2 weeks without a computer... a comedy of errors...

Since there are some computer geeks such as myself on here, I thought I'd share this story with you guys. The events that have taken place in the past 2 weeks have been so wacky that it's hard to believe they actually happened. Please, for my sake, I want everyone to be thankful that they have a computer that isn't as crazy as mine has been.

It all started 2 weeks ago. My computer was blue screening a lot, so I figured I'd do some updates. I put in a new main hard drive, and I added a fourth IDE drive for backups. (I have 4 IDE channels onboard. IDE1: Main HD + DVD Drive, IDE2: CD-RW + DVD-RW, IDE3: HD2 + HD3, IDE4: HD4.) I went to install Windows on the new drive, and I'm blue screening all of the place. I test the memory; lo and behold, I have a bad stick. I take out the bad stick and everything goes well. I'm up and running. (Kind of... still having some problems which I narrow down to a power supply going bad, but I decided at this point that the power supply could wait a while.)

Unfortunately, I was now only at 256MB of ram. My boss told me I could expense a memory upgrade, since I often work from home, so I was off to the store to pick up 2 512MB sticks. I bought PC3200 400Mhz chips. Well, it just so happens that my motherboard wouldn't support them. I didn't want to not get the best memory, so I decided, what the hell, I'll get a new motherboard and processor.

I'm very partial to Soyo Dragon motherboards, so I got the new KT880 Dragon 2. In a nutshell, 400 FSB, 4 IDE channels, 4 SATA channels, 7.1 surround sound onboard, gigabit ethernet, etc, etc, etc. I got a nice new Athlon XP 3200+. It took a few days and some FedEx trouble, but it got here. I open the box and realize very quickly that my video card wasn't compatible. Grr. Time to buy a new video card.

I'm not a big gamer, I just needed something decent quick. I order an ATI Radeon 9200SE, 8x AGP card from Office Depot with in store pickup. Or so I thought... I got to the store, and apparently the order went through as a delivery.

I waited another 2 days for the video card.

So I finally get the video card and put everything together. Boot up without problems, kick off Windows install, and go downstairs for a bit.

Come back upstairs to a loud, incessant beeping noise. Yup, processor overheated. $&^#. I took the stock heatsink/fan off, reapply thermal paste, and turn on the computer to BIOS, leaving it to monitor CPU temp. Reseating the heatsink seemed to work, it maintained a steady temp.

I finally install Windows. Everything goes well, but I notice that neither my DVD writer or CD writer are recognized. I chaulk it up to a loose cable on IDE2 or incorrectly placed jumper and think nothing of it at the time.

Now, with my old MB/Processor/Memory and some spare parts, I built a new computer for my parents. In return, they bought me a new power supply (Antec 550W) and CPU heatsink/fan (Volcano 12). Those finally came today, and I installed them without a hitch. While I had the computer opened up, I tried to fix the IDE2 problem. I checked the jumpers on the drives. They were correct. I checked to make sure the cables were connected. They were. I tried 3 other cables. None worked. IDE2 is offically dead.

That's right, my second IDE channel does not work. After 2 weeks of HELL, I now am most likely faced with waiting for an RMA on a defective motherboard. I'll be lucky if my main computer is up and running in another 2 weeks.

 

My grammer was horrendous in that last post. My apologies. The tenses sometimes change mid sentence. I'm not having a good month.

 

I know, I know...

The first Soyo Dragon board I got was INCREDIBLE; it got great reviews at all the hardware sites. After that, well, I guess I've been sucked in. The boards since that first one (I forget the model number) have always got reviews that basically said - a lot of bang for your buck in terms of features, but not really an outstanding board.

I love the stuff onboard, and you really can't get all of that in any other brand. By far the most useful are the extra IDE/SATA channels. I'm not an overclocker or gamer, so the benchmarks don't mean too much to me. I'm more interested in a solid board that fits my needs. The Dragon line has been (up to this point) just that.

For the most part, however, when I buy for others, I tend to go ABIT or ASUS.