watford.co.uk

I am an invigorated man. Before you stands (well, sits) someone who has discovered that his system does not have any little glitches or sagging performance. He can now keep his end up with no trouble at all.

Well hopefully all is now clear to you. No, I was not given a packet of small blue tablets for Christmas, I joined the romantic and practical set!

Dearest and I had a talk a couple of weeks ago, and we agreed that we would buy each other a practical present that can be used by the whole family. Dearest expressed a great desire to have a pressure cooker, and who was I to turn down such a plaintive request, especially as I could eat for England, in particular at Christmas (remember kids, a turkey is for life, not just for Christmas). Anyway, I racked my brains to think of what I needed that would benefit the whole tribe, when I suddenly remembered my little, er, performance problem!

This old computer of mine has a knack of playing up, and crashing at the oddest moments. I am not a total nincompoop when it comes to ICT, and I realised that what with anti-virus software, firewall and the like, the 128 MB of memory that I had was struggling. You see, my computer has 3D graphics rendering on board the motherboard and uses part fo the memory, so I effectively have only 120MB of memory, and had very little running spare whilst viewing the centrefolds at www.naughtymotherboards.com (that's a fictitious site by the way, at least I hope so). Therefore the computer kept crashing when memory was not available for important tasks like displaying a web page and doing a basic calculation!

Therefore I chose to have some more memory for the computer. Having checked using the utility SiSoft Sandra what memory I had and needed, I went internet shopping. It is, by the way, extremely important to check what you need. Your motherboard will have a maximum memory and need a particular kind of memory module. Mine for example, could accommodate a maximum of 512MB in 128MB modules (so there was absolutely no point in buying a stick of 256MB) of 168 pin PC133 DIMMS. What I am saying before I continue is check nefore you buy, you could make a big mistake, so go steady and don't buy 1024 MB when your system can only take 512MB!

I knew anyway what all this information was, and hopped off to my favourite computer website, www.savastore.com, which is watford electronics website (if you were to type in www.watford.co.uk you'd be diverted there). I like visiting there as I can configure my dream computer (dream for me is a computer that will play even the most rudimentary of game!) and save it to drool.

I searched for the memory I wanted and sure enough, I found a 168 pin DIMM of PC133 memory in the size of 128 MB. The price was around £20, plus £3 postage. I ordered this and it said it would take 2-3 days, and probably arrive, by registered post, on Monday 22nd December (I was cutting it fine, wasn't I?)

Well, I was emailed an invoice in .pdf format and thanked for my order and I waited. On Friday 19th December, the day after it was ordered, it arrived! My wife then wrapped it up and put it under the Christmas Tree for me to unwrap and adore on the big day.

So what are the good things about the site? Well, it has a very swift ordering system, and allows you to configure a PC system and lets you know the price as you go along. The emails are polite and informative and the secure server is, well, secure.

On the minus side, you really need to know what you are looking for, as there isn't a lot of guidance for the uninitiated. Prices, however, are good and much better than certain PC megastores.

In conclusion therefore, I woudl suggest that watford electronics are a good online store to go for, with good prices and delivery, if you know what you are looking for!

Well, did I order the correct module? Of course I did, and on Boxing Day opened up the computer, fitted the module and closed it up. I've just written this opinion online without absolutely no fear of crashing. Oh happy day!!!

Happy New year

Neil

January 1st 2004