My computer is screaming in pain.

So yeah, been pretty much non-existent on the blogging front recently. Same with Twitter as well, which is unusual. But, not that I've had much interesting to talk about anyways, so that's to be expected I guess.

I got promoted at work, and now my job actually entails doing work (what a concept!), and has been keeping me quite busy (both physically and mentally). This I'm severely glad for, actually. Downside is, all of my blogging pretty much has to be done from home now. And that's difficult for a few reasons, a large one being the fact that my computer has been screaming in agony the past few months.

Computer issues are probably one of the main reasons I haven't been online and in "productive mode" a lot recently. My machine has been becoming increasingly slower over time. And not just "Oh, Photoshop takes longer to load now" or "Firefox is running sluggish due to extra extensions".

No... We're talking full-on chugging of the machine. Like, you load up Windows and the start-up sound is static-y and stutter-y. Yes, I've checked my audio. Thing is, that exact same sound plays just fine when going in through Windows Sounds And Devices. Go figure.

WoW launches, sound stutters a bit. When things stutter, not just the sound hiccups, but the whole machine. Common operations such as copying files now take FOREVER. Windows itself is launching slower now. Basically, the thing is useless for anything other than light- to medium-impact web browsing. And checking the Auction House in WoW. As long as Orgrimmar isn't flooded with assholes players.

So what's the cause? Well... The memory's somewhat new, so maybe that's a cause. Don't know. Video card is new, and no typical video card issues going on, although I will have to check the fan on it next time I get a chance.

Things seem to stutter when something intensive is going on, primarily when reading/writing to my main drive. So I thought I'd defrag it using Ultimate Defrag (very cool app, by the way). Ran it for days... Literally. Did not have much of an effect.

After running a few tests, I ran a thorough sector scan with HD Tune and found a bad block. Yeah, just one block out of a 250GB drive. But that's enough. I've seen it do it before.

So with that in mind, I managed to get myself the cash to order a brand new Seagate 1TB 32MB cache SATA drive from NewEgg. Oh dear god that's a lot of space. <3<3<3

Although there's an issue with the drives (and obviously rest of the machine) as it is now. My case sucks. Pretty much no cooling whatsoever. So. Have to get a new case. Probably once I get paid this week, I'll be ordering myself my first new case in, oh, probably six or more years, this hot little RaidMax Aztec tool-less case also from NewEgg. Have a power supply that's decent, so that'll wait until later.

So, I'll still have my P4 2.8HT proc and FIC mobo, and the memory, well, we'll see if that needs to get replaced (I'm afraid it will, bummer). But just having adequate cooling and a new known-good (hopefully) drive will definitely help immensely. I just don't have the money to do any more than this--I'm lucky I got the new hard drive as it is.

I'm just getting tired of not being able to do anything on my machine. Why do I want to screw with Photoshop when a damn YouTube video won't even play decently?