A few months ago, I wrote a long and winding account of what happened the first time I tried to change the innards of my beloved gaming tower, Tony.
Since then, things have been relatively quiet, but come on.
You didn’t honestly think that’d be the only misadventure, did you?
Of course, as I am naturally predisposed to shenanigans and getting myself into trouble sometimes, I ran into something else.
A little background
Over the Christmas break, both Shane and I were home a lot more than normal. As a matching pair of gamer nerds, extra time at home meant extra time playing games.
Lately, we’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV together, keeping our characters around the same level and running through the story so we can get our gunsmith classes together. Cute and dorky.
Naturally, this meant that my computer got a lot more use than normal. Even with its tired old video card that was lower than the one it was supposed to come with, Tony did very well handling a week of taxing RPGs.
There was, however, something that didn’t handle it so well.
The issue of finding a perfect keyboard
About a year ago, I decided it was finally time to replace the keyboard that had come with my computer. It was by no means a bad keyboard; my main issue was that it wasn’t exactly ideal for gaming.
I did, however, love its chiclet design for the massive amounts of typing that I do!
And therein lay my conundrum.
See, I wanted to get a proper gaming keyboard.
Generally, if you want to get a gaming keyboard, it comes with loud, clacky mechanical keys. If you’re lucky, they might even be reinforced on certain frequently used keys.
That’s great for feedback while gaming, but because at the time Tony was also my primary workstation, I thought it would drive me crazy to write on that style of board all day.
When I discovered that there’s such a thing as a chiclet-style gaming keyboard, I decided that was just perfect! I very happily brought it home, plugged it in, and spent a year of bliss having my happy medium.
When it all went downhill
I first noticed an issue with the keyboard about a month ago, when Diana, my usually effective bard in FFXIV, had trouble attacking. It almost went very poorly for me, and although I had a few choice words for the keyboard at the time, I chalked it up to accidentally clicking on something I shouldn’t have, because that does happen.
I’m not sure what happened, but the week of gaming marathons seems to have done the poor thing in. The big red flag was that a mystery key on the board got stuck, which made Diana cycle through all of the possible hotbars instead of attacking things.
Again, very nearly very bad.
Combined with the fact that now that I’m actually using it for gaming, the keyboard doesn’t really give feedback when I press anything, it all makes me realize that maybe those clacky keyboards I spurned at first have a very good purpose after all.
Now I’ve learned my lesson: It’s important to pick the right equipment for gaming. And although I still do the vast majority of my work at home, I think it’s time for a change…
One thought on “My misadventures in computer accessories”
I love that your computer tower’s name is Tony! That’s why it can handle everything so well! P.s thats my name 😊 -@suitupgaming