Duality

This weekend has been hell.

A few months ago, I built my friend a new computer. Awesome, awesome machine. But about a week ago, I get a call from him saying that somethings wrong. It’s not powering up like it should. So I tell him to bring it up and he arrived at my house Saturday afternoon. These are the details of what went on from there (Note: Most of this was written in an IM to Quad, and while I’ve tried to edit it to look presentable, it may still read weirdly):

So he comes to me with a computer that wont turn on. Well, it will, but nothing happens. Press power and the fans/lights come on, but no beeping, no hard drive spinning up noise, no nothing. So, logical answer: motherboard, CPU, or both are fried. So we go to Fry’s Saturday night, buy a new motherboard that will work with his uber processor (It’s some rare P4 thing…about 120 bucks for the board). But by the time we get home, I had to get some sleep so I could wake up at 5 and go to work this morning.

So i get home from work today, plug in the new motherboard, and hook everything up. Power on! … Nothings changed. … So we go back to Fry’s and instead of buying a new processor (300+ bucks), figure we’ll buy a new motherboard/CPU combo and save some cash. So, we return the motherboard. I figure: this way, we’ll change both things out. Can’t go wrong, right? Wrong. We get home and I change everything out again. Finally,I get it all hooked up. Power on! NOTHING! FFFF**********KKKK!!! [Ed: Censored for you younger viewers]

So I’m pissed at this point and I decide to take a breather. After about 15 minutes I calmed down and started thinking about it. So what’s left to be changed that could cause a problem like this? The RAM? No, I checked them. The hard drive? No, that wouldn’t cause the computer to not boot. The CD ROM drive? HA! Yeah right. The power supply? …*idea*… Oh come on…it can’t have been that easy. But nevertheless, I decide to try and replace his power supply. So I unhook my desktop and am about to gut my power supply when I realize that my power supply is too old and doesn’t have the right connection needed. F**k. Okay…I don’t want to go and buy another part unless I’m damn sure that It’s the right one. So I look around and see my roommate’s computer. Wwweeelllll…he’s not here right now, so who would know? [Ed: Sorry Porf. But it’s all back together now and working fine. I swear!] So I gut his power supply and hook it up to the Motherboard. Turn it on…BEEEEEEP!! Hallelujah!! She’s awake!! Sure she was beeping at me repeatedly, but that’s probably cause I don’t have anything else hooked up, right? Wrong…I check the beep codes, turns out the new board doesn’t like our RAM. Well F**K it! So for the third time, I take everything out of the computer again and put the original motherboard/CPU back in. Hook it up with my roommate’s power supply and boom! It’s all working. So now, tomorrow morning I’ve got to go back to Fry’s for the 3rd time in 3 days. Return the motherboard/CPU and buy a stupid power supply. So…3 days and some 250 dollars later, the computer works (*knock on wood*)

I swear. Either God hates me, or he’s got one hell of a twisted sense of humor…