So I popped back into Microcenter yesterday and picked up an SSD, SATA HDD, mounting brackets, a hard drive enclosure, and a copy of Windows 8.1 (wanted a copy on disc), which totaled out a but under $300. My wife was not pleased with this and I felt stupid, because I had now spent around $500. That's approaching new PC price territory. Hell, the PC was $700 when I got it last year!
Decided this wasn't worth it and took the graphics card/power supply out of the case and wrapped it all back up. Will be returning everything except the enclosure (tested the HDD, which I got out of the case finally -yay for incredibly well-hidden screws- and it's definitely fucked) to the store.
Tried putting all the old parts back in and found that there were now fucked-up/broken wires.
I was extremely careful when hooking up/removing stuff, too.
I could replace what's broken, but that's just more money spent and at this point I'd rather just buy a new computer. But I feel like I learned a LOT about hooking stuff up. I was able to put everything back in within several minutes with ease.
Could just get something cheap for media/browsing and forget about gaming, but I see I can buy Dell stuff on a financing plan. A 12 month plan would mean I could get a monster Alienware easily, assuming their plans aren't bullshit and have crazy interest.
don't blame yourself m8.. could be a faulty power supply maybe?
You know, it could have been. The HDD did at least get power when I put it into an enclosure and tried plugging it in via USB.
having windows on an ssd is 
three blinks from a cold boot to desktop.
It's not technically an SSD, but I get the same thing from my ASUS T100 Win 8.1 tablet. It really is
That's what I'm stuck with for now as my primary PC.
It's not so bad, though- I have it hooked up to my monitor and have a USB splitter hooked into the KB dock for my mouse, KB, and two external HDDs. Can do everything I need to but I definitely want a new PC for more gaming.
