The Mna
27-06-2007, 04:24 PM
I'm on my sister's laptop currently, but its not a permamnet solution as she'll be home in a bit.
Ah.. so my 6-7 year old desktop finally died yesterday. I decided to tinker around with it to see what I could do with it, change the thermal paste on the heatsink, and put some quieter fans on it. had some trouble getting the bloody mobo out of the case as it was really cramped, but I eventually got it out by removing the pci cards, moving the HD, and unscrewing the thing from the mobo tray. So I got the heatsink off by unscrewing it at the mounting bracket on the back of the mobo, and cleaned it with nailpolish remover and rubbing alchohol (rubbing alchohol worked better). It was another struggle getting the heatsink mounted afterwards since it was really badly designed and the screws kept slipping back when I tried to put the washers and nuts onto them. After all that was done, I decided to remount the mobo and see if it would post. I reattached the floppy and ide cables, the cpu fan, the mobo main power, etc. The tricker part of reattaching the cables came with the panel (power/reset switches, leds, etc.) since the case was very cramped and so were the connections on the panel. I got the power led hooked in, the reset switch, and the power switch, then hooked the thing up to power. It didn't turn on at first, so I tried moving the connections on the panel around a bit (I later found out that the cables werent hooked into the pins I thought I had put them in) and got the machine to power up. The led lit up, the fans spun around, and it gave off a beep followed by thre shorter beeps. I consulted the manual and read that it meant no graphics card was connected. I reconnected most of the cards (the AGP graphics card, the sound card, ethernet, but threw out the telephone modem card and extra usb hubs as they were only taking up space in my machine and made things more cramped) and when I repowered the system and connected the monitor, mouse, and keyboard, it gave me a single beep signifying that there had not been an error on post. Then, it gave me a boot disc failure error message on the dos screen. Fuck. I'd had troubles with my HD in the past year a few times, causing my system to crash, but I managed to get it to work by taking the side off and snugging up any connections that might have been loose, and it worked. I tried it again this time, but it simply would not power on at all. FUCK. Tried changing the panel connections again, but to no avail. I think I might want to stick to consoles... less hassle.
At this point, I've pretty much accepted that my desktop is fucked, so my main question is where do I go from here? I've thought of getting a cheap laptop to do internets and things like word, and using my 360 (that I tried to sell) for games. I also thought of getting a new desktop, though it would be a lot more expensive, and my mom is itching to bitch at something.
For a laptop though, how about that crazy cheap one that they're going to pawn off to developing countries... I think a decent one can be had for $200, though I think they want you to pay double to fund a free one for a developing country, so $400. I'm in Canada btw.
Ah.. so my 6-7 year old desktop finally died yesterday. I decided to tinker around with it to see what I could do with it, change the thermal paste on the heatsink, and put some quieter fans on it. had some trouble getting the bloody mobo out of the case as it was really cramped, but I eventually got it out by removing the pci cards, moving the HD, and unscrewing the thing from the mobo tray. So I got the heatsink off by unscrewing it at the mounting bracket on the back of the mobo, and cleaned it with nailpolish remover and rubbing alchohol (rubbing alchohol worked better). It was another struggle getting the heatsink mounted afterwards since it was really badly designed and the screws kept slipping back when I tried to put the washers and nuts onto them. After all that was done, I decided to remount the mobo and see if it would post. I reattached the floppy and ide cables, the cpu fan, the mobo main power, etc. The tricker part of reattaching the cables came with the panel (power/reset switches, leds, etc.) since the case was very cramped and so were the connections on the panel. I got the power led hooked in, the reset switch, and the power switch, then hooked the thing up to power. It didn't turn on at first, so I tried moving the connections on the panel around a bit (I later found out that the cables werent hooked into the pins I thought I had put them in) and got the machine to power up. The led lit up, the fans spun around, and it gave off a beep followed by thre shorter beeps. I consulted the manual and read that it meant no graphics card was connected. I reconnected most of the cards (the AGP graphics card, the sound card, ethernet, but threw out the telephone modem card and extra usb hubs as they were only taking up space in my machine and made things more cramped) and when I repowered the system and connected the monitor, mouse, and keyboard, it gave me a single beep signifying that there had not been an error on post. Then, it gave me a boot disc failure error message on the dos screen. Fuck. I'd had troubles with my HD in the past year a few times, causing my system to crash, but I managed to get it to work by taking the side off and snugging up any connections that might have been loose, and it worked. I tried it again this time, but it simply would not power on at all. FUCK. Tried changing the panel connections again, but to no avail. I think I might want to stick to consoles... less hassle.
At this point, I've pretty much accepted that my desktop is fucked, so my main question is where do I go from here? I've thought of getting a cheap laptop to do internets and things like word, and using my 360 (that I tried to sell) for games. I also thought of getting a new desktop, though it would be a lot more expensive, and my mom is itching to bitch at something.
For a laptop though, how about that crazy cheap one that they're going to pawn off to developing countries... I think a decent one can be had for $200, though I think they want you to pay double to fund a free one for a developing country, so $400. I'm in Canada btw.