booked up 2.5 weeks ahead of time, whereas last time we just walked in without reservations. The one week lead time I called in with just wasn't enough to secure us seats. *heavy sigh*
I will NOT make that mistake again.
So instead we went to the red house in harvard sq. for dinner. It was VERY TASTY! And we had CHAMPAGNE! So take that CBC. =P I ordered rabbit wrapped in bacon, stuffed with fancy sausage. It was so, freakin, tasty. My first time having rabbit, and I approved veddy muchos. prosicated looked stunning, and had a disgustingly good Lobster Risotto. We were both happily full of tastiness with wonderful appetizers and dessert, and took the T home.
Sunday after a tasty brunch at Christopher's, I went with some old friends to play Frisbee Golf way up north at the tip of Massachusetts. It was a beautiful day, I wore a T-shirt in November, and played ok once I warmed up.
All in all, a quite good weekend.
_______________________

Now I'm working on building a new computer without adding any of my own money to the system. Aka., selling and trading stuff I own to build my new machine. So far I've sold a Nintendo DS (gameboy-thingy) and a hard drive, and just bought a motherboard. I now have $25 in my paypal account, so I need to sell something else before I can purchase my next part.

• Motherboard - $105 DFI NF4 Ultra (non-sli but modable)
  
• Processor - $90 Athlon64 3000+ Venice, should hit 2.7ghz on air cooling
  
• Heat Sink & Fan - $60 (probably have to get this retail) scythe ninja
  
• Video Card - 6800gs $200 || 6600gt $100
  
• Case/PSU :: Antec Sonata2 $90
  
• 2 SATA hard drives - $150
Got a good deal on a pair of 200gb barracudas. To RAID or not to RAID...

Sale worthy parts of replacing machine:
AthlonXP 2500+, $70+
Mobo - NF7-s 2.0, $40ish
Antec Sonata Case, $50ish
Radeon 9800pro 128mb, $100
So i can recoup at least $250 once I replace my current box. That'll cover the heatsink that I'll have to get retail, and most of the video card depending on which route I go.

I may run out of sellable/tradable items before I finish the machine, in which case I'll be forced to add some cash to the deal, but I'll at least offset the cost by half (minimum) before I hit that point.

So we had a SICK huge thunderstorm last night.
It fried our cable modem.
DOH!
Got to work, discovered that it must have hit one of Comcast's trunks, as at least one other person in Cambridge had a piece of cable equipment fried (her set-top box).

Ah well, get to replace my cable modem.
That means I get to go to microcenter!
mmm... microcenter...
*drool*