#frankenputer

[skyr4t]

Well frankenputers coming along well. My main computer that I do my comics on died on thursday when its powersupply decied to go bang. And fry the motherboard :/. So I’m now left without a media pc. Have one in my room but it runs horrible when using photoshop. I have a pile of about 6 dead pcs in my shed though, all with various problems. so I’ve been tearing them apart and salvaging anything useful. I’ve thrown all of the good part together into this, Frankenputer!! Literally a scrap case that I sprayed white full of random old bits. But it works :)  I just need to install photoshop and whatnot on it and I’ll be back in business! Skyr4t <3 

[sullustangin]

We added Frankenputer to the household . Frank is a combo of free PC parts we got as a pity gift from the repair shop guy that couldn't fix Spouse's PC.

Frank has half his parts from 2011, the other half from 2020. He is so old he don't have wifi ...

which prompted me to ethernet wire the entire house this past week, plus sort out the Ruckus switch in the closet.

Frank is the backup computer; I went ahead and got another more up-to-date PC for me and gave Spouse my hotrod. However, if either breaks down, at least we won't be at ends as we were without Frank. Plus, Frank is risk free -- he's worth $12 of DDR3 RAM right now, so if I bork him when I put in a new motherboard or processor, then no loss.

[frogeyedape]

You know what a dumb reason would be for my computer to not be working? Push vs pull fan on the cpu. Smh. Gonna actually eat before I go take everything apart again XD

[travellyr]

I'm having frankenputer issues.

Problem: personal laptop died, from the "pop" I'm pretty sure it's hardware, not sure which piece.  Maybe the fan.  It'd been running really hot for a while.  I have had this laptop since early 2008, it is on its second screen and third operating system, and I have already taken this laptop apart twice, so I am in no hurry to do so again.  If I can get away with not taking it apart to get at the fan, I am on board with this plan.  (SCREWS.  SO MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY SCREWS.)

Possible solution: My extended family seems to think my parents' house (formerly my house) is where laptops go to die, so I have a lot of potential parts.  Two of them are even young enough to be candidates, leaving me with three computers to try to swap parts.

Complication: laptop parts are not anywhere close to as interchangeable as desktop parts, for a couple of reasons that are all rooted in one main reason: getting everything to fit inside the case.

Interesting discoveries:

The oldest laptop of the herd (my broken one) has the most powerful processor.  Which potentially means little, since 1. I don't know if I fried it and 2. to get at it I have to dive into the Land of a Thousand Screws.

The newest laptop has almost no wear on the case (see "processor) for why) and the most RAM (but only because we upgraded aftermarket in an effort to combat the entropy of the processor), but a really shitty processor.  Facebook crashed it.  The Home Depot website hung it up for almost half an hour.  There is no way to upgrade the processor, since the socket is not compatible with anything but that processor.

The middle-aged laptop has a case in the running for the most wear.  It also has the biggest hard drive and the least RAM.  Given the previous owner, I'm kind of reluctant to touch the software aspect of this one, but hey, that's why God invented "reformat."

But wait:  The youngest uses DDR3, and the oldest and middle age both use DDR2.  All three HDDs are SATA.  I have an external HDD-to-USB thingbob that reads SATA.

Verdict: Frankenputer is a go, let me get my screwdriver.

[silver-shortage-in-markarth]

There's a computer in my basement.

It's made entirely of parts from other computers.

My dad calls it Frankenputer.

And it actually works.

Not very fast, though.