decidedlyodd

So, I opened up the box containing my computer that I had shipped from Germany. A cursory look through the thing seemed to indicate that everything was in order. However, there are a couple of small dents (that weren’t there before) in the case that slightly hinder its opening and closing. I guess it’s not too bad considering the thing traveled thousands of miles via the international postal system.

Anyhow, since I sold my old power supply before I left Germany, I set out to Fry’s today to buy a new one. I took my new car and there were no problems. The longer I drive it, the more comfortable I feel about it being in good shape. Tomorrow will be the acid test though, when I have to go get it smogged and get this break clunking sound figured out.

Fry’s was a total zoo today, I guess because of the Memorial Day holiday. They had a lot of power supplies there, but in true Fry’s fashion most were crappy no-name brands, while the boxes of the few good brands had those notorious “this item may have been opened and returned, but we looked at it and it seems ok” stickers on them. Years ago Fry’s lost a big class action suit, where they got busted for reselling returned merchandise as new. So, now they put those lame stickers and drop the price like $3 on those items. I was hoping to buy a good Antec or Enermax power supply, ideally something similar to what I had in Germany (an Enermax EG465AX-VE(G) FM). In the end, I grabbed an Enermax EG420P-VE SFMA box off the overstock shelf (no sticker on it, hence not returned or so they say). It’s lower power than the old one and cost about $78 before tax (CompUSA wanted like $100 for an Antec I think). It claims to be part of the low noise line, although the last one I had was really quiet and it was just a standard model. The thing is that my computer has several other much noisier fans in it, so it hardly matters how loud the power supply fans are.

After I got home, I hooked it up and everything seemed to work fine. However, as soon as I hit the power button, I realized that I didn’t have a keyboard! And it didn’t even cross my mind until that moment that I should have bought one at Fry’s. Doh! Oh well, I can pick one up probably over at the Office Depot in town.