My History of PC Enthusiasm

PC’s have been an integral part of my Life. Ever since I got my first PC, I was really into the world of Computing. Although, I wasn’t that interested in Hardware at first, somehow, I began to appreciate what was inside the Case of my current PC back then.
I think I was in second grade or third grade when I got my First PC. I don’t have a picture of it saved anywhere. My Dad bought it off of my late godfather. He was the best friend of my Dad. He suffered from Myocardial Infarction and die the same day. His wife was then selling all of his Tech Stuff.
It was a good PC at the time, late 1990’s. It was a Pentium MMX 300mhz PC, a big fancy motherboard with 64mb SD RAM. It had a 9gb Hard drive and used SCSI as its interface to connect to the motherboard. It was also equipped with a CD Burner and a swappable HDD Bay. The tower was huge and was heavy as brick. The PC lasted a few years and helped me with a lot of school projects back then.
We took the PC back home to the Philippines when my mom retired. It was running for a few months until they decided to move the PC to the new house they were building without removing the cables from the System. That of course disconnect the Graphics Card inside the case from the motherboard. Me, a total noob back then, without knowing anything about computers, has started up the PC and it wouldn’t boot up. I was afraid of opening the Computer Case and looking what might be the problem inside. So I let the PC gather dust in the corner of my home. Typical 11 year olds.
After 1-2 years I decided to revive the old PC. I have brought it to a local PC technician and he fixed the old thing. The main problem was the graphics Card. It was an s3 Pro Savage ddr PCI graphics card, which was pulled out from the PCI slot during the transfer. He put it simply back in and the Pc worked again. It was prolly 2002 and the PC was still running windows 98. LOL.
Somehow, the PC stopped working a few years later. I went PC-less for about 3 years till I got to College.
2005 and I got finally into College. That was the time I told my parents to buy me a new PC for my studies. Of course they were skeptical, as they were thinking that I’d only use it for Games. A few months into college, they finally agreed buying me that sweet, new PC. Pentium 4 was still the mainstream back then. We were going to purchase a ready made PC from a well-known store. I think it was OCTAGON, Tuguegarao City where we made the Purchase from.
The Complete PC Package was the following:
Processor: Pentium 4 2.4ghz Prescott
Motherboard: MSI P4mam2-V
RAM: 256mb Samsung DDR
HDD: WD 40GB IDE HDD
CD: Regular CD-R Burner
Monitor: AOC 15” CRT Monitor
Printer: HP PSC1315 AIO
Chair + Computer Table
Set of Speakers
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So, it wasn’t a gaming PC for that time. It ran basic games like Warcraft 3, Starcraft, and some MMO’s. This Computer went thru a lot of upgrades and lasted till 2009.
My first upgrade to the PC was an ATI Radeon 9250 128mb Graphics Card. And boy, was I happy back then to play some of the games that wouldn’t run on the PC before like NBA Live ‘05, Command and Conquer Generals. I figured, 256mb wasn’t enough so I bought another 256mb DDR stick to make the system run on 512mb. The PC was fast that time although I have been craving for more.
A Year has passed, and it was around 2006 that I wanted to ugprade my Graphics Card. The 9250 wasn’t performing that well for my needs so I decided to sell it to a friend of mine. With the few options available in the area, I took upon the Radeon 9550 256mb. Another ATI Card, which performed superbly. I was able to max out the games I was playing that time. The feeling was still incomplete and I wanted more. I needed more STORAGE! So I asked my friend, who was going to Manila, to buy me a set of 512mb DDR Sticks, total of 1GB and a 250gb IDE HDD for more storage.
My system early 2007:
Processor: Pentium 4 2.4ghz Prescott
Motherboard: MSI P4mam2-V
RAM: 1GB DDR RAM (2x 512mb)
GPU: ATI Radeon 9550 256mb
HDD: WD 40GB IDE HDD + Seagate 250GB IDE HDD
CD: DVD-R Combo Drive
Monitor: AOC 15” CRT Monitor
Printer: HP PSC1315 AIO
Chair + Computer Table
Edifier 2.1 Speakers + The Cheap Speaker Set
Man, was I proud of that system. That was the time I began with some basic Video Editing in Sony Vegas. It performed reasonably well with those specs and on Windows XP 32bit, too.
2008 came and we were going on an Affiliation Trip to Manila for 3 weeks. That’s where I figured to upgrade my GPU again. I was looking thru some selling sites in the Philippines and stumbled upon the PALIT Geforce 7300GT AGP 512mb. Although PCI-e was the mainstream already, I couldn’t afford to buy a new board and processor. The card was on sale for about 2,350.00php thru a local seller in Manila. I was so excited getting home and installing the card.

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I was running F.E.A.R. on Max settings back then. The same with Battlefield 2, 2142, and Need For Speed Carbon. This is where I knew that I was getting addicted to this PC upgrading thingy that was going on. You can never have enough.
Through 2008 till late 2009 has this PC served me well. Through lots of College Paper Work, Video Editing, Photo Editing, as well as Gaming for that time, I couldn’t complain about its performance. Although, seeing the boom of Technology on Youtube, with people getting GTX280’s and the new SLI Technology, it made me crave and crave for more.
Sadly, during my Nursing Board Review (Yes, I’m a Registered Nurse), this PC has given up on me. RAM sticks started to fail, the 7300GT burned out, and the HDD’s made strange noises and failed to spin after a while. I was already saying goodbye to the PC, and I realized that all through those years, I haven’t had named it.
During my Board Review, I still needed a PC to continue my work, do video editing and other stuff. I asked my Parents to buy me a Laptop. It was already late 2009, where I received my first Laptop, courtesy of my parents for my Review. It was a Toshiba Satellite L-505D 6948.
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The Specs were:
AMD Turion X2 Dual Core 2.20ghz
3GB DDR 2 SODIMM
320GB HDD
DVD Super Multi with Labelflash
16” Truebrite Widescreen Display
and so on.

I did a lot on that laptop, and has helped me become the Person I am today. The Laptop died around 2011 due to Motherboard issues.
In 2010 I was able to build a new PC with the help of my Mother. It was a birthday gift cause I was sad for letting the old PC go that I had. She gave me a budget of 30,000.00php and it was up to me how I would spend it for PC Hardware. So, I made a list of all the components I would like to have and went the next day shopping.
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Late 2010 PC Specs:
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 5200+ 2.7GHZ
Motherboard: EMAXX AMD780G Pro+
RAM: 2GB Kingston DDR2 800mhz RAM
HDD: 320GB Seagate HDD
GPU: Palit GeForce 9800GT Green 512mb
Case: Regular Case
Monitor: Viewsonic 19” Widescreen LCD
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I can’t remember if I spent all of that money just on that build, or if I have saved some of it to spend on other things. The graphics Card died though 3 years after use. I had to replace the Card in 2012 to a Powercolor Radeon HD4850. Best budget upgrade ever. Add another 2GB RAM stick and I had a perfectly fine running machine that could play some of the newer games during that time.
I have been running that machine from 2012 – 2014. Gaming, working, editing was everything that kept me busy. It wasn’t a beast but it suited my needs.
With my recent move to Germany, I was in need of another computer. Well, a portable one. So, it was time to buy another Laptop. I was not in need of a brand new one. It could be a used one but with good specs at a cheap price. So, I consulted TipidPC for the best deals. I found one that suits my needs (Multicore, good GPU for basic Gaming, and good storage).
2014 Laptop Specs:
Manufacturer: ASUS
Processor: AMD A6 quadcore 2.1ghz
RAM: 4gb DDR3 Sodimm
GPU: Dual Graphics Radeon (Don’t know which ones)
HDD: 750GB HDD
Screen: 16” LED
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I am able to play most of the games I am currently playing (Counter-Strike GO, DOTA 2, TF2, Minecraft, etc.
There you have it. This is where my PC addiction has begun. Sorry for the long post. I hope you enjoyed this post reading as I have writing it.

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