Moving from Mac OS to Windows 10

Part 1

I bought the Kenjun (see previous post) - the good news is that instead of the list price I found a little button that gave me $500 discount so i actually paid $4650. Very nice, thanks eBay and Kenjun!

It arrived very quickly and all worked out of the box. 

For the money I paid, I could not get a computer that did NOT have (a) leds on the motherboard and other bits of hardware inside and (b) a window in the case. When the box is turned on, white leds on the GPU card light up and so far I cannot find where to turn them off apart from switching off the power at the power supply. At least I don’t have to pull the cable out.

First boot.

It took some fiddling (and $200 to MS) to get Windows 10 Home installed off the net. Actually I had hoped to install it from a USB I had prepared earlier but that just didn’t want to work.

Also, I was informed that a whole host of drivers including the Gpu and mobo support would need to be reinstalled after a clean install so since I don’t have them handy I opted for the easy way and just did it the “upgrade” way. Kenjun offered to install Win10 Home before shipping  for $150.

First lesson.

The PC I bought came with Google Chrome and desktop links to Google Drive and Docs.

When I started Edge (the web browser) I immediately got something called “Drive Restore” even though I did NOT ask for it. . . . . I thought at first that maybe it was something that had come with the PC so I ran it – but it then told me that I needed to update lots of drivers and that I would need to pay X$ - and at that point I wiped it, then went in search of an app to erase it from my system just in case it would not go nicely – happily it seems to have disappeared.

Second lesson.

I have a keyboard but it was hard to read as the symbols on it are small and the room is dark - so off I went to the local electronics store to get a lit keyboard. I had no idea. I bought a G213 and it sure had backlighting – you could even change the colour if the lights . . . . . . but it was horrible to type on. So horrible I took it back for a refund. The key movement was noisy and clunky, they were too high and the whole thing was more like a toy than a real piece of equipment – a huge backlit logo on the top left only emphasised this effect. I guess young gamers might think it just the beez neez but not me.

First thoughts?

The computer I bought is definitely targeted at gamers. Those of us who don’t care for bling just have to put up with that. The keyboard fiasco only emphasised that : it was on special at only $79 – there were other keyboards that went up to $400. I guess I am really not as rich as most of these gamers if a $400 keyboard is okay to them.

The CPU and Motherboard are the latest model: an i9-7900x in an LGA 2066 mobo . . . . but I was amazed to see a PS2 port on it. Whut?

I am definitely getting a new case – and I will try and deactivate the bling lights too.

Outside the Mac world for the first time, and boy do I notice the difference. Yes, I considered getting a “serious” workstation e.g. HP Z840 – but they all cost sooo much and I am just a normal guy, not a business or an executive: and then I ask myself "what they are getting hardware-wise that I can’t get by careful purchases and a bit of thought, for a lot less money?". I also like the idea of gradually upgrading a box so it doesn’t cost so much in one hit. 

Okay, so it isn’t a “Mac” but then it is also very upgradeable (unlike a Mac) and it will run the software I want to run. Actually, I think it could become a “hackintosh” if I wanted to go that route but I am not going to even try that unless I hit a wall with Windows 10. 

The software is a whole other can of worms. There are so many mysteries I won’t start yet: see the next episode for that . . . . . .