As I was saying in my previous journal entry, my old computer's ability to connect to the Internet became affected all of a sudden. Browsing the Internet is fine, but when it came to tasks like downloading or even running a game on Steam, seemingly without any explanation, the download always failed. Other apps like Telegram and Muse Hub also got affected as well.

Well, I've sent that computer to the computer shop like I've said. As it turned out, the main culprit turned out to be my computer's antivirus software all along -- in this case, Kaspersky of all things. O_o;; Somehow, the most recent update by Kaspersky caused issues, wrecking quite a havoc with my Internet connection. Protocols like TCP got blocked by default, hence why apps that heavily rely on TCP for its communications like Telegram would fail to load properly.

The computer guy said that this is why gamers in general would always disable their antivirus software while playing games, as these antivirus software can actually negatively affect the game's performance. I don't like doing that with mine, as the threat of getting your computer affected beyond a recoverable state really left me unnerved. x_x As a test, he closed Kaspersky, and then let me try to install one of the games.

Success. The game installed without a hitch.

He then reopened Kaspersky, then allowed me to install another game. Failed: that same "No Internet connection" error shows up. Then he closed Kaspersky again. This time, the game installed successfully.

I admit, I became disappointed, because Kaspersky had been my most favorite antivirus thus far. The guy told me that Kaspersky is still a very good antivirus; just that it's also very resource-heavy. And he won't fault Kaspersky alone: sometimes, these antivirus makers would implement updates that occasionally break apps, because they would try to block or limit certain protocols "for safety reasons", without considering the consequence of doing so.

After finally finding out the root cause of my computer's Internet connectivity woes and fixing it, there's just one more thing to do: get a new gaming rig built for me. In fact, this entire journal entry was written via this new computer, after having spent the last 5 hours just to get everything hooked up and running. It has all the specs I've wanted: ultra-fast SSD, giant 24GB of RAM for me to screw around with, and an RTX card.

The only downside is that there's only one HDMI port, and three DisplayPorts. Meaning that I'm stuck with only able to use just one monitor now, which is bad when I wanted to start streaming again soon, which had been a two-display setup. @_@ (I use my HDTV in order to monitor exactly how my stream output looks like, even able to see my PNGTuber and his current facial expression... Might need to find a way to get around that.) Soon, I'll need to get an HDMI-to-DisplayPort adapter just so I can connect my HDTV to my computer at the same time, exactly like my previous setup.

I admit, this had been a roller coaster of emotions for me for the past two days. The day I found out that I could no longer install or play any games on Steam, with zero knowledge of what was causing it, it left me in a state of severe despair. x_x I felt as if the life that I knew had ended. Yesterday, I ended-up unable to sleep until early morning, because the whole time, I was prancing around, unsure with what I can do at this point, as I had just recently started becoming a streamer again and had been more serious at streaming games on Twitch. With Steam being practically my main source of games, I was left unsure about whether or not I could even do streams anymore. Sure, there's art streams, but that's besides the point.

Again, I thank you for all the support. =3 When I wrote my last journal entry, I was still in that state of despair, though feeling a little better then, after my parents had told me that they agreed to help me with my situation. Now that I have a new powerful gaming rig, I'm lending my old computer to my parents to suit their own needs -- they don't need all that extra processing power, anyway. Now, besides remaining stuck to only able to use one monitor for now, I'll need to reinstall all these apps that I need: FL Studio, OBS Studio, etc.. Not sure if I'll need to repurchase Clip Studio Paint all over again for this computer.