Note to self: 1 molex to 8 pin EPS12v is insufficient to reliably power a motherboard which actually needs those 8 pins.
Also, when the motherboard manual says a 4 pin power connector is optional in one spot, and required in another, at least try to go with the "optional" side to begin with.
I especially love it when the backup option is ten times slower than my local network connection. And when restoring from those backups somehow logs me out of Steam. And when restoring from those backups simply hangs. And when installing from the network is ten times slower than my Internet connection. And when a supposedly installed game gives the utterly useless "This game is currently unavailable" error message instead of running.
Try reinstalling the whole thing, "Cannot connect to steam network, please try later". *facepalm*. Meanwhile, Impulse is happily downloading Demigod at 6MB/s; I guess it helps that they're not making one of their most popular games free, thus destroying the experience for everyone who's actually given them money.
Valve, stick to making games, because you fucking suck at application development and content delivery.
What a faff on.
I built my new desktop today; 12GB Intel Core i7, with 2 1.5TB drives and an 80GB X25-M SSD for the OS. It's rather nice, and Windows 7 seems to like it. It also doubled my framerate in Dwarf Fortress, woo ;)
Sadly, I had to build the fucking thing. Something I think I shall avoid in the future; first, the case — the feet won't stay on. They're glued to it, and if you don't lift the (rather heavy steel) case enough when you move it, they get torn off. Quality.
Second, the motherboard wanted not only the 24 pin EPS12v and 8 pin auxiliary power cables most motherboards need, but also a 4 pin auxiliary cable along with it. Guess what most PSU's don't provide? Luckily I had an appropriate conversion cable sent next day delivery.
Third, this £100 PSU, which didn't even come with the cables necessary to drive the motherboard, is faulty; tick *power off*, tick *power on*, <wait 2 hours> tick *power off*, tick *power on*. And it would have to happen on a bank holiday weekend, gah.
Fourth, my spare PSU… well, it works, but the cables are a fucking disaster; it's an old modular Tagan. The PCI-Express cable connectors are very fat, and so don't fit together side by side - I had to hunt down a molex adapter for it. The SATA cables were clearly designed by someone who's never had to actually use one in anger; they're very stiff, and each one is so far apart that your minimum distance between drives is maybe four inches. Long story short, only one of my HD's is powered, and the entire PSU is outside the case, like the system's been disemboweled..
After all this faffing around, paying £400 more on a prebuilt workstation is looking pretty good. Well, so long as it isn't an Apple :P