My younger daughter’s computer died earlier this week.  I finally tracked the problem down to the drive controller, which is on the motherboard.

There’s no way I’m buying a new motherboard.  Not for that computer.  So I went on eBay and bought a IBM NetVista with Pentium 4 – 1.6ghz yadda yadda yadda for a whole $20.  That’s cheaper than a hard drive, even with shipping.  And it’s nearly twice the computer as her old one.

Twenty bucks.  Wow.  Computers really are a commodity.