For some reason, they didn't put one on it. What they did put on it, was 1.4 billion transistors, 216 processor cores, and 896mb of graphics memory.
CHAPTER 1.5 THE BORING COMPUTER BIT:
Well, I've made some progress with my computer, as you may have guessed. The SATA hard drives simply wouldn't talk to the BIOS, so I've taken them out, temporarily replacing them with an old 140Gb IDE drive from my old computer. See, this is why you should keep stuff around.
So I've now got an operating system, and a file/directory structure. My computer is now capable of saving files, accessing them, and moving them around. It can also run some programs, system stability permitting.
It sounds incredibly basic, but a few days ago, it wouldn't even try to load any files, or programs. Unable to see a hard drive, the computer just caught itself in an endless loop, POSTing again and again.
So where does my GPU come into all this?
Well, it seems that the system instability is caused... bla bla bla - I tried to explain what was wrong before realising that I still actually don't quite know.
My current graphics card is not happy, and it certainly isn't fully functional. With artefacts appearing all over the screen, the indicators point to it being physically damaged, whether by overcurrent, static discharge or other factors.
Windows, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the device wasn't working at full spec, and has therefore disabled it completely (eh?), resulting in knock-on effects that seem to indicate that my monitor can't talk to my computer, because its only contact with the computer is a damaged piece of hardware.
AND NOW WE RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING
Regardless of all the above stuff, I've ordered a replacement for my card, and hopefully it should be with me tomorrow. Hopefully it will fix the problem, and hopefully, after getting my computer working again tomorrow, I can spend saturday morning setting it up, copying my old files back to it, and spend saturday night having a beer or ten, listening to music, reading the news, watching TV Shack, chatting with my mates etc etc, on my own computer, for the first time in over a week.
So, what else have I been up to? Well, yesterday I went to town with my mum to look at Christmas presents. While admittedly, my computery problems have taken the edge off my enthusiasm for Christmas slightly, I'm sure this is only temporary, and indeed, we had a nice time yesterday browsing round the shops, looking at all sorts of lovely Christmas gifts I'm looking forward to buying - despite my budgetary problems - in the next 4-6 weeks.
Sheffield's skyline has changed since I last ventured there, with the addition of a huge wheel . Quite a familiar one too. In fact, if you compare the pictures (I'll upload yesterday's sometime when I've got my computer working again), you'll see that the wheel that now sits in Sheffield, is identical to the wheel that we saw in Hyde Park in London, last winter (EDIT: 19:18. The wheel is in fact identical to the wheel that sits in Hyde Park - it's owned by the same company and presumably is made to the same design as the other wheels owned by the company, which stand in several cities including Perth, Copenhagen and Ostsee-Reise. Amusingly, the wheel that I saw in operation in Hyde Park last december, is apparently due to open December 2009, according to the website - maybe they move it there every winter - sounds like a lot of work to me)!
So, all that aside, I guess I'll get on with tidying up, my room has suffered a bit, becoming filled with cables and all sorts of clothes and whatnot, so I guess it's time to fix it.
Oh well, off I go :-).
PS: We're going to do the Christmas Pudding tonight, so let's see if I can shoot some of my first Christmas 2009 videos tonight :-).
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