My computer at home is about 5 years old now. It’s served me quite, and continues to do so, but a few niggles are starting to get on my nerves. I’m a bit limited by the small-form-factor case which provides very little expandability, but I’d also rather not just dump the machine outright. It’s got spark left in it yet.

• There is an intermittent source of distortion on audio from the on-board AC97 codecs. I haven’t spent too much time trying to isolate this. It doesn’t matter which output port I take (front or back panel) and I’ve cleared the mixer/amplifier section. I’m starting to consider an external audio device. Given that I lack PCI expansion slots, this one would have to ride on Firewire or USB. Nothing has been decided here.

• The on-board video adapter is a bit less than capable. Something changed about a year ago, which I’ve never fully gotten to the bottom of, causing some videos to refuse to resize. Watching a DVD where the image is barely larger than my hand is painful. I’d also like a bit more viewable real estate. 1280×1024 is a bit scant. I’ve got an 8x AGP slot that I can work with and it looks like I’ll be best served with an ATI device. I’m weighing my options and favouring the Radeon HD3850 or HD3650.

• To go with a new video card, a new monitor is appropriate, especially with prices having come down. Given the amount of photography stuff that I’ve been playing with lately, it makes at least a bit of sense to have a monitor that doesn’t suck. I haven’t been able to apply a colour profile to my current monitor, but I know that it’s nowhere near as bright as it was in past years. Jumping from a 17 inch screen to a 24 inch might be a dangerous jump, but I think I’m willing to take that risk.

That’ll probably be it for now. If I replace anything else, I may be better off buying a new machine after all. Can I even get Socket 478 CPUs anymore?