Some of you that have played Vindictus from the beginning probably know me, I was really active in the community, and I made several pretty popular guides as well.
Well, as you know... I haven't been in-game for months now and just recently I even went inactive on these forums.
As for those of you wondering why, well... I have been having a glorious battle with my computer.
The full account of my hardships is in that thread. But, if you want the lowdown... I disappeared from Vindictus first because my computer had started artifacting and freezing very frequently any time I played Vindictus, it also happened with Mass Effect 2 though less frequently. For a long time, this is all it happened with. When it started happening even during normal operation here somewhat recently before my disappearance, I really had to step up my actions on fixing it before the whole thing just went kerplop.
My computer had a slew of problems and I've been troubleshooting and replacing part by part trying to fix it, with the apparently very frequently failings of my hard drives as well, which is just a big added FU from my computer. At this point, I've spent over $800 trying to fix it, cloned my hard drives and lost massive amounts of data multiple times, this last time losing over 130GB of data from my C drive. I cloned it when I started hearing noises (after I got the replacement), but I guess it was already too far gone to retain all my data at that point.
With having to replace hard drives like freakin' lollipops, I've also replaced my RAM, Motherboard and GPU. When I replaced the motherboard, all hell happened. Drives died, I had to reinstall my OS, my OS disc was scratched and I had to get another, processing and shipping times have been weeks and weeks. With my GPU, yet another hard drive death knell, my liquid cooling sounds real funky, the replacement drive sounds scratchy, and I'm just now able to start the rebuilding process on my computer after over 3 weeks without a computer, period. For someone that was used to using a computer 24/7 for years and years, you know what that's like. Even a single day is horrid, days depressing to the point of rocking in the fetal position, stressed so much that all your stuff is lost or damaged and that you can't do anything that you want to do so much that you literally feel sick to your stomach like you have the flu or something.
Well, I guess I died somewhere along the line within that 3 weeks. It's... strange... being on my computer again after having not had it for so long. It's like... I'm not even sure where to start, I have so much to do now. I've redone my theme and some of the major things on my computer to make it back to how it was, but I still have to reinstall all my programs and all their settings, and I'm a very particular very picky person. Losing all my personal settings and having to redo everything is utter hell. I even lost all my MSN stuff and MSN emotions and display pictures and whatnot. I loved those damn things... All my Photoshop brush settings and other settings, my batch settings, everything... my object dock, all my settings for all my crap is just gone.
So now I have the task of reinstalling everything, redoing all my settings, and on top of all of that I also have to test to make sure the artifacting/freezing is really gone and probably Advanced RMA this new HDD too since it sounds iffy. Though, I'm not sure if I'm going to bother. I may just say **** it and let it take everything out this time.
I'm really to the point that I really just want to say "**** you" to my computer. For real.
I've spent so much money on this crap and things have only gotten worse. Hopefully I have one of my problems fixed now, but I don't even know, and that attempt at the motherboard just royally screwed my entire little world over.
I guess the worst part is that this new replacement HDD that WD sent me is a refurbished one and it's making scratchy noises like a 10 year old HDD does. Not good. And there's no telling when it'll go or what I'll lose, and worse than all that... I have to put everything back how it was, and you know how taxing that is on a HDD. I have a lot of junk.
Worse than that though, my computer only detects 2 of my 3 sticks of RAM, and it's not my RAM or my Motherboard. So, that has to mean it's the CPU and it has been from the very beginning, so manufacturing defect. Well hell, I've had it overclocked for so long that I know the warranty is voided on that.
Worse though, I think.... If I have to replace the CPU to fix the RAM issue, I think I'm just gonna do a whole new rig, or mostly whole new anyways. I'll get like a 180GB SSD from Intel that are known to be ****ing rock solid, because I'm tired of all this HDD failing bull****, and I'll have redundency across 4 HDD's for my important stuff on C. My stories, my pictures, my psd works, my own videos, etc. Things that can never be replaced. So, that would mean I'd have to start over fresh yet again and install the OS onto that SSD (LOL, f me...), and redo everything yet again. Of course, I'd also have to replace the Motherboard because if I'm having to shell out for a new CPU I may as well get a new one. Oh, but that means my new RAM is totally effing worthless since the new Motherboards only support dual channel memory (effing... eff...).
So yeah, looks like I could keep my storage hdds, uhh... my $200 lightscribe bluray thingy, my GPU, and uhh... Well, I guess I'd probably want to get a new PSU just because, so I guess that's it. So, that's expensive. Especially after spending so much already. I mean, f man... god, my luck is just... it's non-existent. It's sooo bad... The computer gods do not smile on me.
So yeah. More hell awaits me.
I think though, that... I'm really gonna have to watch some anime or movies or something on here for awhile and slowly ease myself back into computing. It's been really taxing on me these past few weeks. I just don't even really know what to think or do anymore.
Anywho... that's why I haven't been around much and why I'll probably continue to be a bit MIA here in the near future. Though for the time being, I may begin to start posting a bit more as I get used to computing again and take breaks from the hell of reinstalling, reorganizing and rebuilding.
Anyways, yeah... there ya go.