Last tuesday morning I had just finished playing a round of Borderlands and I was checking my email. The first thing I read is that I finally got a big break for a grafix commision that might bring in quite a bit of money. Then I also read that a big influence on my life had just died and I was reading his obituary online. Just then my computer lost power and rebooted. I thought there was a power surge because I didn't have anything else running in my apartment.
So the computer rebooted. Loaded up windows, and as soon as all the peripherals loaded up, it rebooted by itself. It kept doing this for 30 minutes, constantly rebooting. Until finally it stopped. As in no power was showing at all. No lights, nothing. And I hadn't even touched it.
Later that day I gave it to my brother (network engineer) to look at and he said something was fried on the motherboard for whatever reason. I was 'annoyed' all day. I am of cource being facetious as I'm lucky I didn't punch out any dumb customers that day.
Next day was a free day, but I had to go 60 miles out of town for a dentists appointment. And hour and 4 fillings later I was going 80 miles in the other direction to my local electronics mega-store (Fry's) and bought a new MB along some other incidentals.
I got home and put the stuff together. I followed the manual precisely and plugged all my stuff in. I got a LONG CONTINUOUS BEEEEEEP when I booted it.. short pause.. then another long BEEEEEP. But nothing else was happening. Turned it off. Tried again, then same thing happened. So I turned it off again as I could see nothing overtly wrong with it and went to bed as I was very tired from my odd hours and the morning's appointment.
When I woke up later that afternoon I went to my brother's house after he got home from work so he could take a look at it. This time it didn't even beep. That's what POST means. That annoying little beep when you boot your computer is very important. We tried everything, including unplugging everything non essential, expansion cards, HD's, all of it so it was only the MB and the chip and we hand booted the thing by using a wire on the power switch peg on the MB. Still no BEEP, plenty of power, things were humming.. just nothing else was happening.
By that time it was 8pm and the store would close @ 10pm so I rushed across town again and this time bought a new CPU and fan just incase my old one was also trashed.
SAME DAMN RESULTS. New board, new chip.. nothing.
So the next day I went back and wanted to return everything, and get a NEW, if slightly cheaper MB to try again. And wouldn't you know.. the jerks (and his boss) wouldnt take back the MB because they said it was damaged, had a bent pin in the CPU cradle. Well there's $90 I'll never see again. Yeah, me mad.
Then I went back to the MB aisle and stared at the stuff for 30 minutes without anyone helping me, trying to find a board that was compatible with the parts I had at home.
Bought something cheaper, went home and tried it out. EXACT SAME THING. I even tried it with a different power pack. Nothing. Only this time it would power on, suddenly turn off, then power up again. There was current flowing through everything, CPU, CPU fan, hard drives, LED's on the board but where was no beep from my box and no signal going to my monitor. I had a screen plugged directly to the MB so there was no issue if the Video card wasn't compatible. My monitor said "no signal" and shut down. I tried it with and without my RAM chips, nothing. I even had a chip that I never took out of the packaging the last time I built a comp and used that, still nada.
I am doing everything right. I tried every combination of parts and settings I could think of, new/old CPU, different power pack, memmory in/out, video card in/out. But it all still seems to be BUSTED and it's perplexing me and my brother, and we've been building comps for 15+ years now.
My brother gave me a loaner comp to use (I HATE IT!) and I tried it's CPU core with the new board. Nothing. I tried my old chip in my bro's comp and it wouldnt load so that told me my old chip was bad. Same dual core Intel cpu chips and they didn't work in the new MB. By this time I quit trying. I figure the computer gods don't want me to succeed. Good things are only dangled infront of me to tease me then I get slapped in the face. (Ozzy knows a little of this but he's discreet and won't blab, right?)
So right now I'm on a loaner computer and I hate it. It's like wearing someone else's clothes that have already been broken in and not the way you like it. And I can't just put my stuff inside it and make it work. It's my brother's TV/Movie/Media box that sat in his living room connected to his TV. It's made to look pretty and NOT be upgrade or user friendly. It's solid steel, weighs about 40 pounds, it's a desktop, not a tower, the inside is cramp and jumbled with wired everywhere and in the way, and whoever designed it ought to be shot for being so annoying. It doesn't recognize all my drives, runs Win7 when I'm using my reliable XP on my old system. None of my programs really work and I've tried to install them temporarily on the new main drive, unsuccessfully. I've tried to use my drives wholy, but since it's a brand new system, my main drive doesn't recognize every piece of hardware on the new box, including video cards and I can't even get online to get drivers.. not working from MY drives that is.
It's a real Catch 22.. I mess with my files, go online, but not use my programs on the new system.. or I can do everything I normally could but severely handicapped (no driver support) and no internet using only my old drives. Oh... and it keeps telling me I have to activate my WindowsXP on my old drives because it's a new box, but I can't do that with no 'net connection.
So now my only choice is to either QUIT entirely or try and by new parts online because I refuse to go to that stupid store again.
Not being able to do ANYTHING grafix oriented on a nightly basis, or watch all the movies I have on my comp is just giving me cabin fever of EPIC porportions.
Oh... and I could also be missing out on $2000 worth of commisioned work right now.