"Guanghua Market: Taipei’s cheapest computer gear
I blog on a Asus ‘EEE PC’ netbook laptop and whilst it does a perfectly good job for the most part, there were times when I had way too many windows open and the entire system slowed to a crawl.
Being a laptop, I couldn’t just buy a new motherboard and CPU and be done with it so the next best thing was a RAM upgrade I’d been pondering over but never got around to.
Nothing too drastic mind you, just a simple 1gb –> 2gb upgrade, but if it stopped the netbook thrashing the harddrive and becoming unresponsive 3-4 times a week when I began to push its limits – totally worth it.
Not really having any idea where to go, I rocked up to a few local computer shops. After a few unsuccessful attempts at installing a 2gb ram stick into my netbook (Windows wouldn’t recognise the extra 1gb), we set off for what I believe is the largest computer market in Taipei, if not Taiwan.
Established in 1973 as an ‘old book’ market, Guanghua Market (also known as Guanghua Digital Plaza, Chinese: 光華數位新天地 or 光華商場) is now a five-story tall electronics paradise.
Sporting mostly computer gear but also with a decent assortment of electronics (the streets around Guanghua Market are also full of electronics retailers), there’s pretty much everything imaginable for sale here.
The ground floor of Guanghua is like a retail floorspace with flashy displays and what not, but the next four floors are chock-a-block of computer retailers with the fifth floor housing repair shops and offices.
If you know what you’re after and can see it, everything was pretty much labelled with a price so that made shopping – however if you’re after something specific (motherboards, CPU’s etc.) English was a bit light so you’ll probably want to bring a Chinese speaking friend along.
At times the sheer abundance of stalls (271 in total on the 2-5th floors) can be overwhelming and after seeing the same products at 3 or 4, it pretty much comes down to trying to get the best price.
Still, if you’re fussy about what computer gear you buy it’s hard to go past Guanghua Market as the place to shop for computer parts.
Unfortunately the usual nerd caveats apply and you’ll find that most patrons to Guanghua stink and at times you’ll feel like you’re walking around an ugly convention… a small price to pay considering the sheer range of gear Guang Hua has to offer.
Personally when it comes to buying anything computer related in Taiwan, with Guanghua market just too good to turn down, now I don’t bother shopping anywhere else.
Guanghua Digital Plaza is located between Zhongzheng and Daan Districts in central Taipei City.
Oh… and we managed to fix my RAM problem within a few minutes after arriving too. Turns out all we had to do was reset the bios when the new stick went in. Why the three or four local computer shops we visited didn’t think to do this I have no idea. Admittedly though I have to hang my head in shame for not thinking of it either.
Kudos to the ASUS guys working @ Guanghua!
January 5th, 2012 at 4:36 pm Andy(Quote)
Get rid of the HDD in your Asus and install a nice SSD. There is a day and night difference. You will love your Asus after. I got rid of my stock HDD in my MBP and installed 2 Vertex 2 SSD’s. It is running RAID and now and is very very fast
January 6th, 2012 at 10:18 am yi(Quote)
SSD’s isn’t exactly the cheapest thing around at the moment, especially with the flood in Thailand.
January 6th, 2012 at 10:45 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Yeah so being out of the PC loop the last few years I had no idea what SSD was.
After looking it up I agree with Yi, expensive! Getting a decent size would be roughly half the cost of this netbook!
I figure if the HDD ever dies then yeah it’s an option but until then, not worth the cost (and even then, might still be just more cost effective to buy another laptop altogether).