I Am My Own Super Hero After I Made My Computer Ran Faster
I didn’t know my own strength until I was faced with a computer meltdown.
I always tell myself to pause when a problem arises. It takes practice, but I believe it always works out in the end.
Since I started writing, I have been using the same 5-year-old laptop, My Asus VivoBook Flip TP301UJ. It has served me well. As much as I want to buy myself a new Mac Mini or the new iMac 24", I can’t afford it right now. My heart believes in the power of the Universe and that a new laptop will find its way to me. Soon, I will be typing on the Apple magic keyboard. Until then, I need to find a way to make my computer ran faster.
It hurts my productivity as a writer. As a writer, we need to do two things, “read and write.”
While I write, I also read at the same time. Writers would know what I mean by that. It is not the best work habit, but it works for me. I need to read articles before I write opinion pieces and give proper attribution to articles I quote in my stories.
The thought of fixing my laptop while I know I can because I know enough about computers gives me anxiety. It has been a while since I opened a computer to fix it. The decision paralysis has been extreme since 2020. I guess like many, I feel “Meh,” most of the time, and until I read it in The New York Times that “Blah” feeling has a name, psychologists call it languishing.
Reading that article helped me decide to take a leap of faith and do it myself. I know exactly what can make my laptop ran faster. I need to do two things, change the HDD to SSD and add extra RAM.
How things in our lives happen to force us into action.
One can say, how can one see epiphany in fixing a computer? I always believe that things do happen for a reason. A slow computer has been a cause of anxiety and frustration. It resulted in my inability to write when that is the one thing helping me cope, writing.
Action Plan: How To Make My Computer Ran Faster.
It calls for a lot of research on my part. I have to make sure that any purchases I need to be precisely what I need to fix my computer. With luck, I can find the answers to my problem.
- Find the right SSD that fits my laptop.
- Find the right RAM, and if my laptop has an open slot for it.
You can read it here how I was able to manage to make my computer ran faster.
After I am convinced that I found the answers, I went ahead and made my purchase. I can go for the brands I am familiar with, but I considered what I could afford in my decision.
I have come to a conclusion to purchase the Crucial MX500 500GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD and the Samsung original 8GB (1 x 8GB) 204-pin SODIMM, DDR3 PC3L-12800, 1600MHz RAM.
The waiting game begins, and while waiting, I have to live with a slow laptop. I keep telling it that help is on its way, and she has to wait until help arrives.
As a writer, we can have conversations with ourselves, and also to animated objects, including in my case my laptop.
When my new SSD arrived, the anxiety building up is too intense that I needed to pray to my MOM, who passed this year, to give me the strength to overcome it.
It took a while before I figured it out, but with the help of YouTube videos, I can change my HDD to its new SSD. Everything worked out.
Another lesson I learned as this happened to me was that our worries most of the time are unfounded and waste not only of our time but our strength,
I notice the big difference as soon as I installed my operating system on the new SSD. I chose to go with the MX Linux. It booted faster, and while there are still times that I would have a problem with Google Chrome, it is something I can live with.
Problem solved!
When my new 8 GB RAM arrived, the dilemma is if I should pursue upgrading the RAM too. Since sometimes I fear that luck doesn’t ring twice, that something might go wrong as I upgrade the RAM.
I prayed again to my MOM. Like a comforting arm wrapped around me, I convinced myself to fix my laptop.
The lesson I learned here is that we need to finish what we started. We have to see it through.
When I opened my laptop again, it was difficult to lift the cover to know where the RAM is. When I did, I found that the 4GB RAM installed in my computer is welded to the motherboard, to my disbelief. With the 8GB RAM I bought, I wasn’t sure if it will work because I read that my computer can take a maximum of 8GB. Hoping for the best, I tried it and waited for the outcome.
When I turned my laptop on, true enough, it worked. Not only did it recognize the new 8GB RAM, but the laptop now runs on 12 GB RAM.
Later on, I found out that the CPU that runs the computer can take up to 64 GB RAM, which is far from what I need as a writer.
Takeaway
From this experience, I discovered a long-lost part of me, the one who takes risks. That a long-forgotten superhero is inside me like there is one in all of us. But we forget, and it takes a life experience to remind us what is not lost but buried inside us.
There is one song by Whitney Houston that haunts me, and yet it is fitting to what is happening to all of us in these very trying times.
I didn’t know my own strength.
And I crashed down, and I tumbled.
But I did not crumble.
I got through all the pain.
I didn’t know my own strength.
Survived my darkest hour
My faith kept me alive.
I picked myself back up.
My computer meltdown resulted in finding back the superhero inside me, that for a while, I didn’t know my own strength. Now I am confident that when life gives us a lemon, we choose and make ourselves a lemonade.
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