Custom PC Build

Building my own PC, who would have thought! With my Lenovo ideacentre not pulling its weight anymore and not finding any prebuilds that had everything I wanted kind of forced me down this route. I’m not averse to a challenge and usually if someone says ‘ I bet you..’ then it just has to be done. That is how I found myself staring into the black depths of Hell or a terrifying and very expensive mistake!

The reasons behind a new computer land solely on buying a new camera, a Nikon Z7 who’s file sizes my Lenovo just couldn’t handle and if your taking the photos you at least want to see them and it just wasn’t happening. In my previous post there is a list of everything I bought, this is how I built it.

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Unboxing was so traumatic as I have never even seen the inside of a computer before, starting with the motherboard and you dont want static when your touching this or its toast. How interesting, all of the connection points and stuff, I took a really hard look at it and in its own way it is a thing of beauty. I chose AMD Ryzen 7 for my CPU and that was a trauma to fit, dont touch the pins, fit it in the right way or else, find the triangles, which are SO small you need a magnifying glass to see! Next i fitted the Corsair SSD and there were NO additional screws in the box, the case anywhere, thank heavens for computer geeks who live near by. The Ryzen & comes with an RGB cooling fan so that went on next which was so fiddly trying to get the arms locked in place without pulling anything off or bumping anything but this was my first achievement, go me! The second was getting the motherboard into the case.

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Several YouTube videos later, a replacement part and several days I managed the 16GB memory, which was 2 x 8GB Corsair DDR4 memory, which was a snap to fit, as long as they are in the correct slots! Cooling was something I had to research as the kids always say their computers are running hot when they game and I wanted to avoid this if I could so I chose Corsairs Elite performance triple fan pack and put two on the front and one above the CPU, with an integrated fan at the back of the case, one on the CPU, two on the Graphics card and one on the power supply, I think there is enough. I then fitted the Nvidea Geforce RTX3050 graphics card, the hardest part to that was screwing the plate back in at the side, three hands needed! Seagate Barracuda HDD and a 750W MSI power supply went in, I turned it on and ….. nothing. Say what! Confusion, I’m sat there scratching my head wondering and hoping i’d not just blown £1.500 when my daughter came in and saw me and my puzzled face, SHE was the one to figure out that just because its turned on at the back doesn’t mean you don’t have to turn it on in the front too! BINGO, it worked!!!! Definitely a sweaty palms moment and it is soooo pretty.

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I had a moment as I couldn’t get the PC to recognise the monitor but hey kids don’t know everything, my son had plugged it into the wrong port and when plugged in properly opened up the Bios, a scary place if you get it wrong, I then tried to install Windows 11. So let me tell you a story, when purchasing your PC operating system bare in mind whether you want to install it from a CD or as a download, I bought a CD! It has no CD player! Off to buy a 32GB memory stick so I can use a kids PC to download it and put it on my computer. Windows 11 is brand new, so new that my computer kept telling me that it was not compatible, pull hair out in big clumps, so Windows 10 it had to be which I downloaded off the internet where I should have got Windows 11 from anyway. The install went so fast and after installing a few driver updates I was finally able to install Windows 11 and Adobe Cloud and Lightroom and PhotoShop and the photos that had caused the trauma in the first place! Opening LR was such a SHOCK, seconds instead of minutes, have you seen the Sky advert for internet with the minions, they open the laptop and all of a sudden are airborne because of the speed? That was me!

Apart from one or two hiccups I now have a lovely new computer, I’m not too sure about the monitor as I’m used to the glass screen on my Lenovo, I may add it as a second monitor just to check picture quality though I have been reassured I will get used to it, there are several persons who would gladly take the monitor off my hands if I don’t. I purchased a wifi keyboard and mouse too, the keyboard is fine but the mouse is rubbish so I will once again head over to Amazon and see what I can find/afford, I’m not paying stupid money if I can help it.

So that’s it, I’ve built my own computer and it works! GO ME!

Dear John……….

A letter to a much loved friend.

My dear, you have been one of the constants in my life for many years, i’m not really sure exactly how long ago we met but it was, on my side, love at first, no make that second, sight. There was another but they were out of my league, then I saw you.

You fulfilled me, empowered me, gave me a reason to be the best me. I can remember the first day we met, the excitement of taking you home to meet my family, of being alone with you and learning everything about you. We had fun times you and I, things went so fast between us, memories were filled, replaced and filled again, I could do things with you i’d never done before and there was no one to judge. I felt so enabled, you helped me produce some of my best work, you were my muse.

I know you remember the trips that were taken to the beautiful countryside and the city’s, to the mountains and the stately homes, you store them in your memory better than I, that’s why I rely on you so much to remember but I have come to realise how much you struggle now. It hurts to see you slowing down, I wait for you to catch me up and its taking longer each passing day but I wait and hope.

Your end of life diagnosis was such a shock to us both and I have nursed you through, I have removed as much of the outside interference as I dare but no one can live without a heart and yours has just about given up on me now. There will be no more laughing at silly youtube cat videos together, no more reminiscing over holidays and days out, the best we can do together is read and write the odd blog post. I will miss you when you have gone, you gave me the taste for a better life, you were there whenever I needed you and you worked hard to ensure I had what I needed when I needed it the most.

How will I ever replace you, you were so smart, you look amazing, you can still get into positions I can’t dream of but I cant replace your heart, so my dear, I am replacing you! It will be so very hard to let you go as I have loved working and playing with you over so many years but it really is over between us, I must move on. I cant turn back time to when we first met but someone else can and I believe you will live on in another life giving enjoyment to another person and I will have another love a love that is faster, remembers more and has so many capabilities, my dear you are being replaced by a Ryzen 9 heart with a Nvidea Geforce RTX 3050 graphics card and an MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk motherboard with so much power that we will soar high!

Goodbye my dear, I hope you will live a fulfilling life with another, maybe I will remember you but you know how bad my memory is ………………

Positive Posts

When you begin blogging it is always best to have something to ‘say’ and its in your best interest if you know what your talking about so you can blog it without the fear of someone cutting in and saying what a pratt you are for posting it. Be positive about your posts and in the knowledge that people WILL read them, even if its just a skim through, if its interesting to you and has something that speaks to them as a person they will keep skimming your posts with the end result them becoming an avid follower. Start telling people about the products that you use, what its like, how it works and by joining their products affiliate programs you could earn money from click through and any subsequent sales. Share their product offers and write reviews, if you find it interesting others will too.

I’m sitting here perspiring, sod it no, i’m sweating over this post as this mornings first hot flush sweeps me from head to toe. Hold on it wont last long, just going to open a window…….. My office is only small and my computer acts as a constant heat source so i’m battling that too. I’m thinking of today’s meal plan and have come up with the following. As i’m following the slimming world diet and eat healthily you can follow these recipes without gaining weight if it’s done correctly.

This morning we had the usual Overnight Oats

Ingredients

40g porridge oats

200g fat free natural yogurt

Mixed blueberries, strawberries and raspberries

Method

1. Layer the porridge, yogurt and fruit in a jar or bowl. Cover and put in the refrigerator overnight so the porridge absorbs all the yogurt.
2. In the morning stir so all the layers are mixed together and top with more fruit.

Tip: Swap the berries for different Speed Free Foods – pear and blackberry, orange and peach, or apple and cinnamon.

Very easy to do when your eyes are half shut at midnight and very tasty in the morning. I’m thinking we will go with a hearty soup for mid day and pulled pork for dinner tonight as it’s my eldest son’s favorite and he and his family are coming for dinner tonight. Perhaps if i can bribe him with his favorite food he will do some work in the garden while i think of my next post 😉

 

 

I’m getting my head around my Social Profile

I’m seriously starting with the whole social media and blog thing again as I think it will benefit , well hoping it will benefit, with photography sales and affiliation from the products I use. Deciding on how to do it as i’m totally out of my depth is another thing. I have watched webinars, they hook you with the ‘free’ webinar on how to make money from … then hit you for $497 reduced to $97 for the next 2 hours. COME ON, this is how they make their money.

It makes sense to syndicate your social media accounts, use Hootsuite or one of the others, set a page up in a file on your computer for blog posts as they come to you then put them on Hootsuite and post them religiously every day. It cant be THAT hard can it? I’m giving it a go hoping its as easy as other people make it look, wish me Luck!

Oh the trauma!

Once upon a time i was content with a book then we entered into the computer age. I was content to read, well anything really. Now it doesn’t seem right if i haven’t been on some kind of computer gizmo during the day. So when my laptop went blue screen imagine how it felt. Empty hands, still fingers, inactive mind, blank stares. Three whole days without facebook, twitter, wordpress, photoshop! I had managed to steal some time on Saturday, last weekend, and fought my way down the promenade in New Brighton to take photos of the spectacular tide and then there was no laptop to process them, oh the trauma! Now however my laptop is back, working so much better, damn you McAfee, all i need know is time. Time to download, process and fall in love with my new photographs. As soon as i have you will be the first to see, until then, well, they are a well kept secret. 😉