I’d had thoughts of building a media centre machine, but that plan is, at this point, dead in the water. To get that build into budget I found myself cutting too many corners: reducing the size of the hard disk, settling for an even worse chassis and not being able to include wireless internet, for instance, felt like removing too many crucial features to make it worthwhile.

So, that means my machine will be a good old-fashioned desktop PC, albeit one without a monitor or speakers. My final shopping list has been tweaked, pennies have been shaved off prices, and I’ve spent most of the week calculating delivery charges to work out if I save money by ordering from one site or if I’d be ruined by City Link.

My list of specifications is now complete, though, so you have until early afternoon to try and dissuade me from making a terrible mistake:

• Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 – £57.60
• ABIT I-45V motherboard – £25.53
• Asus Radeon HD 4670 graphics card – £63.36
• 2GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM – £15.99
• 250GB Hitachi Deskstar SATA II 7,200rpm 8MB cache – £33.08
• Samsung DVD+/-RW – £15.25
• Eye T Warrior Silver Gaming Case – £18.39
• Extra Value Multimedia keyboard – £3.42
• Extra Value optical mouse – £2.91

This leaves me with £3.75 spare cash out of my original £250 budget and, if I were being sensible, I’d save this money to help me out should anything go wrong with my machine. I’m not particularly sensible, though, and it seems that less than four quid won’t get me very far if I melt my CPU – so I’ve earmarked that money on anything I can buy that will keep the finished machine cool, quiet and tidy – so it might mean a single case fan or a pack of cable ties.

I’m now left with nothing more than an empty wallet and a head full of anticipation. My choices of delivery – super saver on every site I’ve used, basically – means that I’m not entirely sure when my components will arrive and in what order, so my excitement at getting to build this machine will have to wait until I get a fateful call from the post room.

Nevertheless, I’ll still be keeping busy. There’s plenty of Ubuntu-related research to carry out and a huge number of useful Open Source programs to download if I want to make my PC the best £250 Open Source machine it can be.

And, of course, it needs a name. I haven’t been able to come up with anything decent so, again, it’s over to you – if you think you have a certain phrase that captures the power, versatility and (probable) incompetence of my machine then please let me know – I’ll be forever grateful.

 I can understand her nervousness. I’m stood in the centre of my bedroom surrounded by strewn PC bits. I’m wild-eyed and swaying slightly above the eviscerated case of my computer. I’m clutching a screwdriver so tightly my knuckles have gone white and there’s blood, quite a lot of blood. It’s a massacre. It’s upgrade day, and there can only be one winner.

I smile back at Rachel. It’s intended to be reassuring, but probably comes across as deranged. She hands me a cup of tea and retreats, eyes on that screwdriver. Somewhere in the house I hear the faint click as she locks a door behind her. I’m reminded of the westerns, and those final moments when the good folk of the outlaw town all disappear back into their homes, shutter their windows and bar their doors until the slaughter is complete. Rachel is wise to take shelter – I’m not human today.

 This carnage began simply, as all these tales do. Mr Fearon handed me a copy of Stalker: Clear Sky to review and my computer, then my friend – it was my treachery that turned us into bitter enemies – crept pitifully into a shadowy corner away from the burden it was now too old to carry. I should have left it there. Took pity. Had mercy. Bought a new computer and donated old faithful to charity. But it wasn’t to be, I wanted to upgrade but my wily old computer wasn’t going down without a fight.

I should point out immediately that upgrading isn’t a fundamentally difficult task. PCs these days are basically giant Teletubby-coloured jigsaws with every edge numbered for your convenience. It’s not like the old days when nothing was labelled and cables could be fitted any which way, but would only work if lined up correctly. Putting your computer together in 1993 was routinely followed by two hours of unplugging cables one at a time in order to find out which one was stopping the bloody thing from booting up.

Not so now. Now the problems are more obscure, less forseeable, and infinitely more aggravating. I’ve got a case that I could use as a cupboard when emptied out. Hell, if I ever a day comes when I can’t pay the rent on my house I’d seriously consider taking that case to Hampstead Heath and using it as a tent. But modern components seem to suffer from some bizarre version of elephantisis – they’re so massively oversized and bulding with odd protuberances that you can’t simply slip them into the case, they have to be kicked and crowbarred inside then manouvered into place with a sledgehammer. It requires less effort to build a house.

Principal among my woes were the 750w power supply and ATI Radeon HD 3700 X2 which had to be craned into my house. The Radeon was a particular nuisance. Not only is it so large that it blocks access to half my SATA sockets and my IDE1 port, but its girth also means it’s ridiculously difficult to get to anything else on the board. It’s like trying to plant a garden when somebody’s plonked an ugly great wall through the middle of it.

 As for the power supply. Imagine, if you will, spending a couple of hours tearing up you computer and then carefully patching it back together, rending flesh and soul apart in the process, only to find it requires so much juice your current power supply just can’t cope. Then imagine, that the new, nuclear-powered supply, is twice the girth of its predecessor and can’t be fitted in without ripping everything all out again. Imagine, spending half an hour attempting to ignore this simple fact by attempting a serious of improbable wedging techniques that result solely in you gashing your hand. Just imagine. Men have died for less.

 It was at this point Rach poppped her head around the door. You can see why I was upset. 

 It took me a solid afternoon to get my rig running properly. An afternoon of trying to make sense of Windows XP’s ridiculous objections during install, of tweaking bios settings, of installing updates and finding drivers, and finding cats to kick. A solid afternoon of savage fury, intermingled with mind-numbing tedium. An afternoon. And you know what? I’d do it again in a second. Because that evening I installed Stalker and Crysis and switched everything upto high and watched god-rays filter through swaying foliage, sunlight sparkle on crystal clear water. Guards patrol, chat, and fix themselves. I got to play these games as they were always intended for less than half the price it would have cost me to buy a machine new. 

I’d do it all again. I’m just not sure Rachel will let me.