Last weekend the GeForce 970 card in my main desktop failed (had been acting a bit flaky for some time…I had assumed driver problems) and the big side fan on the case ended its life. My Canon S100 belt camera (so much more portable than the 5D) stopped working. My laptop battery also reached zero minutes life.

Working through the replacements now 🙁

Laptop worked out to be straightforward as Amazon had severl options. None had flawless reviews, but at $30.00 I’m giving the most promising option a try.

Video card hurts a bit, but the end result is an upgrade to a GeForce 1080 and no more flakiness (and perhaps getting myself moving on some OpenGL sandbox coding that I’ve been putting off. Ordered from NewEgg so slightly slower delivery than Amazon Prime. Currently running on a 770 card that normally lives in my ‘test target’ machine.

Camera replacement is a bit more of a conundrum.  The Canon S100 was getting a bit long in the tooth but largely met my needs. I have a waterproof case for it as well and that will be missed. I’m looking for a slightly higher end model that might work as an SLR stand-in on my belt on occasion. I’d also like to find something that I can get a waterproof housing for.

The Canon G9 X Mark II looks interesting. Small, light and pretty recent vintage. No waterproof case available and it looks like the low end of the ‘G’ series.

The Canon G7 X Mark II is the next step up. A little bulkier and perhaps less well suited to hanging from my belt next to my phone. It does appear to have a Canon branded waterproof case though as might be expected, pretty pricey.

Leaning towards the G7X as it seems to have the features I really want and is recent enough that I don’t think I’ll wind up feeling that my camera is obsolete as soon as I get it. Still chewing on this for the moment though as I don’t have a vacation in the near future and can wait a bit to make the final decision.