So I recently purchased a new computer as my previous Lenovo Z575, which I have been exceedingly happy with over the last three years has, over the last year, has been slowly dying.
I do not remember exactly, but I believe I bought the Z575 around March of 2012 after I tried offering a pint of stout to my then ASUS Eee PC netbook which I had had for just about a year. That netbook went through a bit after replacing a screen that cracked after being kicked by someone not me (it actually wasn't me). The ASUS, with the help of Conklederp, is what officially brought me into the world of PC gaming. She mentioned that Steam (which I wasn't using at the time due to misconceptions about how the platform worked as well as a then still negative view of digital only games) was offering Portal for free for Steam users, so I snatched it up. I should also mention that around that time I was also going through Diablo: Hellfire and Diablo II, so I wasn't entirely new to PC gaming, which I have brought up a number of times in previous articles already.
It wasn't until the Z575 that PC gaming really took off for me. Portal no longer lagged like it did on the ASUS (thanks to the additional 4 Gigs of RAM and a better processor). Later that year is when I started playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim which indoctrinated both Conklederp and myself into the world of Tamriel. Coincidentally, at some point I stepped on the Z575 while getting out of bed, forcing me to replace the screen and near the end of 2012, I accidentally tipped over a bottle of beer onto the keyboard, forcing me to replace the keyboard although the rest of the computer was "fine." Fine in that it still worked without any noticeable issues.
Then there was the time, sometime in the middle of 2014, when I was walking out of the kitchen with a steak knife (forgot what I had been cutting) and stretched, forgetting that the fan was on. The fan hit my hand knocking the knife out of my hand, which flew at my computer screen. The tip of the knife hit the screen leaving a 1 1/2 inch gash in the upper left hand corner. I only found the cut in the screen (which is visible in this picture) to be distracting when I looked directly at it, otherwise my brain tended to fill in that little white slice with what I figured was supposed to be there.
I knew that something wasn't quite right in the end of 2014 when the Z575 showed me the Blue Screen of Death for the first time. During all of this year, my computer crashed one of two ways, no less than five times. I would either see the BSD, typically after taking it out of hibernation, or while bringing iTunes to the forefront. The screen became all horizontally line-y and not at all good looking. Eventually (as in around the first of November), the Z575 stopped installing Windows updates (using Windows 7 Home Premium) and it could no longer turn itself off, constantly being in the "Logging Off" screen for over three hours in at least one instance. I also ran into issues with iTunes not opening after having closed the program (or if the program crashed and closed itself). Frequently, I would also be unable to have the computer "turn on" after it being in hibernation over night, or even after a couple of hours being away; the screen would remain black while the lights blinked and the fan whirred. I also ran into issues when I plugged an HDMI cable from the TV to my computer, where it would not recognize the HDMI cable when playing sound (it would only play out of the computer and after a lot of tinkering/searching, I found out that the computer didn't recognize the HDMI cable as something that sound could be transferred through).
After talking quite a bit with Conklederp, and coming to the conclusion that a new computer would be needed for a variety of reasons, most importantly being that 87% of the classes I take are online (which helps cut down on gas consumption if I were to commute everyday to my classes). So after a fair amount of searching, I went with a Taiwanese computer, an MSI, partly because of its processor, RAM, and hard drive space, but also because I was able to get the computer during a sale (cyber or otherwise) as well as, for lack of a better term, a gift card. The most dramatic difference is that I can now play both Skyrim and ESO on either "High" or "Ultra High" graphics settings. It also works quite well with taking online tests.
I am also getting used to Windows 8.1, which isn't as difficult as I had thought it was going to be. The apps thing (like it's trying to be a phone) is a little off putting, but we'll just have to see if it becomes any more intuitive without a touchscreen. I'm still on the fence about "upgrading" to Windows 10 too as I'm waiting until the absolute last minute to decide if it is worth it ("worth" since the update is still, at the moment, free).
Amusingly, after I transferred all my music and important files/documents onto an external hard drive, I noticed that various programs on the Z575 began to no longer work. Simple programs like the picture viewer, iTunes all together, QuickTime, a desktop widget that showed memory usage and processing power. Although now the computer has successfully updated and will power down without having to do it manually.
So this is where I am currently at. Gaming wise, I have had both ESO and Fallout 3 pause in such a way that I could still hear all music and atmospheric noises, but the games themselves have frozen. But, I can now play Dead Island: Riptide without that hideous screeching from the bowels of hell, which I am pretty excited about.
That is all I planned on saying on this less rain drenched morning (than previous mornings) while I still update ID3 tags and discover songs that I didn't know I even had on the Z575 (Dragon Quest IX Piano, and Blue Dragon Piano among others and possibly still others that I have yet to discover).
Happy weekend.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
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