If this past week has taught me anything, it's that Murphy is alive and well and living in my house.
This whole deal started innocently enough. All I wanted to do was to replace the old AMD Athlon XP 1600+ processor I've been using for the last 6 years. I found an Athlon XP 2900+ at a decent price, so I was off to a good start.
Murphy #1 - Next time remember to check the heatsink/fan unit! That Thermaltake Volcano 6cu was fine for the 1600+, but all it would have done for the 2900+ is slow the meltdown process a bit. Off we go to Fry's for a new HSF and some thermal compound!
Well, the CPU gets here and all goes well during the installation. New CPU, new HSF in place, all is good! Reprogram the BIOS for the new CPU and reboot. And reboot again. And again. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum...
Murphy #2 - Seems that those two sticks of memory (one 512MB and one 256MB) that worked so well together at 333MHz frontside bus don't work quite so well together at 400MHz FSB. At least as far as WinXP Pro is concerned, they don't! Turn and look at the wife, develop a severe twitch when contemplating telling her I need to spend more money on another stick of memory, and decide 1/2 a gig will do. For now.
One stick of memory removed and Windows boots. Yay! Time to give this puppy a workout! Also time to check for BIOS revisions, since I don't remember the last time I did it. Good thing, too, since the current one is at least 2 revisions out of date! Or is it? Waitaminit...NF7, NF7-S, NF7-S2, NF7-SG...v1.0-1.2 and v2.0...too many revisions...too many motherboards with similar model numbers...brain tired (cripes, it's 3:00 in the flipping morning!)...wait, that one looks right...
Murphy #3 - Wrong! New BIOS downloaded and flashed = one dead mobo. Not even a beep. Definitely not posting far enough for the floppy to work. This time my wife laughs at me, then relents and orders the new BIOS chip anyway. That was on Wednesday. The nice man at ABit says "we don't always ship the same day, it might be Friday before it goes out." Minor twitching, nothing to worry about. Yet.
So I get to spend the weekend without a working computer. That's not so bad, right? *twitch* I mean, what's the worst that could happen? *twitchtwitch* Monday really needs to hurry up and get here. Like NOW!!!
Well, Monday finally came, and with it came my new BIOS chip. One very careful, static-free insertion later...and YES!! IT'S BACK!! My box is up and running again, fully healthy! Well, as healthy as a six-year-old computer (with all new parts
) can be, at least.
Wait, what's this? The UPS man left TWO packages? Well whaddya know, it's that game my brother said he was going to send me. I'd forgotten all about that. Cool!
Uh oh...why isn't my CD-ROM reading the disc? D'OH! It's a DVD, you moron! Which is bad, really. You see, my computer came out before DVD-ROM drives were common components, and I've been too cheap to put one in. Oh, dear. Might as well get it over with...
"Um, honey? I need to order another part from Newegg..."
This whole deal started innocently enough. All I wanted to do was to replace the old AMD Athlon XP 1600+ processor I've been using for the last 6 years. I found an Athlon XP 2900+ at a decent price, so I was off to a good start.
Murphy #1 - Next time remember to check the heatsink/fan unit! That Thermaltake Volcano 6cu was fine for the 1600+, but all it would have done for the 2900+ is slow the meltdown process a bit. Off we go to Fry's for a new HSF and some thermal compound!
Well, the CPU gets here and all goes well during the installation. New CPU, new HSF in place, all is good! Reprogram the BIOS for the new CPU and reboot. And reboot again. And again. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum...
Murphy #2 - Seems that those two sticks of memory (one 512MB and one 256MB) that worked so well together at 333MHz frontside bus don't work quite so well together at 400MHz FSB. At least as far as WinXP Pro is concerned, they don't! Turn and look at the wife, develop a severe twitch when contemplating telling her I need to spend more money on another stick of memory, and decide 1/2 a gig will do. For now.
One stick of memory removed and Windows boots. Yay! Time to give this puppy a workout! Also time to check for BIOS revisions, since I don't remember the last time I did it. Good thing, too, since the current one is at least 2 revisions out of date! Or is it? Waitaminit...NF7, NF7-S, NF7-S2, NF7-SG...v1.0-1.2 and v2.0...too many revisions...too many motherboards with similar model numbers...brain tired (cripes, it's 3:00 in the flipping morning!)...wait, that one looks right...
Murphy #3 - Wrong! New BIOS downloaded and flashed = one dead mobo. Not even a beep. Definitely not posting far enough for the floppy to work. This time my wife laughs at me, then relents and orders the new BIOS chip anyway. That was on Wednesday. The nice man at ABit says "we don't always ship the same day, it might be Friday before it goes out." Minor twitching, nothing to worry about. Yet.
So I get to spend the weekend without a working computer. That's not so bad, right? *twitch* I mean, what's the worst that could happen? *twitchtwitch* Monday really needs to hurry up and get here. Like NOW!!!
Well, Monday finally came, and with it came my new BIOS chip. One very careful, static-free insertion later...and YES!! IT'S BACK!! My box is up and running again, fully healthy! Well, as healthy as a six-year-old computer (with all new parts
) can be, at least.Wait, what's this? The UPS man left TWO packages? Well whaddya know, it's that game my brother said he was going to send me. I'd forgotten all about that. Cool!
Uh oh...why isn't my CD-ROM reading the disc? D'OH! It's a DVD, you moron! Which is bad, really. You see, my computer came out before DVD-ROM drives were common components, and I've been too cheap to put one in. Oh, dear. Might as well get it over with...
"Um, honey? I need to order another part from Newegg..."
