Dear Diary #41: Computer Woes. I hate computer problems.

Dear Diary,

Think my computer might be dying... and by computer, I mean the memory, motherboard, or CPU. All those parts are pushing more than seven years old now. The video card dropped dead earlier in the year, hard drives were upgraded a few years back, and PSU should still be good. I've already got replacement parts picked out but I don't wanna deal with it: hauling the heavy thing out, unplugging everything, taking all the parts out, putting them back in. Then the real fun begins when I have to buy a new copy of Windows, install everything back on, learn the nuances of the newer Windows, then take weeks to get used to it all.

Computer is still acting up. Freezing only happens, usually, within an hour of cold booting after hours being off. Can't help but think it's heat related. Tested memory: no problems when tested "warm" but the system doesn't recognize half of it after rebooting from a crash. Bunch of parts in there are over seven years old so they've had a good run. Still don't want to do anything because things were flawless for months up until a few days back. Hoping it goes away like they did the last two or three times. Otherwise, I now have all the parts picked out and a plan to get rid of some barely used parts in there -- looking at you DVD drive and back-up HDD.

And I think I found the problem. Whenever the system freezes, it reboots with only half the memory recognized. I decided to look further into that in Windows and the BIOS. Looks like the BIOS sees all the memory but isn't making it available in one channel or two slots in that channel -- equating to half the memory disappearing. Not in the mood to narrow down the problem to the exact stick, slot, or controller. So, looks like I'll have to remove the two sticks in that channel but then I'm left with only 4 gigs which in 2017 is no longer adequate even though I run everything on pretty low settings. Do I tough it out with 4 gigs until something else in the system dies, spend $80 to get a single stick of 8 GB, or put that $80 towards a new system. Still hoping whatever's wrong pops back into place or goes away on its own... I'll give it another week.

Tried cold booting to the BIOS then waiting for ten-ish minutes and the machine froze in the BIOS. Next day, I tried cold booting into the boot-menu then waiting ten-ish minutes and no freeze hours later. Was that luck, or did the system just decide to stop screwing itself suddenly? I am so not in the mood to build a new system or to even drag the case out from under the desk...

I've resorted to mashing the key to get into the boot menu upon cold booting every day. Leaving it on the menu for five minutes hasn't resulted in any freezes for a couple days. If it's wasting five minutes of my life everyday or spending hundreds on a new system I don't really want, I think I'm going to have this key mashing down really well soon. Problem not solved but bypassed...

Later.