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Or I Could Become A Luddite
R. Alex Whitlock
I have been having nothing but bad luck with computers lately. Those of you that have known me a while will be completely and utterly unsurprised by this.
A few months ago I ordered a mobo/CPU combo. It acted oddly the second I set it up in that it turned on the second it was plugged in or the IO switch pressed. But at least it turned on to register a harddrive problem. I swapped out the harddrive and though it was booting up (I knew because it would beep at me if I took out the RAM) for some reason the video card stopped working. Then it stopped booting (it wouldn't beep at me anymore) and only the fan would go. Then the fan stopped going.
So I contact my vendor and they send me out a new one. Right out of the box I still can't get it to pay any mind to the "on" button, nor can I get it to really do anything except get the fan moving. That's where I'm at presently. I took Monday morning off to call the motherboard manufacturer to see if I was doing anything wrong. Now I've built numerous computers before. I know what I'm doing. But you know, you never know. It's tough for a techie to call customer support on something that shouldn't be an issue, but I ate my pride and did it.
And it was a glorious waste of time. They basically said they wouldn't even discuss jumper settings with me until I could demonstrate that all of the other parts worked. The RAM, vid card, and case were all verifiable, but I cannot account for the processor. And it could be a processor problem. I called the vendor and asked if they replace both mobo and CPU for a reported mobo problem and they said that they do.
So I'm basically left with three options.
1. I can say "sunk cost" and just order a new mobo/CPU combo of a different brand. I hate to throw away $90 worth of computer parts, but I could spend that just taking the time off to call 9-5 tech support anyway.
2. I can order another set with the exact same parts so that I can determine where exactly the problem lies. I get whichever part is bad swapped out and I'm left with two reasonably powerful combos. Not sure what I'd do with the second, but I doubt it would go to waste. Probably would cost more money, though, and money is pretty tight these days.
3. I can try again with the vendor, try to send it back in and get either another of the set or see if I can talk them in to exchanging for different parts. The problem with this idea is that for all they know I'm destroying their parts and asking for new ones. And frankly it could be a problem with what I'm doing. But I have no way of knowing that for sure if the motherboard people won't talk to me. The instruction manual is vague (it does not list any +- polarities, for instance).
Back in Houston people wondered why I always shopped at Best Computer USA instead of ordering stuff online. This is why. Back then I would merely have to take it in and say "this doesn't work, see?" and we could get down to finding a solution. On the other hand, Camille and I are not going to land in an urban area, so I'm probably going to have to figure out how to get this stuff handled by mail anyway, no?
And on a sidenote, I sometimes wonder if CPU's and motherboards are generally done by different companies solely so they can point the finger at one another when something goes wrong.
Update: Well crap. I swapped the video card and DR-RAM into another computer (Maverick) to make absolute sure that it's not the cause of the mischeif. The result? Maverick is now inoperative. Even with the old SD-RAM and video card, the fan won't even go. Taking SD-RAM from Heineken (RIP) yields the same result, so it's not the RAM sticks.
As for the DR-RAM I put in there, only one of the DR-RAM slots seems to be working as they only the RAM in the left socket registered. No problems with the video card, though, and with the exception of the RAM not registering, it seemed to work.
So apparently only 1 of the 4 RAM slots work...
At what point do I consider exorcism?
Update II: Okay, net gain. In a desperate attempt to get Maverick back up and running, I switched it to a one of my new cases. Since the case offers more power, I shouldn't have to worry about power-insufficiency now. Still no luck on the new computer, though.
Observations
Finger pointing is pretty common... As a matter of fact, it wouldn't matter if the CPU and motherboard were made by the same company. The different departments still finger point (take, for example, SBC).
I don't know exactly what you're refering to about the polarities, but I can only assume you mean the power/hd led/reset/speaker/etc. that connect to the various things in the case to the motherboard. I don't know if that has ever prevented a computer from booting up by having this backwards, but it certainly has prevented certain functions from working right. For example, I had the HD LED backwards once and it wouldn't blink with being accessed. I believe in that case it just remained lit.
More often than not, I find that if the computer isn't booting at least to the RAM check, it's the RAM, the video card, or an insufficient power supply. The computer I'm using now had the latter problem when I first built it. I built it with an old power supply and it wouldn't boot. A quick check of the manual, and sure enough, too small.
Oh you might want to check your fans too. A few other boards I've seen won't boot if, say, the processor fan is not connected properly, etc. I had another computer that had 2 fan connections. I connected to the wrong one and so the board thought there was no processor fan and refused to boot.
Your interpretation of "polarity" is correct.
The problems persist even when there is no RAM or video card. In other words, I can't even get it to beep at me because it doesn't have the RAM or a video card. I should be able to get at least that far, shouldn't I? As it happens, though, I can test those in my other computer.
The power supply is 450w. Heaven help me if I need more than that.
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