New computer working, finally
Well, after a bad powersupply and a slew of Blue Screens of Death during Windows installation, I finally tracked down the problem to the memory — either a dual channel issue, or just the particular DIMM that I pulled is bad. I had been steered away from this possibility by Memtest86, but it looks like it ended up being the real culprit. I’m sorry to the friends that I pestered with constant error messages in my frustration (each a new blue screen of death!). Some point soon I will try to verify that the DIMM I pulled is actually bad, or figure out if the Motherboard I got just doesn’t like to do dual channel with it, or what.
At any rate, once Windows was finally running, I installed some 92 updates, installed a little bit of necessary software, and then got to the good stuff: Half Life 2 and Supreme Commander. Both play like a dreamland. It rocks.
Now I just have to finish school, then I can have some fun!