Death in the family

My Athlon 750 killed itself yesterday afternoon, may it rest in
peace. The fan somehow fell off the CPU, which resulted in it
overheating. It happened in a couple of seconds, which raises questions
about how hot the CPU was running. My theory about what happened was
that the thermal glue was transfering heat to the surface of the chip,
but with no fan to dissipate the heat, and thus it burnt. I couldn’t
get the computer to restart after that, not that I expected it to,
considering that there was the smell of burnt electronics eminating
from the case.

piennuk.jpg
Christopher’s Indomie Pien Nuk

Well, I woke early this morning to get the motherboard and CPU
replaced. Adrian came by and we went to Christopher’s place, where he
was eating breakfast – pien nuk (basically wonton) with Indomie flavor
packets. He swears it tastes good…I gotta try that someday. We went
to three places – IT Computer Supermarket, I.T. Warehouse and
e.Computers. Very convenient, since all of them are in Clayton. After
comparing the price lists, I found IT Computer Supermarket to have the
cheapest prices. I have to say that e.Computers has the nicest cat
though. Look at it! πŸ™‚ It was lounging around the shop when we went
there. I think it belongs to the owner. Very cute cat and it touched my
hand with it’s nose when I went up close. Furry, furry cat.

ecompcat.jpg
πŸ™‚

Anyway, we went back to IT Computer Supermarket and I got:

AMD Athlon XP 2200+ A$210
Gigabyte GA-7VA VIA KT400 A$158
Kingston 256MB DDR PC2700 A$134
80GB Maxtor 7,200 ATA133 A$195
Sparkle 64MB GeForce4 MX440 SE DDR TV Out A$98
Omni Black USB+Audio P4 See Through Case A$105
GA 008 PS/2 Keyboard A$5

Total: A$905

itsuper.jpg
IT Computer Supermarket

I can’t say that they have good service, but they have some of the
cheapest prices in Melbourne. I got a discount on top of the total
price, so I only paid A$850. I didn’t actually need the hard disk, but
Windows XP can be really anal at times and refuses to start if the
system configuration changes drastically so I got one to be safe. I’ll
enjoy the capacity anyway. I didn’t really need the case as well, but
it has a clear side panel. With lights. And a fan. And front USB ports
and headphone jacks.

kfccomp.jpg
I’ll have the 2 piece chicken meal please

Anyway, after getting all that (except the GeForce4, more on that
later) we went to Coles to get some grocery shopping done and then to
KFC. I have to say that KFC really sucks over here. The chicken is so
fatty and soggy that I can barely choke it down. Does Australia use a
different recipe for KFC? It’s a franchise so that’s unlikely, but it
sure tastes like it.

amdfix.jpg
Push down and outwards

Well, after all that, I went back to assemble everything. Getting
the heatsink and fan mounted (haha) on the CPU really took a lot of
effort…until I read the manual. It turns out that I’m just supposed
to align one side and press down and out with a screwdriver tip to
connect the other side. I tried doing that as well but I still couldn’t
get it to connect. I poured over the diagrams. It said “push down and
outwards where it’s circled”. WHAT CIRCLE??? Damn manual should have
never passed Quality Assuarance. After a lot of attempts I finally
realized that I should push at the top groove, not the bottom one…

compfix.jpg
Don’t look at me! I’m naked! πŸ™

Well, after that the RAM went into the motherboard, the case got
disassembled, the motherboard went into the case, the cables went into
slots and the screws got screwed. I looked at the power button. PUSH.
Nothing happened. Puzzled, I looked around the case. Ah, one of the
power supply cables were not connected. That’s it! I connected and
pushed the power button. Still nothing. My monitor says it’s not
receiving a signal.

compbled.jpg
Note to self: Edges are sharper than they look

I removed the graphics card (GeForce2 MX – my previous card) and put
it into my old motherboard with the dead CPU. It detected the graphics
card but of course couldn’t boot up due to the burnt out CPU. I put the
card back into the new system. Still nothing. I called the shop – they
were closing at 4:30 pm and it was nearly 4 pm so me and Adrian went
over again to get the motherboard replaced. I thought it was a
motherboard problem, until I read “This motherboard does not support 2X
AGP cards. Only 4X-8X AGP supported”.

compstuf.jpg
Stuff that matters

My old GeForce2 MX is 2X AGP, so that was where things went wrong.
It’s a good thing I read that before I went back home because if I
didn’t, I would have been without a computer the whole weekend coz the
shops all close on Sunday. That would be BAD because I have IE stuff
due next week. Well, long story short, I got back and put everything
together and everything worked! πŸ™‚ Thanks to Adrian for helping out
today. I’m pretty tired now coz I didn’t enough sleep and was running
around Clayton most of the day. So that’s it for today. Yay, everything
runs so much faster now. It’s like my PC had several points of meth and
it’s now raging, eager and helluva tweaked out. Naughty boy.

ricecase.jpg
All riced up and ready to go!

Oh, and if my spelling degrades noticably today, it’s because I haven’t installed spell check yet. πŸ™‚

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16 thoughts on “Death in the family”

  1. I don’t like your template but your posts are quite fantastic so I will check back! Also i can’t sign up to your rss feed! Any ideea why? My kind regards, Numbers.

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